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Paul's reply is, as far as I am concerned, spot on.
An average or general rate of profit is *not* the same
as an actually equalised rate of profit.
The issue for political economy is: what happens to the
general or average rate of profit under technical change?
This is a quite distinct question to: what happens to the
ideal equalised profit rate?
I think Jesus Albarracin's article on this in 'Marx,
Ricardo, Sraffa' laid out the issues very clearly and
proved that this difference was a crucial one.
----------
From: Paul Cockshott
Sent: Tuesday, October 01, 1996 2:59 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [OPE-L:3199] Re: Equal Profit Rates
Jerry
>Re the other main point that Alan made in his post, the FRP in Marx
>concerns the "law of the tendency for the general rate of profit to
>decline" (LTGRPD). What I hear Alan suggesting is that we need to drop the
>"assumption" of a general r. While it may or may not be the case
>empirically that there is a general r, the issue in _Marx_ *clearly*
>concerns the law for the GENERAL r to tendencially fall. If that "law"
>is to be attacked or defended, it must -- at least initially -- concern
>the analytics of changes in the general r during the course of
>accumulation. After we consider that question, we can then consider
>whether there are problems in practice with the idea of a general r and
>what the specific nature and implications of those problems are.
>
Paul C:
You can have a general rate in the sense of the arithmetic mean
of all the individual profit rates, without any assumption that this rate
is relevant for the formation of prices. One still has a general rate of
profit when all prices are proportionate to values.
Paul Cockshott
wpc@cs.strath.ac.uk
http://www.cs.strath.ac.uk/CS/Biog/wpc/index.html
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