John wrote (in part)
>
>If we see "Andrew's prices" as those used by capitalists to make
>investment decisions, then there certainly is a problem here.
>Indeed, Marx noted in Vol. 3 that "moral depreciation" could be
>so great that investments might not be made even though at the
>prices prevailing prior to that investment profitability would
>increase. Clearly, the price path proposed by Andrew requires
>clarification.
>
>We should also note that price path implicit in the alternative
>view is not without problems as well. There we see even more
>dramatic falls in the historic rate of profit.
>
The historical path of the rate of profit is consistent with a pattern of
what is sometimes called "Marx-biased", that is labor-augmenting,
capital-using, technical change at the macroeconomic level, together with a
very slowly falling value of labor-power (or, equivalently, very slowly
rising rate of surplus value.) There is also considerable macroeconomic
evidence for this pattern (probably most completely set out in Dumenil and
Levy's work.)
I gather from your previous posts that you have some doubts that real
capitalist technical change has this "Marx-biased" character. It might be
fruitful for us to discuss this point further.
Duncan
Duncan K. Foley
Department of Economics
Barnard College
New York, NY 10027
(212)-854-3790
fax: (212)-854-8947
e-mail: dkf2@columbia.edu