More on Allin's idea of a "sort of iterative transformation"
presented in OPE-L 3598
Allin says that:
> This is all perfectly consistent with the idea that Marx is
> groping towards some sort of iterative transformation. He
> knows that the cost-prices of inputs may already deviate
> from values, but at the same time he keeps slipping back to
> the "simple case", where inputs are purchased at their
> values.
I would wish to ask Allin in which kind of "iterative
transformation" is he thinking?. We can have a "dualistic" or a "non-
dualistic" iterative transformation, depending, precisely, on the
definition of value we use.
It is a little bit "nasty" (I do not know another word, perhaps this
is not appropriated for the occasion) to say this, but in my article
(written with Adolfo Rodriguez for Marx and Non-Equilibrium
Economics) there is a "sort of iterative transformation" using what I
think is the correct definition of value. In that case we start we
the traditional "system of values" and iterate both, VALUES and
production prices. (Not only, as usual, production prices.) At the end
of the iterations (which we interpret simply as a method of
calculation) we have both "vectors" (values and production prices)
and, obviously, the two equalities (as it can be obtained, for
example, in the single-table example of Ch. 9, Vol III.)
So, maybe Allin could expand his idea of a "sort of iterative
transformation".
Alejandro Ramos, 5.11.96