[OPE-L:3788] RE: Hairsplitting

Chai-on Le (conlee@chonnam.chonnam.ac.kr)
Fri, 6 Dec 1996 03:10:16 -0800 (PST)

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Ian writes in [3782]:

>if
>you take Marx's schema for transformation and reapply it in an iterative
>solution for prices of production, you will have initial output prices
>appearing as "values" in the second step of the iteration, which will lead
>to a recalculation of "surplus-value", which will produce new output prices
>which will appear as "values" in the third step, and so on.
>There is nothing wrong with this as a
>mathematical procedure for finding prices of production per unit of value.
>The formalism does not demand that you provide a "real" intepretation of
>quantities at each step.
>Ian
>

Chai-on:

Yes, When 'you take Marx's schema for transformation and reapply it in an
iterative solution for prices of production, you will have initial output prices
appearing as "values" in the second step of the iteration, which will lead
to a recalculation of "surplus-value". But, after the recalculation, the
rate of surplus value has no reason to be altered. The point is what is to
be a pivot. Shaikh chose "total value=total price" as a pivot while altering
the rate of exploitation at each step. Have you ever seriously asked about
this pivot? Why total value equaled to total price? Because Marx did so?
(well, Marx did not show the iteration). Because it is to be postulated as
an invariance? In my case, the rate of exploitation is to be invariant. If
you chose "total value=total price" as an invariance, the rate of
exploitation cannot but be fluctuated. Yet, if you choose the fixed rate of
exploitation as a pivot, then the famous two equalities naturally obtain
while total price differs from the previous total price in each round.
There is no reason total price at stage 1 is to be equaled with the total
price at stage 2. In my case, "total value=total price" and "total
surplus-value=total profit" obtain at each stage not between different stages.

Yours,

Chai-on
Faculty of Economics,
Chonnam National University,
Kwang-Ju, 500-757,
S Korea
Tel +82-62-520 7329
Fax +82-62-529 0446
E-m: conlee@chonnam.chonnam.ac.kr