A Ramos wrote:
>
>2. In any case, your results seem very interesting in
>"challenging" the process of "equalisation". However I have
>two observations:
>
> a) Let us assume that your results are "correct", in
>the sense that they translate into statistical terms Marx's
>categories. I such case what you would demonstrating is
>that prices = values. In that case you should drop the
>"system of prices of production".
This tends to be my opinion.
>Your values would be your
>prices or, better, you have "market prices" whose centre of
>gravity are "values". The problem you are raising does not
>need Tugan-Bortkiewicz dualistic framework. Your "noise"
>would not be "production prices" but "market prices".
>Of course, we should discuss why is this so. But this is
>another problem, completely out of the traditional
>"transformation problem". In other words, if your results
>were "correct" this does not imply an attack on the "non-
>dualistic" interpretation. In this vision, in V.1 and V.2,
>prices = values. In other terms, your allegation is not in
>favor of the dualistic vision.
No, it is not. But it has implications for the single
system people too, since their approach involves a
redefinition of value with respect to its original volume
1 definition. This seems to me to be not only theoretically
confused but in practice pointless since it addresses
what is probably a non-problem.
>
> b) Your results come from "the 1987 i/o and capital
>stock tables". That is your "plot" corresponds to ONE YEAR.
>However, the "processes" put forward by Marx, e.g. the
>"equalisation", cannot correspond to this "instantaneous"
>vision.
Yes these results are restricted, and it would be interesting
to extend them to more years and more countries. However
it it hard to see how the random fluctuation of market prices
can have resulted in the systematic tendancy for capitals
of high organic composition to have lower rates of profit
unless the mean around which they are fluctuating is their
values.
Paul Cockshott
wpc@cs.strath.ac.uk
http://www.cs.strath.ac.uk/CS/Biog/wpc/index.html