Paul C wrote in [OPE-L:3821]:
> In addition
> there is the additional point that the standard account of prices of
> production ignores the class struggle. If firms have very high profit
> to wage ratios, workers will struggle to get some of that back in
> higher wage rates, whereas if the profit to wage ratio is low, struggles
> to increase wages will be less successful. This struggle between labour
> and capital tends to equalise the wage/profit ratio or the apparent
> rate of surplus value between firms. I think that this may be at least
> as important a factor as the flow of capital between branches of
> production. <snip> I think that the deviations in prices from values
> due to differential wage rates
> in different industries may be at least as significant. <snip>
(1) I don't think that *any* Marxist would argue with the proposition that
the class struggle and wage differentials can not be ignored when we
analyze more concretely the pattern of profit rates among capitalist
firms. This, however, can not _substitute_ for an answer to the
theoretical question of prices of production and the transformation.
(2) The proposition above that "If firms have very high profit to wage
ratios, workers will struggle ..." seems to me to be a rather mechanistic
conception of the class struggle. If you want to discuss class struggle
more concretely, then we need to look at some other important factors such
as, on the one side, the degree of trade union organization (and
militancy and solidarity) and, on the other side, the size of the
industrial reserve army (this relates to our previous discussion on
"labour-power shortages"). One should also systematically investigate
*why* there are wage differentials beyond the question of skills.
(3) *Why* would this struggle between labor and capital tend to "equalize
the wage/profit ratio or the apparent rate of surplus value among firms
(and what _is_ the "apparent rate of surplus value")?
(4) What evidence is there that there is a tendency to equalize the
wage/profit ratio among firms in: a) the same branch of production?; b)
different branches of production?; c) internationally? Inquiring minds
want to know.
In solidarity, Jerry