[OPE-L:3821] "I agree that there is some tendancy for rates of profit to
equalize,
but there are also the stickiness factors that you mention. 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.I agree that there is some tendancy for rates of profit to equalize,
>but there are also the stickiness factors that you mention. 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."
I pretty much agree with what you say (I'm sorry although not surprised I
didn't pick up the Samuelson joke). I agree that there is little point in
debating the fine points of "transformation". But the tendency to
equalization of profit rates will be real, if overrated. I agree that there
will be a tendency toward equalization of wage-profit ratios (at least with
trade unions, etc) which would support inequalities of organic
compositions, but again your results don't show that organic compositions
have the effect on profit rates which prices = values would "predict", do
they?
I think that models have more function than a contribution to
history of thought. If the phenomena (market prices) are shaped by a number
of conflicting tendencies, it makes sense to construct models which show
how each tendency taken in isolation would operate, if we accept the
Galilean methodology of constructing models by abstraction, as I think Marx
does.