---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 96 22:58:41 UT
From: andrew kliman <Andrew_Kliman@msn.com>
To: Gerald Levy <glevy@pratt.edu>
Subject: RE: [OPE-L:3895] Re: negative surplus-value
A comment on Jerry's ope-l 3895.
In ope-l 3894, John explained how surplus-value can be negative. He twice
posed the question to Jerry:
"if workers consume more than they produce, is not surplus value negative?
and
"' ... if workers consume more than they produce, is not surplus value
negative?'"
In his reply in ope-l 3895, Jerry failed to respond to these questions, and
indeed merely continued to assert, without argument or textual evidence, that
surplus-value cannot be negative.
Let me try again, with a numerical example similar to Jerry's. The
capitalists lay out $100 in c and $100 in v. Assume that each $ is the
monetary expression of x hours of labor (abstract, socially necessary, and all
the modifiers one wants). Assume that workers work a total of $90/x hours
(abstract, socially necessary, and all the modifiers one wants). Hence, the
value added by living labor (abstract, socially necessary, and all the
modifiers one wants) is $90.
(a) What is the magnitude of the total value of the output?
(b) What is the magnitude of surplus-value?
Andrew Kliman