With regard to the following from Ajit's [4556] I reply
separately:
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"If we assume that the system is in simple reproduction
schema and everything in the world, leaving prices out,
remain constant from period zero to period one, then
wouldn't you agree that the prices would also remain the
same in period one as they were in period zero. So in
this hypothetical case, you simply don't have to
determine prices in period one if you take the prices in
period zero as 'given'. Therefore, according to your
position, a theoretical problem of transforming values to
prices of production should not arise in this situation.
Does not it go against the fundamental grain of Marx's
transformation problem?
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I think it goes against the fundamental grain of
Bortkiewicz's transformation problem, which poses the
problem thus:
(a)let us look at not one, but two different societies in
simple reproduction,
(b)in the first, goods exchange in ratios such that
profits are proportional to wages.
(c)in the second , goods exchange in ratios such that
profits are proportional to capital.
What is the relation between the first society and the
second? I think this is more of a problem for Bortkiewicz
than for Marx. I find the following account of
transformation, applied to the second society,
compatible with everything I have seen from Marx's pen:
a)The money paid for inputs represents the amount of
labour-time transferred by constant capital to the
outputs
b)The labour-time expended in period zero stands for
itself
c)Add (a) and (b) and we have the value of outputs in
hours
d)The money paid for the outputs represents the amount of
labour-time realised by these outputs after sale - their
price, expressed in hours
e)The sum of (d) over society is clearly equal to the sum
of (c), Marx's first equality
f)The money paid for wages represents the amount of
labour-time required to reproduce the workers
g)Subtracting (f) from (b) yields surplus-value in hours
h)Subtracting [(a) + (f)] from (d) yields profits in
hours
i)The sum of (g) over society is clearly equal to the sum
of (h), Marx's second equality.
I know that many erudite people have many objections
to this procedure, based on many things that they would
like Marx to have said or think he should have said.
However, I have heard no sustainable evidence that the
argument above fails to correspond to anything Marx
actually did say.
So I think the erudite people have a problem, and Marx
does not, except possibly with the erudite people.
Alan