At 16:25 26/03/97 -0800, John Ernst wrote:
>Not so fast. Responding to Alan's question, you state (see below)
>that "if the entire branch enjoys doubled productivity, then the
>answer is easy: the value is the same." Why? Are we to say that
>competition will automatically lower the social value to the
>individual value? Why? It seems to me that we cannot simply
>assert that this fall takes place once the new technique is
>adopted by all in the industry; rather, we have to show the how's
>and why's. I see no reason why the individual value created in
>the industry cannot differ from the social value even after the
>new more productive technique is used by all.
Confusion of value with exchange value.
Value the same by definition. Exchange value of total product
may be slightly higher or lower than before, but, under the
assumptions given - that the same number of workers are employed -
the mean of the pdf of expected values will be the same as before.
Paul Cockshott (wpc@cs.strath.ac.uk)