[OPE-L:5137] Re: Can Ajit's price theory fly?

andrew kliman (Andrew_Kliman@msn.com)
Wed, 28 May 1997 06:04:40 -0700 (PDT)

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A response to Ajit's ope-l 5133.

Ajit notes that I "cut out the last part of the numbers" he gave me. That's
because they were not relevant. Rather than answering the question I posed
him, they were part of a critique of my alleged argument. I responded to this
critique *as a whole* by noting that I am issuing a challenge to Ajit, not
making an argument of my own. What is under examination is the internal
coherence of Ajit's own price theory.

What Ajit needs to produce, and all he needs to produce, is a set of prices
that meet the conditions of the challenge. He still has not yet done so.

He seems to suggest that the price ratio of 1:1 meets the conditions for
periods 0 and 1: " I gave you the numbers." Yes, he gave me the ratio 1:1,
but it doesn't work. It contradicts what Ajit himself considers to be a
"tautology." I have offered to demonstrate this.

Ajit is right that "Time and time again I have said that price is a measure at
one point of time." But he has also said that the equality of the output
prices of one period with the input prices of the next is a "tautology." What
is at issue is whether Ajit's "necessarily ... static" price theory is
self-contradictory, because it violates this "tautology."

I suggest that he get busy trying to produce some numbers that might rescue
his price theory from self-contradiction.

Yes, *his* theory -- to my knowledge, Sraffa's published works don't say
anything about the relation between the output prices of one period and the
inputs prices of the next. Nor does he claim to have a price theory.

Andrew Kliman