[OPE-L:5231] Re: Wild Corn

Duncan K. Foley (dkf2@columbia.edu)
Tue, 10 Jun 1997 10:57:59 -0700 (PDT)

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In reply to Andrew's OPE-L:5222:

I take the quotes from Marx I included in my earlier post on the
reproduction/replacement cost issue to argue that if wild corn was freely
available at zero price at the beginning of the production period, but
during the production period became unavailable, so that seed corn came to
have a positive price, then the price of the cultivated corn grown from the
free wild seed corn would rise to reflect the imputed value of the seed.
But of course Marx doesn't go into this particular example, so it might be
hard to settle the exegetical question.

Duncan

>A reply to Duncan's ope-l 5215.
>
>No, wild corn no longer exists when the output is produced . It did
>exist, it
>was planted as seed, and it was thus destroyed physically. At harvest time,
>there is no more wild corn, anywhere, only the harvested corn.
>
>As I noted originally, the question is whether any value is transferred when
>(a) a means of production has no value at the time it enters production, but
>(b) replicas of it have a positive value when the output produced by means of
>these means of production emerges
>
>Andrew Kliman

Duncan K. Foley
Department of Economics
Barnard College
New York, NY 10027
(212)-854-3790
fax: (212)-854-8947
e-mail: dkf2@columbia.edu