[OPE-L:5251] [PAOLO C] trpf/extra profits vs. extra surplus value?

Gerald Levy (glevy@pratt.edu)
Thu, 12 Jun 1997 14:40:23 -0700 (PDT)

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From: cipolla@tamandua.sociais.ufpr.br
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> [This seems to me to be related to the quandry posed by the Okishio
> Theorem. I.e. if one examines the redistribution of surplus-value and
> profit with technical change and competition, then an individual
> capitalist who introduces a new process technology which raises the
> _social_ productivity of labor receives "surplus profits" via a
> redistribution of surplus-value and, thereby, experiences a
> transitional increase in the firm's rate of profit.

Since most of this discussion is developed in chapter 12 of vol.I of
Capital I will take the advantage to ask you about something that has
botherd me for a while now. After all, are we talking about surplus value
or surplus profit? If we are conceiving the extra gain as a result of the
redistribution then surplus value is given. The extra gain comes from
dislodging somebody else's market share. Yet, Marx calculates the extra
surplus labor which results from the introduction of a new technique on
the part of an individual capital: (Capital, vol. I, International
Publishers, p.318: "The ratio of the necessary labor to surplus labor,
which under average conditions was 5:1, is now only 5:3"). It seems, then,
that the issue is not only one of redistribution: there is an
extra surplus value being created here.
How can the extra profits come from distribution if they are generated as
extra surplus value by the innovating firm?

Salutations. Paulo.