Re: Marxian empirical research
Paul Cockshott (wpc@CS.STRATH.AC.UK)
Fri, 16 Jan 1998 09:22:07 +0000
> (3) What Shaikh and Tonak seem to imply in their input-output analysis is
> that that unproductive workers are paid out of the trading margin
> (difference between producers prices and purchasers prices) of the
> productive sector, in the same period of account. Thus the surplus product
> "is absorbed not only by capitalist consumption and invesments in the
> production sectors but also by all uses of the trading sector" (p. 46). I
> am only suggesting the last sentence may be true, but not in the same
> period of account.
>
Period of account for National income statistics is 1 year. This is
significantly longer than the time taken between goods leaving factory
and reaching final consumer. The national income statistics approximate
to a continuous flow model with figures being rates of value per year.
Thus your disctintion tends to disappear.