[OPE-L:6953] [OPE-L:445] New Evidence on Sectoral Prices and Values

Alejandro Ramos (aramos@btl.net)
Fri, 19 Feb 1999 09:54:06 -0600

Allin:

>While price may be thought of as a markup over cost, value is not a markup
>over anything: it's the amount of labour time required to produce a
commodity.

Well, neither price nor value are actually "markups" over anything.

However, price can be broken down into a part corresponding to cost-price
and another corresponding to profit. Profit can be expressed as a "markup"
over cost-price, giving the profit rate (assuming fixed capital = 0).

The substance of value is indeed the labor time required to (re)produce a
commodity but, as part of this labor time is just surplus labor, we can
express that surplus labor as a "markup" (so to say) over cost-price in
labor time terms.

Alejandro