> It struck me that this could be relevant to one live issue: the extent
> to which actual price systems reflect values or prices of production
> based on profit equalization.
> The existence on the market of commodities not produced under direct
> capitalist relations of production would tend to reduce the bandwidth
> of the channel between prices of production and actual prices. If
> capitalist industry is factually and even institutionally excluded from
> (a monopoly of) the production of some commodities, then the mechanisms
> of capital mobility that are supposed to underly the formation of a
> single rate of profit via changes to prices can not apply to those
> commodities.
Two questions:
1) Is there any theoretical reason to believe that products produced under
non-capitalist relations will enter into the formation of a general rate
of profit? (relatedly: doesn't Marx explicitly exclude monopolies from the
formation of a general r?).
2) Is there any reason to believe that:
a) we can speak of "prices of production" and profit rate equalization in
contemporary capitalist economies?
b) the formation of POP is in any sense necessary theoretically for the
reproduction of capitalist relations?
In solidarity, Jerry