[OPE-L:7324] [OPE-L:853] Re: Aggregate

Ajit Sinha (SINHA@cdedse.ernet.in)
08 Apr 99 16:35:44 IST (+0530)

> In OPE-L835, among other things, Ajit wrote:
>
> I think we need to think about aggregation and disaggregation
> issue
> here. The necessary and surplus labor distinction can be
> understood
> and calculated only when all the productive sectors are taken
> into
> account simultaneously. So let's call this aggregative analysis.
> Now the question is that the reproduction of the system requires
> exchange of commodities between sectors. The question is: what
> does
> one gain by defining commodities in labor time units. And how
> does
> one get over the transformation problem. The labor accounting at
> the aggregative case seems okay, but at the dis aggregative level
> there seems to be a problem. We need to think, what does one gain
> by defining a commodity as so much of labor time?

>John E.:
> My question: I'm not sure what you mean when you say that as we
> consider the aggregate -- the labor accounting seems okay.
>
> Do you simply mean that we know the sum of living labor time
> spent in all sectors? If so, what do you do with constant
> capital -- advanced and used up? How do we know labor time
> involved in the aggregate?
____________
>From the physical input-output table you can derive
all the labor values including the labor-values of constant
capital. So i'm not leaving constant capital out in my aggregate
labor accounting.
_________
>
> It seems to me that for the aggregate we would agree that what
> we know is the total labor time, the total price of all the
> constant capital, and the total price of all outputs including
> the fixed capital that can be used to produce the next aggregate.
____________
We don't know the prices. Finding out the prices is the theoretical
problem isn't it? There is no theoretical problem in reducing
constant capital to labor time units. I hope this clearifies a bit.
Cheers, ajit sinha
_______
>
>
>
> That's it. I'll stop here as I'm not sure what you "see" at
> this level.
>
>
>
>
>
> John
>