Subject: [OPE-L:1635] Re: technical change and real wages
From: Gerald Levy (glevy@pratt.edu)
Date: Wed Nov 03 1999 - 04:28:09 EST
Ajit wrote in [OPE-L:1633]:
> Chris, there is no basis for this "assumption" in Marx. What is the
> logic behind the assumption that rate of surplus value will remain
> constant in the face of technical changes? All Marx is doing is to
> suggest that *if* the rate of surplus value remains constant then the
> implication of a rise in the organic composition of capital is a fall
> in the rate of profits. <snip>
I'm with Ajit on this point. In his discussion of "more intense
exploitation of labour" in the chapter on "counteracting factors",
Marx makes it clear that the rate of surplus value can not be taken to
be constant over the process of accumulation and discusses briefly the
case which he takes to be typical -- that of an increase in the rate
of surplus value.
btw, does the following passage (from the chapter on "Development of the
Law's Internal Contradictions") anticipate and answer the Okishio
Theorem?:
"No capitalist voluntarily applies a new method of production,
no matter how much more productive itmay be or how much it
might raise the rate of surplus-value, if it reduces the rate
of profit. But every new method of production of this kind
makes commodities cheaper. At first, therefore, he can sell
them above their price of production, perhaps above their
value. He pockets the difference between their costs of
production and the market price of the other commodities,
which are produced at higher production costs. This is
possible because the average socially necessary labour-time
required to produce these latter commodities is greater than
the labour-time required with the new method of production.
His production procedure is ahead of the social average. But
competition also makes the new procedure universal and subjects
it to the general fall. A fall in the profit rate then ensues -
firstly perhaps in this sphere of production, and subsequently
with the others - a fall that is completely independent of the
capitalists' will" (Penguin ed., pp. 373-374)
In solidarity, Jerry
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