From: glevy@PRATT.EDU
Date: Fri Sep 08 2006 - 13:40:58 EDT
> With the aid of credit and legal enforcement, capital can mutate > fairly smoothly from one form into another form, and it is the > distribution of total capital between these different forms that > shapes the pattern of economic reproduction. Typically a falling > average profit rate in production causes capital to exit > from the sphere of production, but obviously this exit does not mean > at all that it ceases to accumulate (at a lower or higher profit rate > as the case might be). It merely assumes another form. Hi Jurriaan, The material form which constant fixed capital takes often serves as an obstacle to the "mutation" of that form of capital into another form. I.e. means of production often take a form where they can be used for only one purpose (e.g. in the case of "hard automation") and if they cease to function as means of production, the value can not "mutate": it is "lost". This effectively serves as a "barrier to exit" for many firms. The "immobility" of a portion of constant capital must be taken into account when one considers the the sectoral effects of a falling rate of profit. In solidarity, Jerry
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