William Ryan wrote: >1. John Legge writes: >>>Li Feng's model shows a strong rate of growth in the rate of profit as technological progress occurs...one can imagine workers bargaining for a share in this "rent from technological growth"...<<< >This diametrically contradicts the A + B theorem.< whose A + B theorem is that? Foster & Catchings? >Expressed in purely financial terms, the A + B theorem concludes that the general rate of profit must diminish to nothing as technological progress occurs, if sales of increasing production are limited to the reflux from salaries, wages and dividends paid during the course of production. This results from the differentially greater rate of growth of the "B" circuit as compared to the "A" circuit, funded ultimately by bank credit--which leads to the hypercompetitive struggle for foreign markets. < Tugan-Baranowsky argued that capitalist accumulation can realize the excess product that can't be purchased by salaries, wages, etc. Keynes had a similar argument: based on borrowed money or accumulated savings, capitalists can spend on investment, so that aggregate demand is C + I, not simply C (ignoring G and NX). "Animal spirits" (concerning expected future profitability) can motivate capitalsits to do this. >One can hardly imagine that immiserated workers, who are being continuously displaced from the productive process and their sovereign role as consumers of their own product, as being in a position to "bargain" for anything. In this context, the displacement of labor need not equate to unemployment, but to labor's undercompensation.< it is possible, as in the late 1960s, that the progress of accumulation would pull up wages (since creating and installing plant and equipment requires labor-power). The result of "immiseration" (stagnant wages relative to labor productivity growth) depends on supply-side conditions in the labor-power market. >2. The human mind does not function logically or mathematically but logistically or metaphorically. This *Inclusive Logistic Progression* has no excluded middle. Formal logic and mathematics are included subsets to the progression that are used by the human mind as tools of expression and creation. They are tools that are useful to us; they do not define reality. Nor do they necessarily lead to understanding. Quite often the opposite is the result. The applicability of a logical or mathematical argument to the real world depends entirely upon its premises.Just changing, adding, or removing one premise in such an argument, known, unknown or implicit, may radically alter the outcome and thereby prove anything, even the absurd. It is through creative expression that the human mind can put order to such apparent chaos. In this respect, we as humans are truly made in the "image" of God, and have the ability to participate with God in building a better world. < what do you mean by "logistic"? does that mean that deductive logic is combined with inductive reasoning? Is the A + B theorem based on logic or logistics? If it's based only on logic, mightn't it be contradicted by the complexity of the real world? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html