I wrote:
>>Under simple commodity production (where there is neither wage-labor nor
>>surplus-value), the deviations between prices and values are _accidental_
>>(a disequilibrium phenomenon).
Brad opines:
>They are not a disequilibrium phenomenon. Scarce resource-based products
>*continue* to have prices in excess of their labor values *forever*...
I was keeping things simple, which is a good thing because I usually go on
and on.
Simple commodity production (SCP) with natural scarcity rents? No problem.
It would mean that some independent producers would be able to claim more
value than they produce, i.e., that price > value (as you say). They would
be gaining, while those who didn't control naturally scarce resources would
be losing. It's like the case of SCP-plus-monopoly in the book, MARXIAN
ECONOMICS FOR SOCIALISTS, by John Harrison. (I think it's Pluto Press.)
A system of SCP with naturally-scarce resources might degenerate into
capitalism. But this is unlikely, since those getting the rental income
would have to figure out how to take away the other producers' access to
the means of subsistence. Since capitalism arises not simply from
pre-existing inequality but the application of force, SCP with rents simply
implies a level of inequality typically not seen in SCP. (BTW, SCP is
largely a theoretical, not an empirical, concept. It exists in the
interstices of other economic systems.)
One thing that confuses everyone is the assumption that price has to equal
value for Marx. It doesn't. Rather, it's an assumption, akin to the many
the theorists make at UC-Berkeley every day. But Marx's purpose is to
reveal what's happening below the surface of society, to slice away the
commodity production, rather than to set up mathematical utopias (like
Debreu's THEORY OF VALUE).
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
