----- Original Message ----- From: "Devine, James" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
(1) > Maybe we are not talking the same language. I do not mean by saying that Marx holds that prices are prop, to value that commodities trade at value, just that there is a function that takes you from value to prices, and that this function is statistically true, that is--that over the long run he thinks prices will tend to fluctuate around values, moreover, that values explain price levels. Surely he believed that!< (2) no, Marx shows convincingly in volume III of CAPITAL that as long as (1) the rate of surplus-value is constant and uncorrelated with the OCC; (2) the OCC differs between industries; and (3) the rate of profit tends toward equality between sectors, prices gravitate toward prices of production (POPs) that differ from values. Maybe you're thinking of Ricardo, who saw exactly this kind of result from his analysis but assumed that the value/POP correlation was "good enough for early 19th century British political economy work" (embracing what historians of economic thought call the 98% labor theory of value [i.e., of price]). For Marx, the connection between prices and values is macroeconomic in nature, with total value = total price and total surplus-value = total property income, with the macro structure of accumulation limiting and shaping the microprocesses that make up that totality. (Charlie Andrews' recent book, FROM CAPITALISM TO EQUALITY, is good on this.) BTW, later on in volume III, Marx is very clear that individual participants in the capitalist system don't give a shite about values or surplus-value. They see prices, profits, interest, rent, etc., what he sees as superficial representations of value and surplus-value. ===================================== "The awkwardness of reckoning in terms of values, while commodities and labor power are constantly changing in values, accounts for much of the obscurity of Marx's exposition, and none of the important ideas he expresses in terms of the conceptof value cannot be better expressed without it." "As a logical process, the ratio of profits to wages for each individual commodity, can be calculated when the rate of profit is known. The transformation is from prices into values, not the other way." Joan Robinson Comments? Ian
