I am just trying to get Marx's basic vision. Does this sound right?
By c and v, I mean the money sums laid out as constant and variable capital The cost price (c+v) of each commodity drops. It gives the first moving capitalist an immediate advantage, and greater ability to all capitals to survive wherever the price level settles. Moreover, the ratio of v/c tends to drop. But this does not mean that c need rise in absolute terms per commodity; it can rise as long as v drops by more than the rise of c, which of course only says that the cost price (c+v) has to drop. This is labor saving change. If c per commodity drops--that is capital-saving change--v per commodity will tend to drop even more, so that v/c tends to drop even though the denominator is falling in absolute terms. Machines are becoming ever cheaper and more powerful. If one provisionally assumes a constant rate of surplus value, the drop in v/c in the course of accumulation requires that the rate of accumulation must be fast enough to ensure that the mass of profit rises. So say as a result of the fall in V/C the rate of profit is halved each year. If the amount of profit is to remain the same, then the total capital must double each year. This is the absolute minimum rate of accumulation: the multiplier indicating the growth of total capital must be equal to the divisor indicating the fall in the rate of profit. The accumulation of capital is made possible by the greater quantity of use values in which the diminishing flow of surplus value relative to total capital advanced is expressed. Rakesh >Doug, I think everything is a bit off the cuff here and >perhaps misses what might be important. > >Among other things you wrote: > >"Not getting value theory right has inhibited just what >political or intellectual progress exactly?" > >Yet this is a good question. Let me suggest some possible >answers: > > >1. We, radicals, have little sense of how technical change > takes place in capitalist society. That is, the common > interpretation of Marx is that technical change is > labor displacing at all costs. Laibman goes as far as > to say that capitalists innovate in a "Rube Goldberg" > fashion. That is, labor replacing technical change > takes place at all costs. That is what ortho Marxism > has held for over a century. I doubt this is true > and do not impute that view to anyone, save David, in > particular. > > So what? Seems to me that anyone with this view could > easily grab hold of the idea that an alternative to > capitalism could exist side by side with a society > growing in such "Rube Goldberg" fashion. > > >2. Within traditional approaches to Marx as well as in standard > eco thought, little if any attention is paid to "moral > depreciation". Indeed, the qualitative and quantitative > aspects of this type of depreciation disappear as one > simultaneously values inputs and outputs. Thus, in theory, > we can create situations in which a capitalist invests $100, > ends up with $20 and have a rising rate of profit. The usual > understanding of Marx's concept of valuation incorporate > this absurd possibility. > >Put simply, using Marx's concept of value, we should be able >to grasp how technical changes take place in capitalism and >what are the consequent changes in valuation. > >If we can't, we should move on to something else. I do not >feel that seeking answers to this problem is a sub for >activism nor do I find the concepts alienated. > > > >John
