In Capital 1 p. 196 (Penguin) Marx states "The possibility therefore of a quantitative incongruity between price and magnitude of value, i.e. the possibility that the price may diverge from the magnitude of value, is inherent in the price-form itself. This is not a defect, but, on the contrary, it makes this form the adequate one for a mode of production whose laws can only assert themselves as blindly operating averages between constant irregularities."
By "blindly operating averages between constant irregularities" does he mean that the divergence of price from value for a particular commodity at one period is offset by an opposite divergence in another (e.g. if price is x below value in period 1, it will be x above value in period 2) or does it mean that the divergence of price from value for a particular commodity is offset by the opposite divergence of price from value for other commodities (redistribution of surplus value)? It seems as the latter is what he is saying, as this seems to be what he refers to when mentioning the divergence of price from value in volume 1. However, in a letter to Kugelmann he says "The vulgar economist has not the slightest idea that the actual, everyday exchange relations and the value magnitudes cannot be directly identical. The point of bourgeois society is precisely that, a priori, no conscious social regulation of production takes place. " Does his use of the term "Everyday" lend credence to the former explanation? Also, could anyone tell me of the secondary works discussing Marx's views on price-value divergence that they know of.
