The answer is 6.24.
-----Original Message-----
From: PEN-L list on behalf of John Gulick
Sent: Wed 12/12/2007 8:07 AM
To: [email protected]
Cc:
Subject: [PEN-L] embarrassing question
I am loath to pitch this question to the Pen-L body politic because I
once fancied myself as someone who had relatively supreme command of Marxist
value theory... no longer the case several years and several dozen pints of
Hokkaido whiskey later.
Anyway, here goes: suppose for the sake of thought experiment that
rising energy and food costs slow the rate of economic growth in the
short-term, but in the medium-run they reallocate investment from relatively
capital-intensive to relatively labor-intensive productive activity... such as
agriculture that is less reliant on petrochemical fuels and inputs. Everything
else being equal (yeah I know that is strictly a fictional condition) would
this slow the rate of capital accumalation. On the one hand, the c/v ratio
would go down and hence the relative mass of surplus value would go up. But on
the other hand, Jim O'Connor (who rightly insisted to me that value theory is a
heuristic and not a religion) once suggested that the key to expanded
reproduction is productivity growth in capital goods production/raw material
extraction outstripping productivity growth in consumer goods production.
Any help before my 3:30pm lecture tomorrow (Japan time) or even
thereafter much appreciated!
John G
Akitacity Tohoku JP 010-1211
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