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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