Gil has "one minor comment" on what I said about the Okishio theorem vs. Marx: >>Marx phrased his argument under the assumption that the rate of surplus value is held constant, but I don't read him positing this as the economically relevant condition--rather it's a simplifying assumption stipulated as a point of departure. << I guess it depends on what one means by "economically relevant", no? Laibman, e.g., sees the constant RSV as an assumption of a certain kind of truce in the class struggle ("class struggle neutrality"). >> The economically relevant condition on wages would have to be supplied by a separate story about the impact of technical changes on labor market outcomes. ...<< BTW, I'm one of those wierd ducks who (unlike the majority of the Okishio literature) thinks that the capitalist accumulation process involves more than mere technical change: it also involves investment in fixed capital, which can have a positive impact on the demand for labor-power just as labor-power-saving technical and institutional change lowers the demand for labor-power. (apologies to the fowl in the audience....) >> In a recent paper to which Jim refers (still in submission limbo), I establish market conditions --something like a stationary-state competitive equilibrium in a dynamic market--which support this (constant RSV) assumption.<< This can make sense as a secular tendency, though as Marx points out the RSV tends to fluctuate with the cycle (countercyclically). This tendency is not being realized these days, as the RSV seems to be rising. Also, the story becomes much more complicated if one brings in considerations of unproductive labor. The Okishio theorem abstracts from the spending of profits on the wages of unproductive labor. BTW, it is easy to reconcile a constant RSV, which entails wages rising with productivity, with notions of immiseration: capitalist accumulation, by changing the social conditions of consumption, increases working-class needs. It's possible, though not necessarily true, that needs outstrip real wages, implying immiseration. With constant real wages (Okishio's assumption), this immiseration is guaranteed. Put another way, capitalist accumulation, by creating new needs creates a pressure which encourages workers to struggle to break Okishio's assumption. This is another way that the dynamics of capitalist accumulation militates against Okishio's assumption. I also agree with critics that comparative statics exercises such as Okishio's have very limited use, especially given the assumption that there are no realization crises and of a neoclassical kind of competition. In fact, I don't find the Okishio theorem surprising at all. In a simple single-sector model with no depreciation, the rate of profit is r = (1 - w/q)y where q is output per worker and y is output per unit of means of production. If w is constant and q rises (as Okishio assumes) then r rises. There are some details in Okishio that are vaguely interesting, but the main story can be seen in this formula. -- Jim Devine