So the whole transformation problem was a big mistake?
--jks
In a message dated Tue, 13 Jun 2000 4:43:42 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Michael
Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
<< Brad, Joan Robinson used to write the same thing. Just forget about
prices. If the goal of value theory were just to do some sort of
accounting and nothing more, then value would not be a much use at all.
The purpose of value theory is something else. It is to understand,
first and foremost, how capitalist economy functions at the most abstract
level. As such, it might not be, as it is usually presented, as well
suited to analyzing the role of intellectual property as it is for
analyzing the role of wage labor. Nonetheless, it still does a much
better job than conventional analysis.
For example, Marx's technique of taking labor as a whole and seeing how
ours divided between variable capital and surplus works quite well in
looking at something seemingly as far removed from the labor theory of
value as intellectual property.
Brad De Long wrote:
> But in that case, if the LTV has nothing to do with the actual prices
> we see, what good is it? Why should we care about it?
>
> Brad DeLong
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
