Charles put it nicely. Here are a couple more hasty thoughts. For Marx, value is unobservable. It is a fundamental to price, in the sense that prices and profits depend on what happens in the sphere of value, but Marx paid little attention to the manner in which value gives rise to prices.
I don't see that Marx paid much attention nor was he very concerned with the mechanics of the transformation problem. The so-called transformation problem is a problem only if you believe that the precise relationship to prices and values is important. I read Marx as saying that what goes on in the sphere of value is far more important than the sphere of prices. The system will prices and profits does become important in so far as it shows how an economy based on values is dysfunctional and will eventually will become a source of great dissatisfaction, so much so that people will eventually will reject the market. Charles Brown wrote: > Marx vs. Roemer > by Justin Schwartz > 09 March 2002 22:09 UTC > > >The existence and inevitability of exploitation under capitalsim was > >important > >to Marx, but the explanation of profits was not a central concern. You > >cannot > >prove that agriculture [Physiocrats], ownership of capital [Smith] or > >surplus > >capital is the source of profits. > > > > > > This strikes me as just wierd, Michael: the explanation of profits is the > obverse of the explanation of exploitation, they're the same question viewed > from different sides. And as to the issue not being important to him from > the capitalist side, recall the discussions of frugality and risk easrly on > in part I of CI as away of settily up the transition to the focus on > production, and the Trinity Formula discussion in CIII, just for starters. > > I don't know what you mean by yr second sentence, are you restating Marx's > results (?) which I largely agree with; I just think that you can explain > some profits by normal bourgeois means (buying low and selling high) or > monopoly advantages, as in MArx's discussion of differential rent--which > leads me to thing that even he doesn't accept thestrict version of the LTV, > nut only uses it as an idealization. jks > > ^^^^^^^ > > CB: To be more precise, Marx's position is that labor is the only source of new >value, exchange-value. Individual capitalists may increase or lose some of their >share of the total surplus value by various "buying and selling" of all types among >themselves. Marx's recognizing this does not contradict his basic proposition that >labor is the only source of new value, exchange-value. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
