Jim Devine writes:
as one heterodox economist (old Karlos) wrote: >capital is not a
thing, but a social relation between persons, established by the
instrumentality of things.<
since the instrumentality of things is crucial here, it makes sense
for the heterodox to count "capital" (the stock of fixed capital
goods).
It would make sense only if one could actually do it; some prerequisites
being: 1. An economic structure wherein capital values are determinable
at every step of the way, on a linear (or chaotic) path from here to
there; any present always deemed to be complete. 2. A unit of account
whose value is inelastic over a significant amount of track. 3. The
no-show of internal contradictions (or paradoxes)from well established
axioms, due to exogenous impulses creating a null-set. Perhaps Marxism,
with its distinct set of axioms, may be able to fulfill these conditions
in terms of a command economy. I don't know enough about it to argue the
point. Orthodoxy and other heterodox approaches certainly won't pass
muster in terms of our capitalist economy; the Marxist critique of which
by enlarge ringing true. But in terms of a truly "free" enterprise
economy, wherein demand determines the value of supply, IMHO Marxism has
nothing to offer. And the question now becomes, which is more efficient,
command or demand? As there is no difference in equitability.
As for the "usurping of productive
output" from the productive sector, that's standard Marx: there is a
"transfer of surplus-value" going on:
I beg to differ. In my demand determinative model, whose ontology I
believe underlies our existing economic structure, there is no room for
surplus-value; at least not in the sense that Marxists understand the
term. Any set profit rate is achievable, as it is the direct spending by
profit income earners (or the newly hired, as substitutes) that
determines it; and not some inherent, but mystic attribute of capital
over labour cost. An aggregate realized rate over the natural rate of
growth however, is simply inflationary. The only existent surplus-value,
comes into being as a result of having learned by doing; which requires
the setting of a margin over cost, because such expanded output could
not be distributed otherwise.
The usurpation of living standard by the financial sector has nothing to
do with any surplus value. It happens when fees of the FS, having found
their way down as part of retail output costs, are not resolved by its
recipients. And retailers, having assumed those costs, are now forced
into calling on lines of credit in order to stay in business, shoveling
whatever profits they do manage to realize, over to the benefit of the
FS who caused the problem in the first place; leaving zilch for employee
pay raises, and their equitable share in productivity growth. By FS
fees, I include the scandalous bonuses of productive sector top
executives, often having no other outlet than asset inflation.
the sectors that produce the
surplus-value are often not the same sectors who benefit from it.
That's one result of the distinction between value and price.
Here we agree.
John V
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
