Paul/Joseph, I think there are two problems in this controversy:
1) For many conceptual and empirical reasons, we cannot technically identify and distinguish labour-values and production prices very accurately using data on gross inputs and outputs. We can obtain only fairly crude empirical "proxies" for the variables we seek to measure, on the basis that (1) we can distinguish between the wage and profit components in value added, (2) identify dollars of net output per paid labour hour worked, (3) identify indirect labour inputs for output through vertical integration coefficients, using I/O data (4) compare short-term price levels with long-term price averages. Since however (i) the magnitudes of labour-values and production prices are both derived from the same I/O data, and since (ii) annual hours worked are themselves highly correlated with value added, it can be shown that labour value proxies and production price proxies always trend in much the same way, and that the deviation between the two is fairly uniform throughout, and therefore, that it quantitatively does not really matter much, which of the two variables are used as a predictor of actual market prices. If there was a big difference between labour value proxies and production price proxies, that would mean that there there would be very significant divergences between net output price (or input cost prices) and total labour content, either at a balance date, in an accounting interval or several accounting intervals. But there are no such divergences, since across the board there is always a very high correlation between the magnitude of hours worked and the magnitude of value-added. 2) I think Cockshott/Wright/Zacherria operate conceptually with a Ricardian or Smithian notion of equilibrium "prices of production" and a concept of profit equalization which diverges from Marx's own view. Their production price is simply a price quantity in a universe of price quantities and all that is of interest is how that quantity relates stochastically to other quantities. Among other things, Marx himself distinguishes (1) between a value rate of profit on capital, and an empirically observable rate of return on capital, (2) between an empirical averaging of different rates of profit and a "minimum acceptable" rate of profit related to the ruling interest rates, (3) between the profitability of new investments and the profitability of existing investments, (4) between production price as an "equilibrium price", an "empirical price average", and a "market price regulator". If we study the available data, all we can observe is a great amount of disparity between all sorts of profit rates, and there doesn't seem to be any convergence on one profit-level across time, or to one price average across time. But the main reason for that is most probably that, apart from poor data quality, the data simply do not allow us to measure Marx's concepts very accurately. Marx never believed that a "uniform rate of profit" existed in reality, he was only talking about the minimum conditions for longer-term business viability under competitive conditions (the Farjoun/Machover chaos crowd are tilting at a straw man here). We cannot measure the OCC reliably since no reliable macro-data exist for the valuation of fixed capital and inventory. The product account in national accounts assumes that the three product measures of total revenue, expenditure and output value are exactly equal to each other, and the input/output tables assume, that total output value is exactly equal to total input value. These Keynesian identities are true by definition. But empirically, these identities can be achieved only by including and excluding certain transaction flows in the account, and by means of imputations. Therefore, at the most basic level, the social account necessarily adjusts the real magnitudes of business operations, to bring them into line with the concepts of value added and capital formation. At the most basic level, therefore, the computed data not only do not conform to Marxian concepts, but also do not even conform to the real world of business - they distort the true magnitudes of transaction flows to accomplish the grossing and netting which yields the macro-aggregates. At best, therefore, the macro-aggregates for price data provide only very crude and approximate indicators for value relationships. Jurriaan _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
