This may be true in the simplest case. I am afraid I have not yet had the time to study Ian's work in detail to make a judgement on it. I note that Ajit Sinha claims to have proven the opposite. But the issue is whether the assumption of profit rate equalisation makes sense in the case of making more realistic assumptions, like technical change, fixed capital of varying age structures and aging rates etc. ________________________________________ From: [email protected] [[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jurriaan Bendien [[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, March 13, 2011 10:07 PM To: Progressive Economics Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Marginalism wrong or not even wrong
Okay Paul, but the requirement of the uniform rate of profit is generally assumed in the transformation problem literature (as far as I have read it). I think Marx really did intend to prove that "in the simplest case", a system of expanded reproduction of capital could occur such that the distribution of prices and values matched up, and profit rates were equalized; but his procedure is not really convincing as it stands in his draft manuscript. I think that what Ian Wright aims at is to show that "in the simplest case" you can construct a dynamic model which does more or less what Marx intended. I don't think it is very easy to prove, that there exists or does not exist a tendency for profit rates to level out, since there exists no reliable data comparisons that could definitely adjudicate the issue. But I think you can prove quite easily that the development of the capitalist economy is spearheaded by the search for above-average profits. Jurriaan _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401 _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
