On Feb 7, 2013, at 10:31 AM, Julio Huato wrote:
Jim wrote:
Okishio assumes that real wages stay constant, which is grossly
unrealistic. Long ago, John Roemer (one of Wolff's chosen few,
at least for awhile) showed that if real wages rise with labor
productivity, Okishio's theorem (that profitable technical progress
raises profit rates) may or may not be true.
If Okishio's theorem is based on the assumption that wages be
constant, then any reasoning based on the assumption that wages vary
would be X's theorem, but not Okishio's. Marx begins Capital 3:3:13
by assuming constant wages. His FRP, which he proposed as a
"tendency" (and such it is!), is premised on constant wages. (And
yes, real wages, since the price level is also assumed constant.)
An assumption--for purposes only of expositional simplicity--is not a
premise. Marx's Law (it should be called LFTRP, not FRP) is premised
on the existence of an upper limit to the amount of surplus labor
available in a working day *whatever the level of real wages*. As
long as labor productivity remains a function of the organic
composition of capital (as on average it must, since the only purpose
of increasing capital intensity is to raise labor productivity) the
rate of profit on invested capital *must* tend to fall over time. I
proved this in my 1963 dissertation on Marx's Law.
Shane Mage
This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
kindling in measures and going out in measures.
Herakleitos of Ephesos
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