[OPE-L:2009] Re: Re: Re: A possible paradox in the theory of value

[Jurriaan Bendien <djjb99@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I am trying to follow this argument, but I will say I object to "farmers"
being treated as "unskilled labour". This could make sense in some
metaphorical way. but real farmers are very rarely unskilled labourers !!!

Cheers

Jurriaan


At 08:24 PM 1/2/00 GMT, you wrote:
>At 08:37 02/01/00 +1100, ope-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>>I think you're double-counting the 500K hours for the production of the
>>means of subsistence of the operators. If I'm paid a wage of $1,000, and
>>then spend it all on commodities, then it counts just as $1,000.
>>
>
>Here is a reproduction table that illustrates what I mean. There is
>no double counting.
>There are 5 productive activities producing cake, bread, corn, bakers
>and farmers. Farmers stand in for unskilled labour. The economy maintains
>10 farmers using as inputs 10 unskilled humans ( column h ) and
>15 tons of bread ( col br).
>Bakers stand in as skilled labour in the example, the economy produces
>a gross output of 10 bakers, using 10 people to do so, but one of the
>bakers is retained to represent the cost of training new bakers. Again
>the bakers consume 15 tons of bread.
>The production of material products then uses one or other of the two
>class of labour plus corn as an input.
>
>
>		inputs								
>	    output b	f  c  h	br val	tot v  Profit	price
>cake tons   20	   4	   20 	    1.00 20    4.45    1.0
>bread tons  30	   5	   30 	    0.91 27    5.55    0.9
>corn tons   60	        10 10	    0.47 28    10      0.5
>bakers	    10	   1	      10 15 2.62 26            1.5
>farmers	    10		      10 15 2.36 24            1.4
>b= bakers, f=farmers, c= corn, h=humans, br=bread
>
>The surplus product takes the form of cake 20 tons of which have a value
>of 1 person per ton.
>
>The commodities are assumed to sell at their value, whereas the labour
>is purchased for the cost of its reproduction. The values are given
>by all the labour directly and indirectly necessary for their reproduction.
>Thus the value of a farmer is 2.36 persons, that of a baker 2.62 persons, but
>they are paid only 1.4 and 1.5 respectively.
>
>The profit of 20 is just sufficient for the capitalists to purchase
>and eat all the cake produced.
>
>
>The question is not one of double counting but whether one treats the
>costs of reproducing labour as part of the value of what it produces.
>If the costs of training enter into the value of the product, so should
>the costs of feeding.
>
>If one adopts this approach, one can do the accounting quite consitently.
>One ends up with the value of annual profits being equal to the working
>population. ( Note that when dealing with value accounts per annum, the
>dimension is persons since it is the result of cancelling out person years
>per year to give persons ).
>
>It would be interesting to check whether this method of accounting
>or Marx's method leads to a more accurate prediction of prices.
>
>
>Paul Cockshott    (clyder@xxxxxxxxxx)
>
>
>