[OPE-L:3572] Re: money-capital as initial givens

["Fred B. Moseley" <fmoseley@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have had only very limited time for and access to email this week, and
will be pretty much off-line for two weeks after next Monday.  But I want
to try to write a quick request for clarification to Paul C. on
money-capital as the initial givens in Marx's theory.

Paul, I have been thinking about your criticism that Marx failed to take
into account the interrelations between different branches of production of
prices of production.  And I now realize that I am not sure what you mean
by this.  What exactly did Marx fail to do, in your opinion?

I understood from your (3547) - in which you said that "there is no doubt
that Marx formulated  the transformation problem in terms of an initial sum
of money-capital" - that you agreed with me that Marx did NOT "fail to
transform the inputs of constant capital and variable capital from values
to prices of production," as is commonly argued.  But after reading your
(3553), I am not so sure.  Here you talk about "third-order effects" of
price-value deviations of the means of production that Marx failed to take
into account.  So could you please clarify for me what you mean by the
interrelations between different branches of production that Marx failed to
take into account?

And let me try to clarify my own interpretation:  I have argued in several
papers (and summarized in a recent post) that constant capital and variable
capital are TAKEN AS GIVEN as quantities of MONEY-CAPITAL, in both volume 1
and volume 3, as the two components of the initial money-capital (M)
invested to purchase means of production and labor-power (i.e. M = C + V).
Moreover, the SAME QUANTITIES of constant capital and variable capital are
taken as given in volume 3 as in volume 1.  The only difference is that in
volume 1 the TOTAL amounts of constant capital and variable capital for the
economy as a whole are taken as given, and in volume 3 the INDIVIDUAL
amounts of constant capital and variable capital in each industry are also
taken as given.  But the sums of the individual amounts of constant capital
and variable capital are by assumption equal to the total amounts of
constant capital and variable capital.

THIS is the reason why the magnitudes of constant capital and variable
capital do not change, and do not have to be transformed from values into
prices of production:  because constant capital and variable capital are
already in money terms and the SAME QUANTITIES of constant capital and
variable capital are TAKEN AS GIVEN in both stages of the analysis.  The
magnitudes of constant capital and variable capital are not first
determined as the value of the means of production and means of
subsistence, and then later transformed into the prices of these same means
of production and means of subsistence, as in the standard interpretation.

Paul, this is what I mean by "Marx formulated the transformation problem in
terms of an initial sum of money."  Do you agree with this or not?  If not,
then what do you mean by "Marx formulated  the transformation problem in
terms of an initial sum of money-capital."

Comradely,
Fred