Re: [OPE-L] why does the debate on the "transformation problem" continue?

[Allin Cottrell <cottrell@xxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 26 Mar 2007, Ian Wright wrote:

> Sorry Allin I didn't get around to replying to you directly.

No problem.

> > Ian, could you explain why you think that is the case?
>
> Simply that dropping the assumption of uniform profits, and
> replacing with a distribution of profits, will not alter the
> usual criticisms: that the standard labour-value rate of profit
> is not the price rate of profit, and that standard labour-value
> is not conserved in price. (I should mention that this is my
> intuition, I have not spent time to prove this).

If you drop the assumption of uniform profits and replace this
with the assumption of a stochastic distribution of profits, then
my intuition is this:

If you impose the normalization that total prices = total values,
you will find that total profit = total surplus value holds in
expectation, though not in each realization.  I've tried messing
with a computer simulation of this which seems to confirm that
inituition, though I won't claim too much for this since the
question of how precisely one should set up the simulation is
debatable.

If this result is correct, I'm not at all bothered by it:
Stochastic satisfaction of Marx's dual equalities seems good
enough to me.

Allin.