Re: Hayek on reduction to dated quantities of labor

["Neri Salvadori" <nerisal@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

In message <01H82CCSBB2W8X1ZV8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Barkley Rosser writes:

>I note that the original Austrian model was built up from
> labor inputs, viewing capital as "roundaboutness" as measured by
> labor.  Although this view was used (by Bohm-Bawerk) to attack
> Marx's labor theory of value by asserting an independent existence
> of capital and its contribution to value, the underlying method
> has close similarities to that of Marx and Ricardo (and Sraffa).

In Marx and Ricardo and certainly in Sraffa the reduction to dated quantities of
labor is just a way to describe technology. (If someone is interested I can
send Chapter 6 of the book "Theory of Production" that Heinz Kurz and I just
finished to write; in this chapter these issues are very clearly stated.) In
Hayek (and Bohm-Bawerk) capital is given as a single magnitude. This does not
contradict the reduction to dated quantities of labour only if the simple
interest regime instead of the complex interest regime is adopted. (This has
been clarified by Wicksell, Garegnani, Weizsaker, and others.) Therefore no
attempt to use this argument to defend Hayek can be done.


Neri Salvadori

Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche, Universit di Pisa
Via Ridolfi 10, i56100 PISA (Italy)

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