Re: Surplus Value or Profit

[Bruce McFarling <ecbm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 21 Nov 2001 11:58:39 -0500, Gunnar Tómasson
<gunnar.tomasson@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[Quoth I]:
>> And as we all know, this is not true of Keynes' system,
>> since primary effective demand (D1) is generated by
>> financial arrangements that do not depend upon the prior
>> receipt of income ... only secondary effective demand
>> (D2) is generated in that way.

>Hence my contention that, in Chs. 4 and 6, Keynes sets out to sketch the
>'boundary' of a Closed System and, by virtue of his attempt to accommodate
>non-zero 'surplus value of profit' therein, ends up with "inconsistent
>hotch-potch" - a Closed/Open System.

First, a bounded system is only closed if there is nothing passing
over the boundary.  By contrast, the system, Y=D1+D2, D2=f(Y)
is not closed, with D1 passing over the boundary in one direction,
and (Y-D2) passing over the boundary in the other direction.

Second, there is no such effort.  There is no surplus value of
profit theory, but rather profit as a residual of of obligation
incurred at the beginning of the production process deducated
from receipts from sales at the end of the process -- that is,
what Keynes called a model of a monetary production economy.
It seems to me that the logical inconsistencies that you detect
are likely to vanish if you would abandon the effort to modify
the general theory to introduce a surplus value of profit theory
of profit ... because that particular modification seems to be
the source of the inconsistencies that you detect.

IOW, its seems highly likely that you are actually finding
logical inconsistencies, but that's a rabbit you are putting
into the hat yourself.


--
Dr. Bruce R. McFarling, PhD
Bus. Office 1.72 -- (02) 4348-4078
School of Business
Faculty of the Central Coast
Newcastle University, Ourimbah