Suchergebnisse

Most scholars interpret Marx's prices of production as those which achieve simple reproduction assuming profit rates are equal and all capitals turn over completely each year. The dynamics of equalization, as circulation intertwines with production over the business cycle, is absent. The traditional 'Marxist' equation for the profit rate likewise considers only simple reproduction. This leaves a gap in our understanding of Marx, particularly regarding the impact of turnover time on the profit rate, one of Ricardo's original problems which Marx claimed to solve. Starting from a critique of Veronese Passarella's and Baron's attempt to extend the traditional equation to expanded reproduction, I develop a more general equation showing how changes in turnover times, rate of surplus value and accumulation affect the equalization process, the formation of the general profit rate and hence of prices of production. Finally, considering Moseley's introduction to the recently published translation of a 27-page excerpt from Marx's Economic Manuscript of 1867–1868, I suggest an equation for decomposing the profit adjustment during equalization. JEL Classification: B24, B51, E11.

In his macro-monetary interpretation of Marx's theory of value, Fred Moseley claims that Marx's prices of production should be considered as the long-run equilibrium condition of capital reproduction under the assumption of given technology and given capital distribution. Moseley's methodological interpretation depends on the claim that the general rate of profit is completely predetermined in the first two volumes of Capital. I argue to the contrary that though Moseley shows the inadequacy of the Standard Interpretation, he fails to provide a convincing description of Marx's category of prices of production. The production of the new total value and total surplus-value cannot be considered as simply determined by the initial conditions of production; if we want to describe how prices of production are formed and the role they play in the social reproduction of capital, we should recognize that in social reproduction this process develops temporally through an intertwined relation between the production, circulation and distribution.