Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 13:22:09 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: M-TH: HoPE



Have you written this up? If so, please send me the paper. --jks

On Fri, 25 Oct 1996, Ian Hunt wrote:

> Add a fifth. Marx says in vol 111 of *Capital* that he is concerned only
> with price movements corresponding to value movements. Even this is not
> strictly correct, but it is much closer to the truth than the propositions
> Justin cites which hold only with equal organic compositions of capital. I
> would state something a bit stronger than the purely qualitative version of
> value theory. Marx can be taken as positing values (the inverse of labour
> productivity - which can be defined using prices and can be "negative" etc
> contrary to what Brewer assumes) as  a kind of "shadow" price through which
> one can theorize the relation between price movements and productivity
> movements. In particular, I think Marx is committed to what I call the "Law
> of Value", namely, that competition in markets leads to a progressive, all
> round decrease in values, which presupposes that there is at least a strong
> positive correllation between prices and values. Saying the prices and
> values (taken as the inverse of labour productivites) are proportional is
> wrong but saying that they are strongly correllated is quite plausible. The
> weaker proposition also rescues a fair bit of Ricardo, as well as allowing
> one to adopt a more generous interpretation of Marx than is customary in
> mainstream economics and in simplistic commentaries such as Brewer's recent
> effort,
> 
> 
> 
> 
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