Date: Sun, 14 May 1995 19:44:34 -0800
From: djones-AT-uclink.berkeley.edu (jones/bhandari)
Subject: Re: value and the falling rate of profit


Walter Daum wrote:

>
>The falling rate of profit is not simply a consequence of the
>rising organic composition of capital. If capitalists did not
>have to appropriate profit in proportion to their original costs,
>if they could always value their constant capital according to
>current production costs, then the falling rate of profit would
>not be the dominant tendency. The countervailing tendencies cited
>by Marx would balance it out.


  But if there are continual revolutions in re-production costs of both
producer and consumer goods, why wouldn't the surplus value pumped out from
the working class be enough for amortization and accumulation? 

Whatever burden capital experiences in the form of amortization and
interest would be compensated for by the continual revolutions in the value
of the commodities required for further accumulation, no? Why need there be
any limits to this process? 

Perhaps the worst thing is that it is too easily accomplished.  It is too
easy to write off old capital and invest in new machines which are so
productive that they easily compensate for the lost potential value
transfer from the older machines.  The problem would then be wastage of
machines which were still may be  potentially useful but put on the
scrap-heap of history anyway.

Just a thought.

Rakesh



     --- from list marxism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

     ------------------