"But I will respond to Andrew."
Huh?
Rakesh: "I accept that this is not a caricature."
Does this mean that you acknowledge that "the scheme breaks down because not enough investment goods have been produced," and that Grossmann's breakdown "has [everything] to do with a physical shortage of physical means of production"?
If so, we can move on to Moseley, etc.
Rakesh: "The question now becomes what Grossmann thought his extention of the Bauer model proved."
It's not a question in which I'm interested. As I noted, I'm interested only in discussing the scheme itself.
Rakesh: "Sometimes investment includes only the constant capital part of accumulation. That's how Sweezy uses the terms in his book, and I thought this was how you meant it."
But you wrote "we could increase the rate of surplus value arbitrarily to make the exact value of the previous output ... equal to the exact value of the present INVESTMENT DEMAND, THE FULL ADDITIONAL v INCLUDED" (emphasis added).
In any case, why didn't you ask for clarification instead of charging me with having made a "ridiculous argument" and an "astonishing mistake"?
Rakesh quotes:
> Equation (5) means precisely that breakdown in your sense
occurs
> because demand for investment goods is so great that there's
> nothing left over for capitalists' consumption. Clearly there
> will be breakdown as well if investment demand is even greater.
and comments: "But this is not what you said earlier, and your equations did not include the category of capitalist consumption."
You are quibbling over "less than" vs. "less than or equal to."
My equations did not need to include capitalist consumption, because it was present implicitly. Capitalists' consumption is
k(t,t+1) = S(t) - [C(t+1) - C(t)] - [V(t+1) - V(t)].
Hence, my inequality (1)
(1) [C(t+1) - C(t)] + [V(t+1) - V(t)] > S(t)
can be written as
(1') S(t) - k(t,t+1) > S(t)
or
(1'') k(t,t+1) < 0.
And again, you can make that "less than or equal to" if you wish.
Rakesh: ""We" can agree on that; indeed you are now only basically quoting me, the anti boddhisatva."
Huh?
Rakesh: "One unit of v represents one worker; if it represents two workers (say a night shift is added and wages halved), surplus value is doubled while the demand for the product of dept 2 is not thereby reduced: v has NOT been reduced in absolute terms so there is no lowering in physical terms of demand. S/V has however doubled,and breakdown has been deferred!!"
I believe the argument here is specious.
The increase in S would correspond to an increase in PHYSICAL OUTPUT, and breakdown would be "deferred" because the demand for investment GOODS would not longer exceed (or equal) the supply of investment GOODS!!!!
But I'm willing to be convinced of the contrary. As I have noted, all you need to do is show me a numerical or algebraic example of Grossmanic breakdown that is not reducible to too much demand for investment goods, and I'll retract my claim. But verbal arguments simply won't cut it -- after all, Grossmann made an impressive-sounding verbal argument, and everyone took it at face-value for 65 years, but it is much less impressive when you inquire into what it really means.
Rakesh: "I never said you were paranoid (I have praised you throughout the exchange), but now that you mention it...Well, are you...paranoid?"
No, I'm not. You wrote:
"there are other Marxists who have been marginalized: Rubel, Mattick, William J Blake--to name a few. Some of these battles remind me of identity politics as everyone defends in THE MOST PARANOID MANNER their own turf" (emphasis added).
Andrew ("Drewk") Kliman Home: Dept. of Social Sciences 60 W. 76th St., #4E Pace University New York, NY 10023 Pleasantville, NY 10570 (914) 773-3951 Andrew_Kliman at msn.com
"... the *practice* of philosophy is itself *theoretical.* It is the *critique* that measures the individual existence by the essence, the particular reality by the Idea." -- K.M.