Rakesh asks:
>What's wrong with this identification? Doesn't it simply measure the
>capital intensity of production? Isn't that what the OCC is a measure of
>anways? Honest questions.
OCC is not a measure of capital intensity of production, K/Y, or fixed capital relative to total output. Rather it's some measure of fixed capital (means of production) divided by the value of labor power advanced in production, not total product. OCC is the ratio between the two kinds of capital advanced in production, constant and variable. These are very different things and would yield the same results only by accident.
If you wish, you can think of the numerator of both ratios as being essentually the same (excluding the difference between value and price determinations). While Marx typically referred to circulating constant capital (similar to depreciation) in discussing OCC (so the ratio is usually written c/v), you can think of that as short hand, done by him for expositional convenience. When he defines OCC as being the mass of the means of production set in motion by productive labor, you could argue he means exactly that--total fixed capital (K), not just the part used up in a production round. Both numerators could be K, and making OCC K/v.
But the denominators are completely different. v, of course, is is the reproduction cost (social subsistence) of productive labor. Though it's rare, OCC can rise due to a *reduction* in the cost of the consumption basket that makes up v, as well as due to "increasing mechanization" of production.
>Perhaps the capital output ratio does not measure
>the level of mechanisation but can't that grow in technical terms (TCC)
>though the OCC in value terms remains constant or at least never grows
>faster than the rate of exploitation (these are hardly new questions)?
Sure, the TCC and OCC can move in different directions, due to e.g., "cheapening elements" that affect the value of c and K.
> In the latest MR, David McNally hangs his defense of Brenner on such
>possibilities.
Stll haven't gotten to that yet.
>(Brenner's mark up theory of pricing has caused much consternation
>since it seems to imply a market power theory of profit unhinged from the
>actual surplus value pumped out in the production process--one would hope
>that in the book version he clarifies his underlying theory of profit,
>something to which Anwar Shaikh has already called attention.)
I don't get this, Rakesh. Profits *are* unhinged from the surplus value produced. There is no necessary connection between the movements of each.