>>> christian11 at mindspring.com 04/06/01 12:23PM >>>
Charles explained that:
an increase in constant capital relative to variable capital, of new more productive or efficient machines, where "more productive" means more unit commodities produced per workperson hour, [means] that a productivity boom would not be a reason to expect profit rates to go up, but to expect them to go down . . .
But by virtue of its swift devaluation, the value of the new revolutionary capital is actually pretty low. So would be the organic composition, and hence the drag on profits, presumably.
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CB: Why ? The "swift devaluation" doesn't mean the capitalist , who has the innovative instruments of production and has already spent the money on it , gets the money back. So, that capitalist's rate of profit from that earlier cycle goes down and that rate of profit doesn't go back up because the constant capital s/he owns goes down in value.
"Swift devaluation" of the new revolutionary instruments of production, if I understand you, means increased organic composition of the capital of the producers of the instruments of production ,and therefore reduced rate of profit.
I cannot give a " snap " answer to your following questions :>)
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I have other questions about the theory, though. Fernando Vianello says this on the labor theory of value: "Since the prices of production differ from values only on account of the different distribution of the overall surplus-value of the economy, according to Marx the rate of profits is actually determined . . . by the labor theory of value. The prices of production are then obtained from the values by replacing the surplus value produced in each branch of production with part of the overall surplus-value of the economy belonging to that branch according to the general rate of profits."
If that's true, distribution determines both prices and the general rate of profit, but the general rate of profit precedes price. If that's true, then I'm still left wondering about the way of understanding actual profit rates, and the distribution mechanism, other than to say that it's competitive. Wouldn't the point of the distribution mechanism be to account for the way that, for example, the bourgeoisie could actively squeeze wages? Why this equilibrium assumption?
Christian