industrialization

[James Heartfield]

In message <200104132220.f3DMKDT19483 at webmail.Stanford.EDU>, Mr. Rakesh
Narpat Bhandari <rakeshb at Stanford.EDU> writes
>I would say that there is a permanent tendency for unit values to fall; 
>whether this is due to better utilization of already installed capital goods 
>(learning by doing) or the *periodic* introduction of new capital goods in 
>which radical technical change is embodied does not matter (at any rate, 
>firms in any one one industry may be installing new technology at different 
>points, so for the industry as a whole unit values will tend to decline 
>continuously). The point is that the assumption of stationary prices is highly 
>questionable in regards to the course of capitalist development. So at the 
>least it is an interesting question what happens when Marx is tested in terms 
>of models in which that assumption is disallowed. 

I'm with Rakesh on this one. The whole of the current vogue for Branding
theory is based on the desire to forestall the falling  prices, which is
of course an epiphenomena of reduced labour content. Marx's analysis of
the falling rate of profit (an empirical event, and preoccupation of the
economics of his day) sees it not as a thing in its own right, but an
effect of the contradictory tendency of capital to expand value by
reducing labour content. Of course, Marx allows that these trends can
have many empirical expressions, so the absolute fact of whether the
rate of profit is falling or rising is not really the issue.

-- 
James Heartfield