Once the system is set in motion, a corporation might well put aside some funds for research and development, more likely it will tap public sources of research. If the corporation does set aside some funds for investment, it does so because it exists within a social structure that allows it to obtain a profit on its investment.
If we see the corporation as an individual agent, acting alone, we can construct a story along Justin's line that the corporation reaps a profit from its abstinence. Alternatively, we can see the corporation existing within a complex social network of production in which it is able to leverage its "abstinence" in order to extract a profit from the work of others.
John Roemer's work, to which Justin referred, is mathematically solid. It sets up one particular framework. Marx sets up another.
These different frameworks are not either right or wrong. You set up a framework in order to analyze the world in the best way you know how giving your perspective.
Brad is certainly intelligent enough to understand that these frameworks are not something that you can disprove. You can set up an energy theory of value in order to understand certain problems; to do so as not refute Marxist theory or neoclassical theory.
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu