[lbo-talk] technical conditions approach

[tfast]

technical conditions approach
Just because I am in a school boy's mood.  I saw this model on Star Treck with the food replicator and I immediately grasped why the LTOV was bogus.  Then Q showed up and suddenly I was in the nth dimension watching a vector of pigs fly.  Then it hit me: Pins dance on ferries heads not the other way around. Eureka! The age old question is solved: Just assume that there is no labour indirect or direct and bingo you can prove there is no labour involved.  Paging doctor Rifkin, Paging doctor Rifkin your utopia is calling.   

Travis 

  For those OPE-L'ers who are wondering what Justin and I were talking about....

  To see how the technical conditions approach to the determination of prices and profits seems to undermine the labor theory of value, consider the following example in which it is shown that not unpaid labor time but a surplus of use values determines what the profit rate will be. The surplus of use values need not be caused by unpaid labor time at all; it may just be a result of the technical conditions, the knowledge embodied therein. 

  A model of total automation; Spencer Pack gives a simple example.

  28      56      0       0

  16      0       48      0

  12      0       0       8

  56      56      48      8

  What we have in the first column is inputs of computers (28,16,12, 56

  total) needed to make 56 computers, 48 units of gold, and 8 units of

  wheat.

  That is, 28 computers => 56 computers

            16 computers => 48 units of gold

            12 computers => 8 units of wheat

            56 computers => 56 computers, 48 units of gold, 8 units of wheat

  The economy is in simple reproduction because it produces only 56 new

  computers, and 56 computers are needed to produce computers, gold and

  wheat at the same scale again.

  There is no direct labor in this economy; there is not even indirect

  labor as computers, gold and wheat are themselves the products of

  commodities--the literal production of commodities by commodities.

  According to Pack this economy can be solved for relative prices and

  a uniform profit and absolute prices as well if we assume by

  definition that the price of one unit of gold equals $1.

  (1 + r)  (28pc) = 56 pc

  (1 + r)  (16pc) = 48

  (1 + r)  (12pc) = 8pw

  r is the profit rate while pc and pw are the unit prices of computers

  and wheat.

   From the first equation we know the profit rate has to be 100%; price

  of one computer is $1.50 and price of one unit of wheat is $4.50.

  So contrary to the LTV, there can be a positive rate of profit and

  relative prices in a totally automated economy.

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