On Jul 21, 2010, at 5:41 PM, Julio Huato wrote:
> Shane wrote:
>
>> Perhaps. But, nonetheless, isn't it the case that all the
>> significant theorizing about monopoly and oligopoly pricing
>> (even Sweezy's "kinked demand curve") has taken place on
>> an entirely Marshallian basis?
>
> I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. Marx was trying to get
> his critique of political economy published in the
> 1850s-1860s...Most of the stuff Engels, Kautksy, and others later
> compiled and published dates back to the 1850s and 1860s. The first
> volume of Marshall's Principles was published in 1890... He became
> most prominent and influential in the 20th century.
I don't reproach Marx in the least. He was writing while capitalism was largely competitive. My point is that his work, unlike Marshall's, in fact did not give rise to a theory of price- determination for the types of price that became nearly universal under the developed form of the capitalist system. And there is nothing wrong with that, since the empirical mechanisms of price determination were not of significant concern to his theory of value.
>
>> And where is Marx's theory of secular change (inflation/deflation)
>> in the price level? Isn't it rather the case that Marx's deep
>> interest was not in prices at all, but rather in the laws of motion
>> of
>> the capitalist mode of production and most especially in the "Law
>> of the Falling Tendency of the Rate of Profit" and its effects?"
>
> I think that counter-posing the FROP to prices is misleading. It's
> like counter-posing anatomy to physiology. Marx's FROP is built on an
> understanding of value and its price forms. The notions of value and
> price are the framework for the whole FROP discussion.
The framework is the value theory--it is entirely derived and expressed in terms of value. Empirical application of the "FROP" theory requires the conversion of prices into values-- the opposite of the so-called "transformation problem."
Shane Mage
"All things are an equal exchange for fire and fire for all things, as goods are for gold and gold for goods."
Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr, 90