Production price
In the 9th chapter of the third volume of his main work Das Kapital , Karl Marx develops the concept of average profit from the rate of profit and thus determines the connection between value and price more precisely by adding this average profit to the cost price: production price of a commodity = k + p ', where k = cost price and p '= general rate of profit .
Depending on the composition of capital, with the same rate of surplus value and the same utilization of labor, there are definitely different product values and thus different surplus values and profit rates. This results in a high rate of profit for some branches of industry and a low rate of profit for other branches with the same rate of surplus value. In branches of industry where a comparatively large amount of labor is employed and little constant capital (e.g. textile industry), i.e. where the organic composition is low, the rate of profit would be high, and vice versa, in branches of industry with a lot of constant capital and little labor input (e.g. . Power plants), so where the organic composition is high, low. Capital will flow out of the industries with the low rate of profit into the industries with the high rate of profit. Because of the law of supply and demand , prices there will rise above their values and fall below their values here, until the same rate of profit prevails in all branches of industry. Then the prices (now in the second solution of the value problem), which Marx now calls production prices, no longer correspond to labor values in the individual branches. If one considers the totality of all branches of production, the sum of the production prices of the goods produced is equal to the sum of their values.
In the individual industries, profit is no longer equal to added value . In macroeconomic terms, however, the sum of all profits is equal to the sum of all added values. By balancing the profit rates, surplus value is redistributed between the industries, and a uniform profit rate, a general profit rate , tends to develop for all industries .
Piero Sraffa's theory
Production prices also play an important role in Piero Sraffa's theory .
Piero Sraffa has shown that the price of production is equal to the dated amounts of labor multiplied by the wage rate . The concept of dating labor quantities is a weighting of the labor units using the rate of profit and constant capital. The result is a proportionality between the production price and labor units. The proportionality factor is the wage rate. The production prices at Sraffa correspond to the minimum average costs. Again, these are necessarily equal to the marginal costs.
When determining the minimum cost by means of the marginal analysis, it can be shown that the marginal costs are equal to the amount of labor units socially necessary for production, expressed in money . This set of units of work is therefore equal to the Sraffaschen sets of dated work. It is greater than the number of working hours that the workers work, because these are weighted just like in the case of qualified work. The difference is the extra work.
The transformation problem is thus solved by the Sraffasche analysis and the marginal cost analysis . It is disputed whether the weighting of working hours is acceptable in the context of value theory.
Graphic representation
The two graphics are intended to illustrate the problem of transforming goods into prices. Figure 1 shows three companies from three different industries. All companies have the same expenditure on variable capital , in wage costs, in all three companies the same added value arises , but in the company of the first branch only little constant capital is required in production, while in the company in the third branch a lot of constant capital is required is needed.
If the prices were the same as the values, then the profits would also be the same as the surplus values, and in branch I the highest rate of profit (ratio of surplus value to capital employed, which is made up of variable and constant capital), and in branch III the lowest rate of profit would occur.
Capitalists will no longer invest in branch III, so that the supply of branch III will decrease. According to the law of supply and demand, prices start to rise in branch III, so they are now greater than the values.
Conversely in branch I. More capitalists are now investing here because of the high rate of profit there. This increases the supply from branch I. According to the law of supply and demand, prices in branch I begin to fall, they go below their values. In Sector III, the profits are greater than the added value there, and in Sector I less than the added value there. This development will only come to an end when the profit rates in all three industries are the same. This is shown in the second figure. Sector I profits are now smaller compared to the surplus value (Figure 1) and in sector III they are greater than the surplus value. The same rate of profit prevails in all three branches.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Karl Marx, Das Kapital - Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 25, 33rd edition, 2010 Berlin, pp. 164 ff