Robert Vienneau: Thoughts Economics

Marx, in Theories of Surplus Value, quotes James Stuart writing about 'profit upon alienation'. When one sells a good one owns, one has alienated it from oneself. In the typical work relation under capitalism, the managers of firms, that is, the representatives of capitalists, sell the product or services that workers produce. Workers do not own the goods they produce, for they have previously sold their labor-power. That is, they have agreed that their product is not owned by themselves,...

A revolution occurred in price theory about two-thirds of a century ago. Several scholars independently developed components of this revolution. This post merely lists selected literature. I have previously tried to briefly describe why some of these authors are precursors. Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz (1907) On the correction of Marx's fundamental theoretical construction i the third volume of Capital. Translated and reprinted by Sweezy. David G. Champernowne (1945-1946) A note on J. V....

Prof. Rowena Ball teaches a course on indigenous mathematics at Australian National University. Prof. Caroline Fohlin, an economics professor at Emory University, is arrested for being assaulted by rioting police. Prof. Tim Garrett questions the units of measurement in aggregate production functions. Aggregate production functions are not laws of nature, and those not in a broken discipline should not be thrown by questions about units of measurement. Maybe some production functions make...

Every child knows a nation which ceased to work, I will not say for a year, but even for a few weeks, would perish. Every child knows, too, that the masses of products corresponding to the different needs required different and quantitatively determined masses of the total labor of society. That this necessity of the distribution of social labor in definite proportions cannot possibly be done away with by a particular form of social production but can only change the mode of its appearance...

1.0 Introduction Economists of the Austrian school generally retain some concept that lower interest rates incentivize capitalists or entrepreneurs to adopt more lengthy production processes, in some sense, while still rejecting aggregate physical measures of roundaboutness or capital intensity. This post collects some quotations of economists of the Austrian school or Austrian-adjacent saying such or saying something confused about the Cambridge Capital Controversy. I want to recall this...

Figure 1: The Wage-Rate of Profits Frontier1.0 Introduction This post completes a demonstration that the economic life of a machine is independent of the capital-intensity of a technique. I here fill in the upper right of a two-by-two table. I have previously filled in the upper-left and lower right entries. And I also have an example for the lower left. 2.0 Technology Tables 1 and 2 present coefficients of production for processes which can be combined to produce a new output of corn....

I have previously repeated some transcriptions from the correspondence Marx and Engels. I tried to concentrate on some formulations from Engels of ideas important in Marxism, Marx stating what is important and novel in Capital, or outlines of the project, particularly concentrating on the so-called transformation problem. This long letter certainly belongs in this collection. Marx's ideas were fairly well-developed in 1858. Here he has promised Duncker, a publisher, to write what...

1.0 Introduction I have been reading Robin Hahnel. Hahnel argues even more strongly than Steedman did that labor values are redundant. And he argues for the importance of the fundamental Sraffian theorem. I think this may be Hahnel's coinage. Anyways' this is my working my way through some of what I think he is saying. Hahnel has some interesting things to say, not discussed here, about analyzing environmental concerns in a Sraffian framework. I ignore the chapter in Hahnel (2017) on the...

Here is John Maynard Keynes in 1926: "Let us clear from the ground the metaphysical or general principles upon which, from time to time, laissez-faire has been founded. It is not true that individuals possess a prescriptive 'natural liberty' in their economic activities. There is no 'compact' conferring perpetual rights on those who Have or on those who Acquire. The world is not so governed from above that private and social interest always coincide. It is not so managed here below that...

1.0 Introduction I have written many posts on formal results related to my favorite interpretations of the theory of value and distribution in Marx's Capital. But Marx's work is not solely about formalism. One aspect of volume 1 is a history of production processes up to Marx's day. Much opportunity exists to build on this history. Some have done this in works I have not read much of. I have been reading Soren Mau, and many years ago I read much of Charles Babbage's On the Economy of...