Marxian models of reproduction and accumulation

Abstract

This paper presents three formal Marxian models of reproduction, each an elaboration of the previous one. The first is a model of price formation in which the scale and com position of goods output play no role. The second introduces the output side of the economy, in a classical Marxian model of simple reproduction, where there is no accumu lation. The third allows expanded reproduction—that is, accumulation. Most discussions of Marxian reproduction schemes employ aggregates in terms of labour values (C, V and S) to trace out the equilibrium conditions of the system. This, indeed, has often been taken to be the hallmark of a Marxian general equilibrium discussion. Here, the models are denominated in prices (not values) and hence the familiar Marxian equations are not visible. What, then, allows one to call these models Marxian? The barometer of a Marxian analysis is the role given to class struggle and the concept of exploitation : these elements, it is hoped, will be brought to the fore here. The use of labour values does enter into the definition of the rate of exploitation, and that is the only way labour values appear in these models. In particular, labour values are not used in any capacity to describe exchange. Indeed, the author believes this is precisely the proper scope for the use of labour values; this issue, however, is peripheral here, and is discussed elsewhere (see Roemer, 1977). Some concepts will appear differently here than readers of Marx are perhaps accustomed to. The concept of a worker's subsistence bundle of consumption goods is re placed by a variable consumption bundle which emerges as a consequence of class struggle, in a sense which will be made clear. Another modification of classical analysis is the provision of a welfare state in the model of extended reproduction: profits are taxed to feed the unemployed. (The unemployed, however, will still exert a downward pressure on the real wage, in their capacity as industrial reserve army.) These two specifications are attempts to make the models conform more closely to present capitalist reality, and to show that a Marxian theory of reproduction does not depend on the notion of a sub sistence wage.