IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ekm/repojs/v37y2017i3p587-604id148.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding and overcoming the “positive profits with negative surplus-value” paradox

Author

Listed:
  • Gustavo Daou Lucas
  • Franklin Serrano

Abstract

This paper explains the “positive profits with negative surplus-value” example of Steedman (1975) and shows that while in joint production systems individual labour values can be negative, the claim that the total labour embodied in the surplus product of the economy (surplus-value) can also be negative is based on assumptions that have no economic meaning (such as negative activity levels).The paper also provides a way to measure the surplus-value of joint production systems which overcomes the problems of the traditional concept and restates the proposition that a positive amount of surplus labour is a necessary condition for positive profits. JEL Classification: B12.

Suggested Citation

  • Gustavo Daou Lucas & Franklin Serrano, 2017. "Understanding and overcoming the “positive profits with negative surplus-value” paradox," Brazilian Journal of Political Economy, Center of Political Economy, vol. 37(3), pages 587-604.
    • Handle: RePEc:ekm:repojs:v:37:y:2017:i:3:p:587-604:id:148
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://centrodeeconomiapolitica.org.br/repojs/index.php/journal/article/view/148/137
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Surplus value; labour value; rate of profit; joint production.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B12 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Classical (includes Adam Smith)

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ekm:repojs:v:37:y:2017:i:3:p:587-604:id:148. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Brazilian Journal of Political Economy (Brazil) (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://centrodeeconomiapolitica.org/repojs/index.php/journal/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.