ABSTRACT
The transformation problem, accordingly, remains a matter merely of a change in prices; and we have as the four unknowns to be determined the product prices of the three departments and the rate of profit. With a given level of real wages and size of total labour-force (both assumed as unchanged by the transformation from value-situation to price-situation), the output of wage-goods must obviously be constant. The effect on the profit-rate of a transformation from values to prices will be as follows. How the price-level is affected absolutely in the process of transformation from value-relations to price-relations will depend on what the conditions of production of gold are assumed to be. The objection has been made against Karl Marx’s presentation that his contention is purely arbitrary when he speaks of the rate of surplus-value remaining unaltered and of a given total of surplus-value being merely redistributed among industries in the transformation-process.
