How are the prices of reproducible goods determined?

Can the analysis of the distribution of the gross national product and the determination of production prices ignore wants, the level and structure of demand? How does the choice of techniques, a switch in the methods of production, interfere with the accumulation process, the distribution of the gross national product, and therefore with the structure of prices? What kind of relationship is there between market prices and production prices? How should the contemporary analysis contemplate the problem of exploitation and the relation between labour-values and production prices? What is the meaning of the ‘standard commodity’? Can the analysis of accumulation limit itself to permanent regimes with constant returns to scale? What is the importance of the ‘golden rule’ of accumulation? How is the dynamic evolution to be analyzed?…

These are the main topics we intend to address in the present book.

We shall more specifically analyse the problems generated by the accumulation and the prices of the so-called ‘reproducible’ commodities, assuming first that there are constant returns to scale; then we will contemplate the increasing costs of production, the appearance of different kinds of rents, and the determination of natural resources’ prices. We shall assume that commodities are reproduced by means of heterogeneous commodities and labour, the supply of which is taken to be unlimited. Production which is, so to speak, pulled by demand, is supposed to be disposed of without any difficulties. At each period, the stocks of the means of production, the available (heterogeneous) commodities that can be used for production, appear to be a constraint, limiting production; this constraint is relaxed as time goes by, owing to accumulation.