Transformation problem

The transformation problem is the problem specific to Marxist economics, and not to economics in general, of finding a general rule by which to transform the values of commodities based on socially necessary labour time into the competitive prices of the marketplace. The essential difficulty is how to reconcile profit in the form of surplus value from direct labour inputs and the ratio of direct labour input to capital input that vary widely between commodities, with the tendency toward an average rate of profit on all capital invested.

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Source: List of unsolved problems in economics (CC BY-SA 4.0)