Three Brief Notes on the Recent Samuelson and Bronfenbrenner Exchange.

The article focuses on confusions imported into a debate by the haphazard manner in which various economic models are labelled. The models involved are: a system in which the real-wage rate is specified as a particular "basket" of goods and prices are proportional to labor values; a system with a given real-wage rate and a uniform rate of profit on capital; a system in which the share of wages in the value of net output is given and there is a uniform rate of profit; a system in which prices are determined by the relation of demand to scarce means with alternative uses. There are rentals for particular physical "factors of production" but no overall rate of profit; a system in which the rate of interest is determined by the "marginal product of capital." The modern textbook doctrine is a mixture of systems, in which prices are determined by the relation of demand to scarce means with alternative uses and a system in which the rate of interest is determined by the marginal product of capital.