The Criticism of Value and the Question of Automation Between Specters of Marx and Post-Operaism (original) (raw)
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Marx’s Law of value and the ontology of labour: a Castoriadian critical point of view
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In Marx’s thought, is ‘law of value’ a particular law of capitalism (historicism) or a general law of the economy (naturalism)? To clarify this ambiguity, this article proposes to employ the social ontology of Cornélius Castoriadis. For it, ‘labour’ is not a substance, but a recent historical creation through which, finally, the capitalist mode of production expresses a fundamental truth about all society’s way of being. From this perspective, we explore some consequences of this deconstruction for the theory of value as current neo-Marxist approaches may employ it today in their economic analyses.
Towards a Renewal of the Marxist Theory of Value. Recent Debates
Social Science Research Network, 2020
This text is inscribed in the debates raised by the new and growing interest in the economic theses of Karl Marx and, especially, in his Labor Theory of Value. The notion that animates this text argues that the multiple objections that have been raised about it actually point to versions and formalizations that correspond more to Ricardo's elaborations. Marx considered that his own version on the theory of value was not only different, but much more advanced and rigorous than that of his predecessor. In this text it is proposed that the new explorations on the theory of value, very promising for a critical interpretation of capitalism, rely decisively on reinterpretations of Marx in which elements of his reflection that have been eliminated by later thinkers, both supporters and contradictors, are rescued, and are developed and adapted for present times. The text consists of a succinct reconstruction of the main milestones of the development of the Theory of Labor Value, interpreted from this perspective, which raises versions that are different to the most widespread ones. Thus the formulations of this theory elaborated by Smith, Ricardo and Marx are examined. From a current perspective, the questions raised around the debate on the Transformation of Values in Prices are analyzed mainly those developed by Bortkiewicz and later by Sraffa and the Neoricardian School. It includes also a reflection on the conceptions in this regard of the " 20th-century Marxism", dominant in the mainstream of Marxism during a long tima, which here is argued that they are de facto closer to Ricardo than Marx. Two contemporary neo-Marxist currents are examined, the "New Approach" and the "sequentialists" (of the Temporal Single System analysts) that are intended precisely to present new developments from reinterpretations of Marx's theses. The text ends with the presentation of some original pieces of analysis that have this same perspective, which are partially supported by neo-Marxist formulations, but also consist in reelaborations of different moments of this tradition. It points to contribute to the formulation of an Abstract Labor Theory of Value.
Ontology and gnoseology of capitalism in Isaak Illich Rubin: 'Essays on marxist theory of value'
This concise essay attempts to show why Isaak Illich Rubin is, until today, the best interpreter, commentator and developer of The Capital of Karl Marx, understanding Marx’s work as an ontology and a gnoseology of the capitalist economic system. To do this, we analyze the relations existing between Marx, Rubin and the theory of science of the Spanish Marxist philosopher Gustavo Bueno. In this way, we can interpret the work “Essays on Marxist theory of value” also as an ontology and a gnoseology of capitalism.
Ontology and gnoseology of capitalism in Isaac Illich Rubin: Essays on marxist theory of value
This concise essay attempts to show why Isaak Illich Rubin is, until today, the best understanding Marx’s work as an ontology and a gnoseology of the capitalist economic system. To do this, we analyze the relations existing between Marx, Rubin and the theory of science of the Spanish Marxist philosopher Gustavo Bueno. In this way, we can interpret the work “Essays on Marxist theory of value” also as an ontology and a gnoseology of capitalism
Understanding Marx's theory of value: an assessment of a controversy
Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie, 2008
Trois ecoles principalrs de theorie de valeur mamienne sont identifiees et situees par rapport a des sujets essentiels oh il existe une controverse en matiere de valeur, en particulier le postulat que le travail vital est l'unique source de valeur nouvelle. L'effondrement de la theorie de valeur de 1'Ccole 'orthodoxe' (Ricardo-marxiste) est attribuee aux raisonnement errone d'une conceptualisation de la valeur de 'travail exprime,' une approche rejetee de la m&me facon par les theoriciens de la valeur 'neo-orthodoxe' et 'fondamentaliste'. Cependant la comparaison des ecoles neo-orthodoxe et fondamentaliste revele que seule cette derniere est compatible avec les objectifs et les postulats essentiels de la theorie de Marx. En m&me temps, on indique que l'approche fondamentaliste ne peut &re soutenue que par un engagement explicite a l'idee que le travail abstrait (essence-m6me de la valeur) existe en tant qu'universel structure1 specifique au capitalisme. Three major schools of Marxian value theory are identified and situated in respect to some pivotal issues of the value controversy, in particular the postulate that living labour is the sole source of new value. The collapse of the 'orthodox' (Ricardian-Marxist) school of value theory is attributed to the fallacies of an 'embodied labour' conceptualization of value, an approach which has been rejected by 'neo-orthodox' and 'fundamentalist' value theorists alike. However a comparison of the neo-orthodox and fundamentalist schools reveals that only the latter remains consistent with the objectives and essential postulates of Marx's theory. At the same time, it is argued that the fundamentalist approach can only be sustained through an explicit commitment to the idea that abstract labour (as the 'substance' of value) exists as a structural 'universal' specific to capitalism. * I wish to thank David Schweitzer, Blanca Muratorio, Bob Ratner, Bob Chernomas and Derek Sayer for their helpful comments on an earlier elaboration of the ideas developed in this article (Smith, 1989). Thanks are also due to two anonymous CHSA reviewers and to Jim Curtis for a number of suggestions that have significantly strengthened the final product. The argument presented here is based on work which I carried out whilst in receipt of funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. This article was
This paper critiques several claims made by Post-Autonomous Marxists (Antonio Negri et al). In particular, it challenges four key arguments; 1) the law of value as described by Marx is passé; 2) the value-form of the representation of value as congealed abstract social labour by money has been replaced by a new value form in which money represents “the common” / knowledge; 3) abstract social labour is no longer the source of surplus value; and 4) profit has become rent. Keywords: Immaterial Labour, the Law of Value, Value-Form, Surplus Value, Rent
Against Autonomy: Capitalism Beyond Quantification in the Autonomist Reading of Marx
Postmodern Culture, 2015
This essay outlines a critique of the autonomist theory of post-Fordism as a stage of capitalism defined by immaterial forms of production that purportedly constitute "value beyond quantification," which is to say, value exceeding the measure of spatialized time. The essay argues that this concept of immaterial labor-proposed as a corrective to Marx's "quantitative theory of value"-elides the crucial distinction in Marx's analysis between two entirely different kinds of spatialized time: the time required for the production of material goods and the time that determines their (exchange) value. This elision, the essay argues, results in a fundamental mischaracterization of contemporary capitalism. Spatialized Time and the "Quantitative Theory of Value" in Capital For past thirty years, the theory of post-Fordist production developed in the works of Autonomist Marxists (including Antonio Negri, Paolo Virno and Franco Berardi) has provided one of the most widely employed critical frameworks for understanding the increasing significance of culture, affect, information, and digital labor in the contemporary global economy. This theory emerged, in part, out of a phenomenological critique of the spatialized concept of time (as the measure of value) employed in Marx's analyses of capitalism. For the Autonomists, this spatialized timeinherited from the Western metaphysical traditionis no longer sufficient