Diego Guerrero: "MARX'S PRODUCTION PRICES AND THE SUPERIORITY OF THE LABOUR THEORY OF VALUE." (March 2024 (original) (raw)
Related papers
2021
The author presents in this paper the results of an analysis of Marx's theory of the original transformation of the values of commodities into prices of production. In a fragmented form, we find elements of this theory in Capital and other works of Marx. The author has highlighted the reconstruction of the table in Chapter 9 of Volume III of Capital by restoring the re-counting of profits and wages in it by adding to each particular sphere sector A, in which they produce the means of production. This reconstruction, first, made it possible to clarify the economic meaning of the two macroeconomic equations used by Marx in the transformation.Secondly, it allowed us to reconstruct the continuous mechanism of the original transformation of values into prices. This mechanism consists of two stages: the first stage is the formation of average rates of profit in separate spheres of production, consisting of two sectors of production: A (producing the means of production) and B (output ...
The Transformation of Values into Prices of Production: A Different Reading of Marx's Text
Research Papers in Economics, 1994
The purpose of this article is to propose a systematic reading of the transformation procedure illustrated by Marx in the first example of Chapter 9, Capital III, with an effort to convey the non dualistic vision he has of the economy. The article shows that Marx’s texts on the transformation have a radically different meaning than that attributed to them by Bortkiewicz and other authors, and establishes the soundness of Marx’s conclusions. Moreover, the passages where Marx tests the validity of his results are carefully examinated. To do this, we follow an observation made by Marx himself which has been completely neglected in the subsequent literature.
SSRN Electronic Journal
In the paper, we develop the research results presented in the author's previous works: https://osf.io/tk43d/ and https://osf.io/8tyma/. Firstly, we tried to reveal the mechanism of formation of the general rate of surplus value in the pre-capitalist economy and to answer the question of why Marx called the value an abstraction but a historical abstraction. Secondly, we have shown that Paul Samuelson's so-called "Eraser algorithm" was justified erroneously. Samuelson's error is rooted in his confusion about two types of technological matrices: Leontief and Dmitriev, in his analysis of the numerical example of Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz. Third, we have identified that the basis of Jan Steedman's erroneous 'redundancy criticism' of value categories is the failure to understand the reality that the technological matrices he uses contain implicit value and distributional categories, i.e., a kind of "Trojan horse". Fourthly, we have drawn attention to the fact that economists in the contemporary debate on the utility of the labour theory of value overlook the fact that this theory is designed to justify market value prices in the transition period from capitalism to socialism. The paper reveals the first steps towards the justification of an appropriate economic mechanism based on market value prices. Marx; transformation problem; labour theory of value; P. Samuelson and I. Steedman's errors; the economic mechanism of the transition to socialism; taxation; market value prices JEL CODES B14; B16; B24; B51; D58; E11; P16 ... I could have turned Volume III into something better than it is. But I ... believe I have done my duty by presenting Marx in Marx's own words, even at the risk of expecting the reader to do rather more thinking for himself. F. Engels (Marx [1892-5] 2004, 460). 2 Marx formulated the problem somewhat differently because he did not assume that the law of value would still be valid after the formation of average profit. In Theories of surplus value, he wrote, "If one did not take the definition of value as the basis, the average profit, and therefore also the cost-prices, would be purely imaginary and untenable." (Marx 1968, 190).
Diego Guerrero: "THE LABOUR THEORY OF VALUE AND THE PROBLEMS OF OTHER
This article first shows that one of the main misunderstandings surrounding the labour theory of value arises from the non-distinction between real determination and mathematical determination: although mathematically it is possible to link value prices (values expressed in money) and production prices through a linear transformation that operates in both directions, from the point of view of a realistic economic theory the "real relations of value" (Marx 1868), which take place in the real world, are prior to, and determine de facto, univocally, those theoretical-mathematical relationships. Secondly, to study prices appropriately it is necessary to distinguish between actual prices, which are as real as labour-values, and the pair of theoreticalhypothetical prices that would exist if the rate of profit or the rate of surplus value, respectively, were uniform (which they are not in reality). Thirdly, after defining the equations of these prices in the correct way in which they appear in the literature, it is proven that it is possible to read the Marxian Transformation in two steps, showing that the first Marxian definition of both types of prices (which are defined using only actual prices) gives way to a second and definitive definition in which both coincide with the correct definitions. Fourthly, the transformation is framed in a broader framework of various (linear) transformations to show that value prices and production prices are related, also exactly, on the one hand to actual prices and on the other hand to the values and quantities of direct labour represented in the commodities, so that all the vectors involved are calculable simultaneously within a single accounting system. Fifthly, it is explained why a physical theory of value, based on a substance of value alternative to labour, cannot prosper. And finally it is shown that the only productive factor of value is labour, and, although all factors cooperate with labour in the production of wealth (use values), this is an irrelevant question for the determination of prices.
An Alternative Reading of the Transformation of Values into Prices of Production
Capital & Class 63 115-136, 1997
This article analyses the transformation of values into prices of production from the point of view of differences in the organic composition of capital. Marx's transformation has two stages. In the first, the value of the means of production used up is irrelevant; in the second, the economy is analysed at the level of price. The transformation helps to explain the distribution of labour and surplus value across the economy, and substantiates the claim that value is produced by labour alone. However, it does not allow the vector of prices of production to be calculated.
Towards Understanding Marx’s Theory of Equilibrium and Prices of Production
Marx-Engels-Jahrbuch 2019/20
"first of all, a process between man and nature, a process by which man, through his own actions, mediates, regulates and controls the metabolism between himself and nature" (Karl Marx: Capital: A critique of political economy Volume One. Translated by Ben Fowkes. London 2004, p. 638). This is the sense in which "labor" must be understood in this paper. Some regard labor as the metabolism between human and nature, but this interpretation is incorrect. Indeed, labor is itself part of the metabolism between human beings and nature. However, the uniqueness of labor is not merely that it is a material metabolism, but that it is a process that "mediates, regulates, and controls" that metabolism. Therefore, the view that interprets Marx's understanding of "labor" as limited to "material labor" is also incorrect. 3 Karl Marx: Notes on Wagner's Lehrbuch der politischen Oekonomie. In: MECW. Vol. 24, p. 534. 4 Marx also writes: "I do not proceed from 'concepts', hence neither from the 'concept of value', and am therefore in no way concerned to 'divide' it. What I proceed from is the simplest social form in which the product of labor presents itself in contemporary society, and this is the 'commodity'." (Ibid., p. 544). 5 See e.g. Kliman: Reclaiming Marx's "Capital" (fn. 1) and Paul M. Sweezy: The Theory of Capitalist Development. New York 1942. 6 See David Harvey: A Companion to Marx's Capital. London 2010. Although Harvey emphasizes the importance of understanding the commodity as a unity of dual aspect, he carelessly defines "something called value [...] as socially necessary labor-time" (ibid, p. 23).
The transformation of values into prices of production versus the transformation problem
2015
We here defend Marx's oft-refuted account of the transformation of values into prices of production in two ways. First, we argue that it was appropriate to his purpose, that of showing the transformation to be part of the process by which workers' subjectivity is transformed into an antagonistic economic 'objectivity'. To comprehend this process of transformation into opposite, we suggest, values and prices must be retained in one relation, not separated into opposed systems of calculation. Second, we show that, once values and prices are held in a single relation, Marx's account is logically coherent. Like most contributors to this book, we contend that static equilibrium formalisations distort Marx's value theory. Our work, however, is not intended to develop an alternative, non-equilibrium political economy. Rather, we conceive our defence of Marx's account of the value-price transformation as an attempt to combat an ideological attack on his body of ideas and thus to create a place for its renewal, and as contributions to the critique of political economy on the foundations laid by Marx. The difference between political economy and Marx's critique of it is, in our view, twofold. Firstly, whereas rival schools of economics primarily argue over which gives the best account of the functioning of existing society, Capital does not merely criticize others' conceptions of reality. It is a philosophical critique of economics, which critiques the existing reality of capitalism itself, including its thought, from the standpoint of an envisioned new, human society, the conditions for which develop through the struggles of revolutionary subjects within existing society. Because its projects and concepts-and not only Marx's own opinionsare thus inherently critical, Marx's work becomes subject to distortion when forced into the mould of economic theory.
Value and Price in Marx's Capital
Revolutionary Communist 1 (2nd Edition) May, 1976
Of all the fashionable 'corrections' of Marx's Capital, none has been performed so often as the transformation of values into prices. From Bortkiewicz (1907) [3] to Samuelson (1971) [4], bourgeois 'science' has felt itself impelled to improve, correct or revise Marx on this question. With Sweezy's introduction of the Bortkiewicz 'correction' of Marx to the English speaking world in 1946 [5], another round of 'solutions' began. Although many differ in form from the Bortkiewicz/Sweezy contribution, and some avoid the more obvious errors, they treat the problem in a more or less similar way.
Marx's Theory of Price and its Modern Rivals
2011
Preface ix Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Marx's Theory of Price in the Simple Circulation of Commodities 2.1 Why Marx begins with the simple circulation of commodities 2.2 Understanding the simple commodity circulation process 2.3 Understanding price in simple commodity production 2.4 The magnitudes of reproduction prices Why start with reproduction prices? Relative reproduction prices Money reproduction prices 2.5 Actual prices Actual prices and reproduction prices Possibility of divergences Sources of divergences The price adjustment process 2.6 A digression on social and abstract labour Chapter 3 Marx's Theory of Price-Capitalist Commodity Production 3.1 Understanding prices in capitalism 3.2 Marx's approach to explaining the magnitudes of prices in capitalism 3.3 The magnitudes of 'prices of production' Relative prices of production Marx's transformation procedure Supply and demand Money prices of production 3.4 Changes in prices of production Relative prices of production Money prices of production 3.5 Prices of production with non-producible inputs 3.6 Monopoly prices v 3.7 Market prices Possibility of divergences Nature of divergences Causes of divergences The price adjustment process Chapter 4 Marx on Smith and Ricardo 4.1 Adam Smith 4.2 Ricardo Chapter 5 Marxist Interpretations of Marx's Theory of Price 5.1 Traditional interpretation Marx's 'transformation problem' Monopoly capitalism 5.2 Modern interpretations The New Interpretation The Temporal Single System Interpretation Chapter 6 The Neoclassical Theory of Price 6.1 Introduction 6.2 The exchange process 6.3 Understanding price The precondition for the existence of prices Formation of prices Form of prices Purpose of prices Nature of prices Relative prices Money prices 6.4 Price constructs Equilibrium prices Long-and short-run prices Competitive and monopoly prices Relative and money prices 6.5 The magnitude of equilibrium relative price 6.6 Changes in equilibrium relative price magnitudes 6.7 The magnitude of monopoly price 6.8 The value of money and equilibrium money price level 6.9 The price adjustment process Relative prices Money prices vi Contents Chapter 7 The Post Keynesian Theory of Price 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Focus and method 7.3 The exchange process 7.4 Understanding price The precondition for the existence of price Formation of prices Form of prices Purpose of prices Nature of prices 7.5 Explicit and implicit price constructs Disequilibrium prices Long-and short-run prices Competitive and non-competitive prices Relative and money prices 7.6 The magnitude of price 7.7 Changes in price magnitudes 7.8 The value of money and the aggregate money price level 7.9 The price adjustment process Chapter 8 Sraffa's Theory of Price 8.1 Focus, method and approach 8.2 The exchange process 8.3 Understanding price Formation of prices Form of prices Purpose of prices Nature of prices 8.4 Implicit price constructs Equilibrium and long-run prices Competitive and non-competitive prices Relative and money prices 8.5 The magnitude of relative price Subsistence production Surplus production Single-product industries Joint-product industries Fixed capital Non-produced inputs Contents vii 8.6 Changes in relative price magnitudes The core arguments Extensions Joint products Non-produced inputs 8.7 The magnitudes of money prices Chapter 9 Concluding Remarks 9.1 Marx's contribution to the theory of price, or why choose Marx? 9.2 Locating Marx's theory of price 9.3 The significance of rehabilitating Marx's theory of price Notes References