Accounting for Marx and His Theory of Value: A Review of Robert Bryer's Accounting for Value in Marx's Capital: The Invisible Hand (original) (raw)
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Marx 200: The Abiding Relevance of the Labour Theory of Value
Review of Political Economy, 2018
Marxist political economy is alive and well, and not just because of the habitual turn to Marx in response to any crisis of capitalism. Both through Capital and through the continuing evolution of Marxism, Marxist political economy offers valuable insights that can illuminate the modalities of social and economic reproduction and the relationships between (different aspects of) the economic and the non-economic. Marxism's presence has been felt through its own internal debates and debates with other approaches to political economy, and even through its influence on those reacting against Marxism. The key to the continuing relevance and analytical strengths of Marxist political economy lies in its capacity to provide a framework of analysis for unifying disparate insights into and critiques of the contradictions of capitalism across the social sciences. The instrument for forging that unity is Marx's theory of value, the potential of which is examined and illustrated with reference to the Sraffian critique and two key concepts in Marxian political economy: the value of labour power and financialisation. They are explored in the light of the processes of commodification, commodity form and commodity calculation. ARTICLE HISTORY
Marx ’ s accounting solution to the ‘ transformation problem
2015
Critics have argued for more than 100 years that in Volume 3 of Capital Marx failed to solve his ‘transformation problem’, failed to reconcile separate systems of values with prices, and simultaneously value inputs and outputs at closing prices, and doing so showed his solution was inconsistent, fatally undermining his labour theory of value. From the 1980s the ‘New Interpretation’ (NI), the ‘Simultaneous single-system interpretation’ (SSSI), and the ‘Temporal single-system interpretation’ (TSSI) challenged this standard interpretation to differing degrees. The paper supports their criticisms of its ‘dual system’ and ‘simultaneist’ interpretations by showing that they are inconsistent with Marx’s theory of capitalist accounting, but goes beyond them by arguing that it underlies his theory of value. It supports the NI’s focus on Marx’s core claim that only ‘socially necessary labour time’ adds money value to commodities, but reinforces the SSSI’s criticism of its dual-system accounti...
Graduate thesis for Sussex University's SPT (Social and Political Thought Program), supervised by Andrew Chitty. This paper critically examines the implications entailed in Marxian value theory brought by interpretations that stress Marx’s analysis of the value-form. Touching on areas such as the correct method of enquiry, and the aim of Marx's critique, it provides a detailed exposition of the traditional Marxian theory of value and investigates issues such as the problems of concepts like abstract labour and socially necessary labour time and substantialism in Marx’s “value”. These have led to value form theory and it ultimately identifies them as problematic enough to necessitate a break with the traditional understanding of value in Marxism towards a monetary theory of value. The reduction problem is both the central flaw at the heart of the traditional value theory, and what points towards a monetary value theory. The essay offers an elaboration of such a theory followed by a critical analysis of its implications. The implications are assessed first from the standpoint of the ontological insights of the value-form, and second the imperatives of (Marxian) critique. (1)The proposed value theory remains true to the core of the ethos of Marxist critique as a qualitative insight which illustrates how class relation determines the production and distribution of social product. (2)Beyond the merely qualitative, it remains compatible with the fundamental insight of Marxism, the law of value, asserted with reference to ideal precommensuration in production, thus remaining capable of identifying the causal mechanisms which constitute capitalist reproduction.Supplementing the conclusion is a discussion of what the value form approach entails for quantitatively-focused research, identifying the different positions of the debate and the direction in which it is heading, contextualizing those endeavours amidst a discussion of the priorities Marxist theory is to set for itself.
Historical Materialism, 2010
Andrew Kliman's Reclaiming Marx's 'Capital' sets out to refute the 'myth' that Marx's original presentation of the theory of the value is internally inconsistent. A century ago, Bortkiewicz purported to demonstrate that Marx's mistake was his failure to adopt simultaneous valuation. Thereafter, twentieth-century Marxian economics worked out a 'corrected' version of Marx's original theory, culminating in Steedman's 1977 Marx after Sraffa. Conclusions Marx himself deemed central were dropped, prominently including the law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit. But simultaneous valuation is absolutely incompatible with Marx's first and fundamental premise, the determination of value by labour-time. On the other hand, if Marx's major theoretical conclusions do consistently follow from his premises, including the transformation of values into prices of production, then the quantitative dimension of his value-theory is internally consistent after all and stands in no need of correction on this score. Advocating a temporal, single-system interpretation, Kliman shows how 'two simple modifications' eliminate 'all of the alleged inconsistencies in the quantitative dimension of Marx's value theory': valuation is temporal, and values and prices are determined interdependently. Kliman's refutation is sound, but his claim to know Marx's intentions, in E.D. Hirsch's sense, is questionable.
11.[1-6]An Analysis of Karl Marx’s Theory of Value on the Contemporary Capitalist Economy
The paper examines Karl Marx's theory of value and its implications on the contemporary capitalist economy. By doing this, the paper critically reviews the principles of Marx's value analysis by extrapolating from the writings of Karl Marx and Neo -Marxists which fits into the Marxian theory of value. The study indicates that capitalism does have an overall tendency to extract surplus value from labour provided by the workers, since it is the most malleable (influenced) of things within the confines of capitalism in the production process as noted by Marx. According to Marx, a system like capitalism, where people are coerced or forced to sell their labour in order to survive is unjust and that in the modern capitalist economy, the rate of profitability or success in production is determined by the ability to produce surplus value. In contemporary capitalist economy, during the production process, the worker uses his/her labour to produce adequate goods and services, but only receive wages enough for subsistence, hence making a surplus for the capitalist. However, the question still remains whether the labourers/workers/proletariats have a choice of selling their labour or not in order to survive in the contemporary capitalist economy as it were in orthodox capitalism?
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).
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
An Analysis of Karl Marx's Theory of Value on the Contemporary Capitalist Economy
The paper examines Karl Marx's theory of value and its implications on the contemporary capitalist economy. By doing this, the paper critically reviews the principles of Marx's value analysis by extrapolating from the writings of Karl Marx and Neo -Marxists which fits into the Marxian theory of value. The study indicates that capitalism does have an overall tendency to extract surplus value from labour provided by the workers, since it is the most malleable (influenced) of things within the confines of capitalism in the production process as noted by Marx. According to Marx, a system like capitalism, where people are coerced or forced to sell their labour in order to survive is unjust and that in the modern capitalist economy, the rate of profitability or success in production is determined by the ability to produce surplus value. In contemporary capitalist economy, during the production process, the worker uses his/her labour to produce adequate goods and services, but only receive wages enough for subsistence, hence making a surplus for the capitalist. However, the question still remains whether the labourers/workers/proletariats have a choice of selling their labour or not in order to survive in the contemporary capitalist economy as it were in orthodox capitalism?