Marx on Ricardo: an explanation of some important misunderstandings

Ricardo's theory of value and distribution is reconstructed by proceeding along the lines of Marx's critique of Ricardo. It is thus an anti-critique of Marx's reading of Ricardo. The chapter ‘On Value’ in Ricardo's Principles is shown to be a consistent and rigorous treatment of the determinants of prices of production. According to Ricardo labor-values merely serve to approximate more elaborate standards of value. Marx's criticism is shown to rest crucially on his own misinterpretation of Ricardo's definitions and presupposes his own – faulty – theory of surplus value. Therefore Ricardo's theory can – contrary to Marx's theory of surplus value – still be regarded as a fruitful complement to Sraffa's model.     

Sraffa’s Constructive and Interpretive Work,and Marx

ABSTRACT

This article provides a summary account of Piero Sraffa’s constructive and interpretive work on the classical approach to the theory of value and distribution and its relationship with Marx’s contributions. It is shown that in the early phase of his constructive work Sraffa developed his equation systems by adopting a ‘physical real cost’ approach and a strictly objectivist point of view, and completely eschewed Marx’s labour-based approach and the related Marxian concepts. Only at a later stage did he explore systematically the relationship between his own modern re-formulation of the surplus approach to the theory of value and distribution and Marx’s contribution. He considered Marx’s most important analytical contribution to the further development of the surplus approach to consist of the re-integration of circular production relations, which allowed him to see the existence of a maximum rate of profits and its role in an analysis of accumulation and technical change.     

Keynes,Ricardo and the classical theory of interest

Keynes made harsh and repeated attacks on the work of Ricardo, blaming him particulary for what Keynes called the ‘classical theory’ of interest. Garegnani and others argue that Keynes' criticisms of the classical theory of interest apply to later neoclassical writers, but not to Ricardo. This paper re-examines Keynes' criticisms. It argues that Keynes attacked Ricardoapos;s theory of interest despite his awareness that Ricardo did not hold the ‘classical theory’. Moreover, Keynes not only expressed sympathy for Ricardo's understanding of interest, but his criticisms which do apply to Ricardo do not address Ricardo's theory of interest.     

Reading Sraffa's Indices – a note *

Piero Sraffa took thirteen years to publish the General Indexto The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo.The Index is compared to others and is shown to be exceptional in that it leads the way to specific interpretations of Ricardo's life and theory. The choice of entries referring to theory is based on Ricardo's own concepts and carefully avoids neoricardian, Marxian and neoclassical terms. Examples discussed concern ‘comparative advantage’ and ‘value’ The entries referring to Ricardo's life are proof of Sraffa's broad historical interests and focus on certain characteristics of Ricardo.     

Surplus Value Production and Realization in Marxian Theory – Applications to the U.S., 1990–2015

ABSTRACT

Marx's Capital shows that surplus value can be produced in one industry, yet realized as profit (and possibly revenue) by other industries over the course of circulation. This paper highlights the separation between surplus value production and realization in Marx's work, and develops a new method for estimating surplus value production at the industry level to trace out transfers of surplus value across industries. The framework is based on the ‘New Interpretation’ and links money value added to surplus value production at the industry level. Data on value added by industry for the U.S. are used to estimate surplus value production by industry. The analysis allows comparison of surplus value production and realization in each industry. The pattern of differentials between surplus value creation and realization across industries sheds light on the processes of capitalist competition and points to a source of instability for capitalist economies.     

The employment contract with externalised costs: the avatars of Marxian exploitation

Abstract

The paper pursues two aims. The first is to argue that the foundation of Marx’s theory of capitalist exploitation is to be found, not in the labour theory of value, but rather in the contract of employment, the legal frame of the capital-labour relation. The second is to suggest that the partial externalisation of the reproduction cost of labour power has been an important source of relative surplus value, along with the productivity increase, emphasised by Marx, in the industries supplying wage goods.     

Marx and Ricardo on machinery: a critical note

This article critically discusses the important and relevant—not to mention controversial— views of Ricardo and Marx on the impact of machinery on labor productivity, the organization of production and the wages and employment prospects of the working class during the capitalism of their day. First, the article turns to Ricardo’s assessment of the introduction of machinery and its likely effects on the laborer and the rate of profit and accumulation—one which went through a substantial revision (and reversal) between the first and third editions of his Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. Then, we discuss Marx’s own critical analysis of the historical development of machinery and its impact on the labor process, the so-called “compensation principle,” and how the rising organic composition of capital ostensibly generates a “redundant or surplus-population” during the course of capitalist development. We highlight Marx’s intellectual debt to Ricardo, John Barton (and George Ramsay) insofar as his theory of technological unemployment is concerned. Lastly, the article summarizes the views of Ricardo and Marx and offers some concluding remarks.     

Marx 200: The Abiding Relevance of the Labour Theory of Value

ABSTRACT

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.     

Refugees as Surplus Population: Race,Migration and Capitalist Value Regimes

ABSTRACT

Refugees and migrants are often studied as though they have no relation to the racial and class structures of the societies in which they reside. They are strangers to be governed by ‘integration’ policy and border management. Refugees and migrants are, however, subjects of contemporary capitalism struggling to render themselves valuable capitalist modes of production. I study the government of refugees and migrants in order to examine capitalist value regimes. Societal values and hierarchies reflected in capitalist modes of production impact on struggles of racialised subaltern groups to translate body power into valued labour. Marx’s account of surplus populations points to the common marginalisations of people called ‘refugees’ and other subaltern groups struggling to translate their body power into valorised labour. The essay includes a study of the gentrification of a district in Budapest, and its transformation into a means for the reproduction of capital, leading to the marginalisation of groups who no longer fit the new value regimes. Studying refugees as surplus populations allows for a sense of the common marginalisations of subaltern and racialised groups before capitalism, and questions the treatment of refugees and migrants as ‘strangers’.     

James Steuart and the making of Karl Marx’s monetary thought

Abstract

This paper analyses the influence of James Steuart on Karl Marx’s monetary thought. It deals more specifically with Marx’s rejection of an automatic mechanism that links variations in the quantity of money to their direct impact on prices. Steuart’s pioneering discoveries in economics inaugurate an anti-quantity theory tradition that Marx supported and which fed his own conception of money and credit. Here, we deal with the criticism of the assumptions of the quantity theory of money (QTM), the specifically social character of labour which creates exchange value, the distinction between the functions of money, the difference between income spending and capital advances, and the difference between simple circulation and reflux of money credit.     

Searching for New Jerusalems: P.H. Wicksteed’s “Jevonian” critique of Marx’s Capital

Abstract

In 1884, P.H. Wicksteed published a critique of the first volume of Marx’s Capital, the first detailed analytical encounter in English between Marx’s value theory and the new discourse of “marginalism”. In revisiting that episode, this article has three principal objectives. The first is to show how Wicksteed developed his understanding of political economy, as he moved from initially following Henry George’s Progress and Poverty. The second is to examine why Wicksteed’s defence of George necessitated criticizing the Marxist Social Democratic Federation. The third is to show that Wicksteed’s criticisms of Marx were simply incorrect.     

Say’s Law,Marxian Crisis Theory and the Interconnectedness of the Capitalist Economy

ABSTRACT

Scholars have long debated exactly why Marx felt that general gluts were not just possible, but inevitable. This article argues that Theories of Surplus Value anchored that necessity in the complex interconnectedness that characterizes capitalist production. There, Marx’s criticism of Say’s Law builds on a version of crisis theory that begins with raw material shortages in a leading sector. The disturbance is then transmitted through the many inter-industry linkages in the capitalist economy. What starts as a supply-side shock in a leading sector is transformed into a broad crisis of aggregate demand as workers are laid off and businesses fall into insolvency. This article argues that Marx’s later discussion of other types of crises in Capital can be read as consistent with this approach. A severe profit squeeze in a leading sector (whether originating in intermediate good prices, market demand, rising wages or rising use of fixed capital) necessarily turns into a general glut. In this context, Say’s Law becomes an irrelevant theorem concerning an imaginary economy. What Marx sees as fundamentally new under capitalism is not the use of money and the separation of sale and purchase, but massive interconnectedness.     

非物质劳动条件下马克思的劳动价值论过时了吗——评哈特和奈格里基于“共同性”的价值理论

哈特和奈格里根据当代资本主义劳动范式的转型提出了非物质劳动概念,并认为在非物质劳动条件下马克思的劳动价值论需要做出修正,进而提出了基于"共同性"的价值理论。本文通过批判性地分析他们的观点,得出以下结论:(1)以"工作时间与生活时间的模糊"来质疑马克思的劳动价值论是对劳动价值论的误读,马克思的"社会必要劳动时间计量商品价值量"是抽象意义的"计量",是对本质的规定,而非具体意义的"计量",它由商品生产与交换的社会过程客观决定,不能以具体意义的"劳动时间难以测量"来否定价值的质的规定;(2)基于"共同性"的价值理论服务于哈特和奈格里主体政治的理论建构思路,他们对价值的解读具有很强的主体性特征,这种价值与其说是商品价值,不如说是政治价值;(3)哈特和奈格里的理论建构方法,早已脱离了辩证唯物主义和历史唯物主义,走向唯心主义。因此,当代资本主义的政治经济学批判仍应建立在马克思劳动价值论的基础之上。     

Error or absurdity? A non-cognitive approach to commodity fetishism

Abstract

Karl Marx presented his theory of commodity fetishism as an explanation of the mysterious appearance of social relations in a system of commodity production as natural phenomena. The standard interpretation of this as a failure to perceive capitalist social relations correctly depends on a particular modern sense of ‘natural’. If classical political economy and Marx used ‘natural’ in the Aristotelian sense, commodity fetishism appears quite differently: not as a cognitive error but rather as a manner of living under commodity production, one that is not wrong but absurd, the word fetishism tying commodity production to pre-Enlightenment, preliterate peoples.     

The Counterfactual Method of Marx's Theory of Surplus

The aim of this paper is to show that Marx supports his theory of surplus value by developing a counterfactual argument, that is, by comparing the 'normal' state of a capitalist economy against a hypothetical state in which no surplus is produced. Marx then divides his analysis of value into three successive steps. The first deals with the production of new value in the sphere of production; the second with the process of creation of surplus value, both in the sphere of production and in the sphere of circulation; and the third with the process of equalisation of the rate of profit, which is accomplished via capitalist competition in the sphere of circulation. The paper proposes a formalisation of the three-step analysis and of the counterfactual argument. Marx's three-step analysis is shown to be a scientific analysis of the hidden connections between social relations (expressed in labour flows) and commodity exchange; thus it is not a useless detour.     

马克思剩余价值理论视角下信息商品增值研究

信息劳动创造价值,如何在马克思剩余价值理论视角下研究信息商品增值是一个新的研究课题。信息劳动是复杂劳动,创建期投入巨大,一些信息商品具有独特形式。将信息生产的不同时期的区分引入复杂的劳动过程和价值增殖的研究：信息商品创建期和扩大生产期都属于生产过程,在生产中获得价值增殖的潜力,而通过流通过程,创造出巨大数量的消费受众,从而实现了剩余价值的获得。巨大的规模投资、极高的技术门槛和政府政策保护使信息企业获得超额剩余价值。     

Marxism,Crypto-Marxism and the Political Economy of Capitalism

ABSTRACT

This article conducts groundwork for a discussion of Marx’s influence through examining the boundaries of the specifically Marxian school of economics. This Marxian school extends well beyond the bounds of the self-identified Marxian school. Marx’s influence, Marxian themes and effectively Marxian theory can be found in several important heterodox traditions of economics, though this is often unacknowledged. A consideration of the proper boundaries of the Marxian school of economics is essential for a full understanding of Marx’s legacy and could contribute to the emergence of a more unified heterodoxy in economics.     

The physiocrats' concept of labour: A difficulty in Marx's interpretation

Abstract

This article explains the difference between the concept of labour developed by the Physiocrats and Marx. We show that Marx's interpretation based on Turgot is questionable. Whereas Marx bases his ideas on a Lockian definition of labour which puts labour at the origin of value, Quesnay and his disciples develop a mechanistic definition of labour established on Neo-Cartesian foundations. This particular concept of labour then combines with a bio-physical definition of production. The theory of the net product is therefore re-interpreted.     

‘Anecdotal myths’: Tinbergen's influence on Harrod's growth theory

Abstract

In the history of economic theory, Harrod's transition from the explanation of business cycles in An Essay on the Trade Cycle (1936) to his well‐known growth theory in ‘An essay in dynamic theory’ (1939) has always been surrounded by some degree of speculation. One of the topics in that area of speculation concerns the (degree of) influence exerted by Tinbergen on the development of Harrod's growth theory during the 1936–9 period.

This paper argues that Tinbergen's influence on Harrod's work mainly took place on formal, mathematical, grounds, leaving methodological matters untouched. This matter is of some importance in understanding the success of what was initially considered by others as a ‘dynamic’ extension of the Keynesian research programme and later evolved, through the work of Tinbergen and Solow, into a neoclassical growth theory.     

MARX@200

ABSTRACT

The article begins by outlining the philosophic anthropology that Marx derived from his reading of Hegel. We continue by arguing that this formed the basis of his materialist conception of history and his analysis of the political economy of the capitalist mode of production, with particular reference being made to Marx’s theory of value and his account of the economic contradictions of the capitalist system. We then discuss his views on the nature of post-capitalist society, concluding with a critical but broadly positive account of the relevance of his ideas to modern capitalism. Marx, we suggest, should not be regarded as a purely 19th-century thinker, as some recent biographers have maintained.