Abstract
Michio Morishima's recapitulation and study of Marxian economics by means of mathematical methods focus primarily on the typical themes such as the labor theory of value, the theory of exploitation, the transformation problem, the theory of reproduction and so on, which provides a new mathematical perspective for understanding Marxian economics. However, Morishima's understanding of Marxian economics is full of contradictions: on the one hand, he speaks highly of Marxian economics, believing that Marx has conducted pioneering work in and made innovative contributions to general equilibrium theory, dynamic general equilibrium theory, contemporary economic growth theory, input–output analysis and the dual dualities of commodity production society and the like important fields and front subjects of modern economics, in particular Morishima, employing mathematical methods, has proved the objectivity of values and the sufficiency and necessity of exploitation to capitalism; on the other hand, Morishima attempts to integrate Marxian economics into orthodox economics, and finally contends abandoning the labor theory of value, the theory of exploitation (the theory of surplus value) and the theory of the breakdown of capitalism. The work of Morishima shows that formalized Marxian economics must follow the logic of Marxian economics, otherwise, replacing the logic of economics with the logic of mathematics will lead to erroneous results.
Highlights
This shows that Morishima considers the labor theory of value entirely as a theory of aggregation, interpreting and utilizing values as the weights of aggregation. He even states that if Marx had a chance to read Keynes’s The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, he would have elaborated his value theory as an aggregation theory (Morishima 1973, 8, 10). This view of Morishima has completely distorted the labor theory of value, and shows that he does not understand the significance of and the role played by the labor theory of value in Marxian economics, is not aware that the labor theory of value is the theoretical basis of studying surplus value and does not exist to solve the aggregation problem, does not give consideration to the point stressed repeatedly by Marx that the values of commodities are the social relations of labor exchange between producers under the conditions of private divisions, which include a series of internal contradictions, and not merely provide theoretical explanations for the equilibrium prices of commodities and their fluctuations
Morishima recapitulates Marxian economics by means of mathematical methods and puts forward some opinions worthy of attention. These opinions provide a new perspective for studying Marxian economics
Because the purpose of formalizing Marxian economics by Morishima is to enable Marxian economics to be integrated into orthodox economics, most of his opinions should be discussed
Summary
If and only if the inputcoefficient matrix of the capital good industries, AΙ, is productive, a positive price set pΙ satisfying pΙ > pΙ AΙ exists, which shows that the necessary condition for the possibility of capitalism to survive is identical with the sufficient and necessary condition for the labor theory of value to be meaningful, i.e., establishing the non-negativeness of the “values” of commodities (Morishima 1973, 23–25).
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