On the transformation of values into prices of production apropos of Moseley’s Money and Totality

Abstract

Mosely’s book provides a vantage point for a critical analysis of the ‘transformation problem’, as it questions the dominant conceptions that reduce the methodological debate to a matter of constructing systems of equations; at the same time, it shares with them the reduction of the methodological question to a matter of interpreting Marx’s texts. Moseley interprets ‘Capital’ as a logical representation composed of a macro theory and a micro theory. The article starts by showing how this approach mutilates the organic unity between social capital and individual capitals. Consequently, focus is placed on Moseley’s presupposition of values as if they were given in prices of production to explain the determination of these same prices, as well as on his exclusion of gold’s exchangeability as a product of capital from the transformation process. The article extends the methodological analysis to the above-mentioned prevailing conceptions and their ideological basis. Next, it shows how they coincide with Moseley’s in the logical inconsistency of assuming that the value of total variable capital and total surplus value appear unchanged in prices of production, although the organic compositions of the spheres that produce their material content differ from the social average. At this point, the real issue is brought forward: it is not about interpreting Marx’s texts in search of a ‘given’ or an ‘invariance postulate’ to construct a model that satisfies them; the point is to follow Marx’s methodological proposal to reproduce by way of thought the concrete determinations that make values take the complete form of prices of production of a certain magnitude. Finally, the article follows this path to demonstrate how, even if the value contents of total variable capital and total surplus value remain quantitatively unchanged, the prices of production in which they necessarily take form will quantitatively differ from those value contents.