Rethinking Marx's Value-Form Analysis from an Althusserian Perspective

Abstract

This article explores Louis Althusser's position that Marx's value theory constitutes a radical break from the classical (Ricardian) notion of value, conceiving value not as a quantity of labor contained in the commodity but as a social relation expressing the immanent regularities of the capitalist mode of production. Nevertheless, Althusser did not fully recognize that the Marxian break with political economy was centered above all in the value-form analysis he developed in part 1 of volume 1 of Capital. This oversight in turn hindered Althusser from appreciating the full extent of Marx's theoretical ambivalence in his mature writings and, more specifically, in volume 3 of Capital.