The disintegration of the Marxian school

Abstract

This paper argues that the renewed relevance and strengthened theoretical foundations of Marxian value theory will not matter unless the long-term disintegration of Marxian economics is reversed, and that this disintegration has largely been caused by internal factors. These include a lack of common standards and criteria of justification; an ‘every man his own Marxist’ ethos; the quest to make Marxian economics respectable; the pursuit of ‘product differentiation’; a reliance on the resources of academia; and an instrumental approach to ideas. Finally, the paper proposes several measures to halt and reverse the process of disintegration.