The Labor Theory of Value and Simple Commodity Production

Abstract

Marx once characterized the economy of the North American colonies as one of simple commodity production. Historical research shows that simple commodity production there was a type of “moral economy” in which the labor theory of value fails to explain the market prices at which commodities exchange. This should not surprise; the “law of value” and the labor theory are theoretically suited to explain exchange ratios only in capitalism and in no other mode, historical or hypothetical. The first three chapters of Capital therefore explicate the labor theory in the context of a capitalist economy and not, as many interpreters of Marx have it, in the context of simple commodity production. Yet Marx elsewhere applies the “law of value” to precapitalist economies, including simple commodity production, thus engaging in an apparent contradiction. This inconsistency only disappears if he is read “dialectically” — with a heady dose of Hegelian teleology. This, however, comes at the considerable cost of substituting metaphysical for scientific explanation. The Analytical Marxists' aim of expunging Hegelian influences from historical materialism thus appears to be justified.