Marx's Theory Of Value Research Articles

The commune is our payable debt

This essay holds a conversation with Denise Ferreira da Silva’s book, Unpayable Debt. Ferreira da Silva describes Unpayable Debt as a Black feminist reading tool that stages the onto-epistemological conditions for the unrelenting persistence of the Colonial and the Racial—modalities of power and violence—in the present, in/as global capital. A major part of the work performed by Ferreira da Silva with this reading tool is the re/de/composition of a Marxian theory of value. This work is intended to show that Marx’s analysis conceals gendered and racialized violence in the way it renders the dynamic of capitalist accumulation. In concurring with the urgency of Ferreira da Silva’s question and ensuing interrogation, I offer a different way of reading Marx’s theory of value, as a theory that illuminates how capital comes to mediate gendered and racialized subjugation, sustaining it through its dissimulation.

Concepts of Use-Value and Exchange-Value in Housing Research

ABSTRACT This article looks closely at the concepts of use-value and exchange-value and their application in housing research. Critique of the prioritization of exchange-value under capitalism lies at the heart of a vast body of academic literature on the right to housing and the right to the city. However, most publications apply these terms not in their original meaning as categories of economic theory, but as normative categories, which leads to their moralization. To address this problem, this paper traces the transformation of use-exchange-value dialectics from its origin in Marxian value theory, throughout the writings of Lefebvre and Harvey to its current application in housing research. It identifies the sources of the positive bias associated with the concept of use-value and proposes an alternative interpretation differentiating between use-value in general, use-value of a commodity, and social use-value. This paper argues against the conflation of economic value and moral values in housing research.

Putting labour values to work

Abstract Conventional wisdom has it that Marxian value theory, and labour values themselves, are logically inconsistent, theoretically shaky, and empirically irrelevant. In this paper, we discuss recent research showing that this conclusion is not warranted. While past debates have definitively proved that labour values, or employment multipliers, cannot be used to explain equilibrium prices, this does not mean that a sound, empirically oriented Marxian approach cannot be built which assigns a central role to labour values. To be specific, we argue that they can be used to understand certain fundamental laws of capitalist economies – in particular the relation between profitability, technical progress, and accumulation – and also to construct normatively interesting indices capturing certain inequalities in well-being freedom.

Why ecological economics should not adopt Marxian value theory

In their attempts to challenge the view of neoclassical economics that economic value is determined by subjective preferences, heterodox economists have posited objective measures of value based on abstractions such as “socially necessary labor time” or embodied energy. Such approaches seem intuitively to be valid ways of understanding capitalist exploitation, unequal exchange, and accumulation, but are analytically flawed. As the concept of economic value assumes a monetary metric, it cannot be applied to biophysical resources such as labor time or energy, which are measured in hours or Joules. The critics of neoclassical economics have thus remained constrained by the conceptual universe of the discipline that they are criticizing. To transcend this impasse, we must recognize that the capitalist pursuit of exchange-values is propelled by the artifact of general-purpose money and that its encouragement of endlessly expanding production and economic growth conflicts with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. A coherent understanding of ecologically unequal exchange in the world-system means criticizing neoclassical economics without advocating an alternative theory of value. What are being unequally exchanged in the world-system are not “underpaid values” but material resources. Such a perspective on global inequalities implies a fundamental reconsideration of the mainstream view of technological progress.

Dialectics of Association and Dissociation: Spaces of Valuation, Trade, and Retail in the Gemstone and Jewelry Sector

abstract This article aims to substantiate how processes of valuation translate between different registers of value. We develop an analytical framework of how valuation is intertwined with geographic origination and the geographies of association and dissociation, which establish how commodities and consumer products are either associated with, or dissociated from, matters that are beneficial or damaging for sales and brand reputation. The article focuses on the rather unexplored gemstone and jewelry sector, and shows how the analysis of value is not reducible to Marxist notions of exchange and use value but needs to take into account symbolic and sign value, and embrace dis/association dialectics. It develops a novel conceptual framework that draws upon the early work of Baudrillard on symbolic value, together with Marxian value theory, and mobilizes it for the analysis of association–dissociation dialectics and practices in global value chains. We are particularly concerned with the role of origination and provenance to highlight the intrinsically geographic dimensions of gemstones that are enacted by traders and retailers in the valuation process. The article shows how valuation and consumption of gemstone and jewelry play out through complex and multiscalar, relational associative and dissociative practices, which intertwine with revealed sustainability problems in the diamond industry. It also shows how a current rise in the value and popularity of colored stones interrelate with a corporate refocusing away from mined diamonds, and entails even more in-transparent supply networks.

Equivalence and Antagonism in Marx’s Theory of Value

The centrality of abstract labor in the Marxian theory of value seems to imply an essentialist position incompatible with Ernesto Laclau’s poststructuralist theory of hegemony. However, this essay argues that the Marxian value theory—in the interpretation offered by Moishe Postone—is in fact very much compatible with Laclau’s focus on social contingency insofar as it understands abstract labor as a framework of social relations. This raises the question: if abstract-labor equivalence does not derive from a metaphysical essence, then how does it emerge as a socially constructed universality? The theory of value already anticipated Laclau’s logics of difference, equivalence, and the empty signifier, and Laclau’s work on antagonism can strengthen the argument that abstract-labor equivalence does not involve essentialism. The central point of this essay is thus to interpret abstract labor as a contingent hegemonic formation, constituted upon the antagonistic exclusion of directly useful work.

Measuring and managing creative labour: Value struggles and billable hours in the creative industries

Creative labour is often characterised as hard to measure and manage. As ‘immaterial labour’, it breaches the working day’s boundaries and produces uncertain outputs. These conditions, claim postoperaists, precipitate a ‘crisis of measurability’. Drawing on 33 interviews with workers at 10 graphic, brand and strategic design agencies in the UK and the Netherlands, this article disputes claims creative labour eludes quantification. Responding to calls to reconnect organisational research with the study of value, it deploys Marxian value theory to demonstrate that the billable hours system of pricing and allocating work in creative agencies establishes ‘fictitious norms of timing’ reminiscent of the Taylorist factory that mediate the labour-process with reference to standards of socially-necessary labour-time set in the market. Rebureaucratising and socialising creative labour, billable hours help creative agencies overcome measurability as a problem, not a crisis. But the timesheeting practices around which billable hours are organised internally are marked by antagonisms. The combination of clear measures around which to bargain and their pivotal economic role has implications for how we conceptualise the capacity of creative workers to collectively organise, make claims on value and create the potential for a realisation of the conditions of crisis postoperaists describe.

Post-Marxist reflections on the value of our time. Value theory and the (in)compatibility of discourse theory and the critique of political economy

ABSTRACT This article aims to bring together post-Marxist discourse theory and the critique of political economy in the context of the debate on the Marxian theory of value. Although Laclau and Mouffe criticized Marxism for its economic reductionism, they did not connect this to a comprehensive critique of Marx's writings on value and labor. The merit of considering the theory of value in more detail is underscored by discourse theory's relative silence on the capitalist economy. By drawing on the work of Postone and Elson, it will become clear that there are largely two ways to interpret Marx's theory of value: either as an essentialist theory of price and exploitation, or as a historically specific theory of the constitution of social labor relations in capitalist society. By teasing out Laclau's implicit understanding of Marx's value theory, the article argues that it is in fact his essentialist interpretation of the labor theory of value that constitutes an obstacle toward grasping the social relations of labor and commodity production from a discourse-theoretical perspective. This clears the ground toward approaching Marx's value theory from a post-Marxist perspective, which would grasp the social relations of abstract labor as a hegemonic formation.

The value of value theory for ecological economics

Value theory forms the bedrock of several economic paradigms. It shapes how economists think about the purpose and functioning of the system as a whole. I identify three approaches to understanding value in economics: the British classical approach, exemplified by Smith and Ricardo, the neoclassical approach based on marginal utility theory, and Marxian value theory. The classical and neoclassical tradition explain exchange value by transhistorical use values. This gives rise to a conception of capitalism as a ‘real economy’, i.e. a system that produces goods and services for the purpose of satisfying people's needs and wants. Ecological economists adopt and extend the classical and neoclassical view, by predominantly studying a ‘real real’ economy, i.e. matter-energy stocks and flows and ultimate social outcomes. This allows an ecological critique of the economic process but fails to address underlying social drivers of ecological destruction. Marxian value theory provides a systemic (macro) understanding of value, which results in a realistic conception of capitalism as a monetary market economy. Marx's approach is the only value theory in economics that provides a fundamental critique of capitalism. I advocate a stronger integration of radical political economy and ecological economics to support social change.

Super-circulation: Towards a Political Economy of Platformisation

In this article, I propose an approach for the analysis of the so-called processes of flexibilisation, mobility, precarisation or, recently, platformisation or uberisation of work, considering the social relations of circulation and a proletarian condition of greater approximation or convergence between active and reserve armies. For that, I revisit the Marxian theory of value and the trends that can be observed by the process of accelerating and expanding the circulation of the labour-power. The article closes with reflections towards a possible research agenda for the study of contemporary proletarian condition.

A value-theoretic approach to economic dynamics and evolution\u2014synthesizing different Marxian modules in a simulation model

The background for the present elaboration is twofold: firstly, the ongoing debate about whether the Marxian theory of value has been damaged (or even destroyed) by the alleged impossibility of solving the ‘transformation problem’ and secondly, the fact that almost all of the (later) economic manuscripts of Marx are now accessible due to the new publishing activities in the MEGA project. In regard to the former, it can be concluded that the rationale of the Marxian value concept is distorted by its Ricardian elements (including the labour theory of value). In regard to the latter, the later economic manuscripts as well as the few economic monographs published during Marx’s lifetime indicate that Marx was figuring out different modules for his value theory which are not really related to each other, let alone thoroughly synthesized with one another. Hence, in this elaboration, an attempt is made to reformulate this contested and fragmented value-theoretic torso by focussing on the non-Ricardian essentials of the value theory. This (de-)construction is then used as a basis for linking the different value-theoretic modules in terms of their ability to explain economic evolution. With this perspective, the dynamic nature of these modules is emphasized. Hence, in addition to a conceptual discussion of the value-theoretic modules, a simulation model is suggested for their integration. In this way, it can be shown that the value theory can be substantiated in a consistent stepwise fashion, and the conditions for generating the long-term results expected by Marx can be specified.

Labor Productivity and Marxist Theory of Labor Value

This article proves that the productivity defined rigorously within the Marxist theory of value is what economists use most of the time. When analyzing the changes in productivity of a country or the relationship between real wages and productivity or comparing the levels of productivity between countries, labor productivity is used and not, for example, multifactor productivity. In all three previous cases what legitimizes the use of labor productivity is the Marxist theory of value. We will see in the present article that, if productivity is defined as the reciprocal of the value of a basket of merchandises, the mathematical expressions commonly used in applied economics are deduced to understand the variations and levels of productivity and the link between that variable and the real wage. Since most non-Marxist economists reject Marxian theory of value, we conclude that, nonetheless, they use it without knowing it.

O que é superexploração?

Resumo O que é a superexploração da força de trabalho? Como a superexploração funciona? Quais são seus impactos para a classe trabalhadora? O presente artigo busca responder a essas questões, demonstrando como a categoria introduzida por Ruy Mauro Marini pode ser compreendida em acordo com a teoria marxista do valor, e como ela se articula com a determinação do valor da força de trabalho. O texto foi elaborado tendo em vista tanto contribuir para uma compreensão mais ampla dessa categoria quanto para apresentá-la àqueles que não são conhecedores do debate sobre a dependência.

Did Marx Have a Labour Theory of Value?

It has long been accepted that Marx was a follower of the labour theory of value. This position has recently been challenged by Harvey. This paper shows that the essential basis of Marx's value theory remained labour and that it did not differ substantially from that of Ricardo. It also references data showing the empirical validity of the theory and presents example data from the UK 1998 input output table showing how closely monetary output shadows labour content.

Marx — XXI

The article discusses the current relevance of Marx’s economic theory. It demonstrates the difficulties of the Marxian theory of value and the ambiguity of Marx’s own attitude towards this theory. The role of Marx and Marxism in the history of Russia is examined. Marx’s ideas about the connection between technology and social relations and his conception of historical development are critically analyzed in the context of modern economy and economic science.

Marx, Value, and Nature

In recent years ecological critiques of capitalism have deepened and multiplied, resulting in new debates over the conception, scope, and purpose of Marx's value theory and its relation to the natural world.

Die Grenze der Werttheorie

Not only Marx found the “theory of the ground rent” a hard nut to crack. The political- economic and urban sociological debates also find it a challenge - or simply assume that the ground rent is a monopoly price without giving an account of what this means for Marx’s project of critique of political economy. The so-called differential pension is still unproblematic and goes back to David Ricardo. On the other hand, the so-called absolute rent, with which Marx wanted to theoretically distance himself from Ricardo, is problematic and untenable. The article discusses three essential points of criticism of the concept and what it means conceptually and politically for Marxian value theory when it reaches its limits on the topic of the absolute rent.

A theory of economic cycles

The theory of economic motion was András Bródy’s main interest. This paper presents a simplifi ed framework of Bródy’s economics. His multi-sector production and price theory is based on the Marxian theory of value reinterpreted by using measurement considerations. Economic motion in this framework is driven by technology represented by the internal proportions of production, not by external shocks. Prices and proportions jointly determine the economic structure and its motion (duality of prices and volumes). We derive the laws of motion of production and use of goods (consumption and accumulation) based on technological accounting balances. These laws determine a cyclical pattern. Using numerical examples we demonstrate how external changes in technology and valuations are propagated in changing the cyclical pattern of motion.

The Multiple Meanings of Marx's Value Theory

The Marxian critique of political economy is inseparable from the "labor theory of value." But what exactly does this theory mean? This article considers Marx's value theory from five perspectives: as a monetary value theory, a theory of exploitation, a macro-monetary theory of capitalist production, a theory of individual prices, and a theory of crises.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Complex Labor, Value and the Reduction Problem

The “reduction problem” concerns the treatment of exceptionally skilled labor-power, known as “complex labor” within Marx's value theory. Marx's own writings on this subject are sparse and have been subject to extensive criticism. Here a solution is proposed drawing on the work of Jacques Bidet. It involves shifting away from individual workers to focus on the collective laborer and treating the resulting combination of specialisms through the framework of productivity increases. In this analysis most labor can be treated as “simple” rather than “complex,” whatever skills it happens to possess, with no enhanced value-creating potential. The notion of complex labor is reserved for those forms of labor where an adequate material basis does not yet exist for their real subsumption.