Social Catholic criticisms of Frédéric Bastiat’s thinking, notably Charles Périn’s, clarify the link between the labour theory of value and the demands for social justice. Claiming that Bastiat’s theory of value rests on a sophism, Périn rejects his view that competition is the solution to the social question. Contrary to Bastiat, indeed, he accepts the labor theory of value and apparently makes it a standard of justice: according to him, rents sanction an injustice. (...) Social Catholics, particularly René de La Tour du Pin, follow in his tracks, insisting that a specific course must be taken so as to set right the injustice of rents — the course of what will be called furtherly ‘social justice’.Les critiques portées par les catholiques sociaux à la doctrine de Frédéric Bastiat, notamment celles de Charles Périn, permettent de comprendre le lien qui unit la théorie de la valeur travail et l’exigence de justice sociale. Périn affirme que la théorie de la valeur de Bastiat repose sur un sophisme et repousse donc sa réponse à la question sociale, la concurrence. Il a adopté en effet, au contraire de Bastiat, la théorie de la valeur travail et l’a érigée, semble-t-il, en critère de justice : la rente consacre, à ses yeux, une injustice. A sa suite, les catholiques sociaux, exemplairement, René de La tour du Pin, affirmeront qu’il faut mener une action spécifique pour corriger l’injustice de la rente et l’appelleront justice sociale. (shrink)

In the first part of this two-part article, I argued that, unlike the asocial classical labour theory of value, Marx's labour theory of value is a ‘truly social’ one. In fact, it is a purely social one. Marx's theory of value is nothing but his theory of the social forms distinctive of the capitalist mode of production. Thus, we may speak of those forms as value-forms, the commodity, money, capital, wage-labour, surplus-value (...) and its forms of appearance, and more. The labour that produces value, then, is labour of a peculiar social sort. This thought is entirely foreign to the classical labour theory of value, and, likewise, to Marxist accounts of value theory that mistake it for a radical version of Ricardian value theory. The gulf between the classical and the Marxian labour theories of value is wide. (shrink)

To make abstractions hold good in actuality means to destroy actuality.

In the first volume of Capital, Marx introduces a labor theory of value. The theory is supposed to form the basis of his “laying bare” the “inner workings” of capitalism. The theory rests on two claims, and at the outset Marx uses it to explain four features of capitalist production. Yet by the end of the final volume of Capital, he abandons both claims and offers alternative accounts of all four features of capitalism. We hold (...) that Marx’s introduction of the labor theory of value is not the presentation of an alternative economic theory, but serves to introduce his analysis of the class structure of capitalism. (shrink)

To make abstractions hold good in actuality means to destroy actuality.

In ?The Labour Theory of Value and the Concept of Exploitation? I distinguished between two ways in which the labour theory of value is formulated, both of which are common. In the popular formulation, the amount of value a commodity has depends on how much labour was spent producing it. In the strict formulation, which is so called because it formulates the labour theory of value proper, the amount of value a commodity (...) has depends on nothing about its history but only on how much labour would (now) be required to produce something just like it. I argued that strict and popular formulations are often wrongly treated as substantially equivalent, and that the practice of conflating them sustains two false impressions: that the labour theory of value is a basis for saying that capitalists exploit workers, and that the labour theory of value is true. The present paper is a reply to Nancy Holmstrom's recent attempt, in ?Marx and Cohen on Exploitation and the Labor Theory of Value?, to refute the theses of the article referred to above. (shrink)

Murray Rothbard, in his The Ethics of Liberty, attempts to derive property ownership from the act of homesteading. Under this system, property is claimed through the act of mixing one’s labor with it. However, the theory of homesteading as a means for property rights formation is one that favors production over consumption and denies the subjectivity of value.

This paper explores the question: does unfree labour produce value? The paper does not answer the question. Rather, it contends that, no matter how Marxists answer the question, they end up either (1) relinquishing the view that labour is the only source of value or (2) appealing to an apparently bogus distinction in order to hang on to the view. Both of these alternatives will be unacceptable to the orthodox Marxian economist. For the choice is between jettisoning the (...) labour theory of value and thus giving up on Marxian orthodoxy, or else frankly conceding that one’s orthodoxy is baseless and dogmatic. (shrink)

Julie Taymor is an exemplary artist who has successfully made the transition from avant-garde director of live theatre in the 1980s to become a Broadway director for Disney Corporation with The Lion King, and, more recently, a film director with Sony’s nostalgic look at the music of the Beatles in Across the Universe. Highlights of her career—spanning the latter half of the twentieth century—offer excellent examples of the changes in the economics of creativity and artistic labor for a case (...) study in cultural and aesthetic values under global capitalism. Through interviews, newspapers and financial annual reports, specific moments in Taymor’s oeuvre reveal key distinctions between cultural and intercultural values, between aesthetic and financial exchange values, and highlight themes and limitations in the legacy of the Marxist labor theory of value. (shrink)

Gerald A. Cohen, in ?The Labor Theory of Value and the Concept of Exploitation?, argues that, contrary to the traditional assumption, Marx's charge of exploitation against capitalism does not require the labor theory of value. However, there is a related but simpler basis for the charge. Hence Marx's criticism can stand even if the labor theory of value falls. Furthermore, he argues that the labor theory of value is (...) false. It is argued here that Cohen is mistaken; the charge Marx makes against capitalism does require the labor theory of value. Cohen's conception of exploitation is weaker than Marx's both theoretically and morally. It is also argued that Cohen's criticisms of the labor theory of value rest on misunderstandings of the theory and Marx's methodology. (shrink)

Research Articles Adam Mossoff, Social Philosophy and Policy, FirstView Article.

After Marx, dissenting economics almost always used 'the labour theory' as a theory of value. This paper develops a modern treatment of the alternative labour theory of property that is essentially the property theoretic application of the juridical principle of responsibility: impute legal responsibility in accordance with who was in fact responsible. To understand descriptively how assets and liabilities are appropriated in normal production, a 'fundamental myth' needs to be cleared away, and then the market mechanism (...) of appropriation can be understood. On the normative side, neoclassical theory represents marginal productivity theory as showing that (a metaphorical version of) the imputation principle is satisfied ('people get what they produce') in competitive enterprises. Since that shows the moral commitment of neoclassical economics to the imputation principle, the labour theory of property is presented here as the actual non-metaphorical application of the imputation principle to property appropriation. The property-theoretic analysis at the firm level shows how the neoclassical (and much heterodox) analysis in terms of 'distributive shares' wholly misframed the basic questions. Finally, the paper shows how the imputation principle (modernised labour theory of property) is systematically violated in the present wage labour system of renting persons. The paper can be seen as taking up the recent challenge posed by Donald Katzner for a dialogue between neoclassical and heterodox microeconomics. (shrink)

In a recent article Robert Paul Wolff has argued that Marx's theory of capitalist exploitation is incorrect, in that its ground is the premiss that labor is the source of all value.1 This, of course, is a well-rehearsed objection to Marx, but Wolff gives it a novel twist. He notes that the defense of this premise in the opening pages of Capital is inadequate, but he is not troubled by this ‘bad argument,’ for he sees Marx's real (...) argument as something else: the claim that unless labor is the source of all value, an adequate account of profit is impossible. In other words Marx is seen to be making a transcendental argument: an inquiry into the conditions for the possibility of profit. Wolff proceeds to argue that Marx goes astray here, but not so far astray that a valid transcendental argument, faithful to Marx's essential insight, cannot be charted. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Moral Version of the Labor Theory of Value The Labor Theory of the Difference Principle Finding a Just Distribution Is the Difference Principle Biased? Answering Narveson and Cohen on Incentives.

In a Times Literary Supplement review of some recent literature on Marx and Marxism for a general readership, Jonathan Wolff claimed that Marx’s solution to the so-called “transformation problem” is “half-baked.” The aim of this paper is to challenge this complacent dismissal of some of Marx’s central economic ideas. In the process, I want to show that although the issues here are subtle and complex, Marx’s ideas retain a great deal of intuitive appeal, and his “solution” to the so-called “transformation (...) problem” is neither conceptually implausible nor mathematically dubious. Crucial to this aim is to show that Marx viewed the categories of (what he called bourgeois) economics through a social lens, which is given in the first chapter of the first volume of Capital. (shrink)

In economic history value theory is simply one paradigm amongst others. It refers to an ensemble of economic ideas developed by classical political economists such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo. In the works of Karl Marx, however, value theory takes on a new meaning. It is charged with political significance and relates directly to class struggles in modern society. In this paper we will explore some aspects of Marx’s critique of capitalism as interpreted by Harry (...) Cleaver, Isaak Illich Rubin, Roman Rodolsky and several other scholars. (shrink)

The purpose of this article was to investigate the potential that the labour and subjective theory of value in the agricultural context may have for the interpretation of Matthew 20:1–16. This investigation highlighted the divergence in wages between workers, the exuberant remuneration strategy of the landowner, his generosity, the indignation of the labourers hired first and the landowner’s reluctance to reimburse them. I argued that the classic labour theory of value provides an explanation of why the (...) indignant labourers were angry and felt unjustly treated. However, it fails to account for the divergence in remuneration more appropriately addressed by subjective theory of value that focuses on the use value of goods and marginal utility. Finally, the agrarian theory provides perspective on the unwillingness of the landowner to reimburse the indignant labourers and the mystery of meaningful labour in agriculture that serves as a metaphor for the kingdom of heaven.Contribution: In the article, labour and subjective theory of value were introduced from an agrarian perspective to enlighten the hermeneutics of the parable. (shrink)

Proponents of a monetary interpretation of Marx’s theory of value (monetäre Werttheorie) argue that one cannot estimate the amounts of socially necessary labour time that lie behind the prices, an interpretation usually ascribed to the West German Neue Marx‑Lektüre. As Hans-Georg Backhaus began fleshing out his monetary interpretation in the early 1970s, he referred explicitly to debate among economists in early‑1960s East Germany about the possibility of estimating quantities of labour value in terms of commodities’ labour content. (...) In fact, scholars who articulated a powerful position in the latter discussion closely approximated the Neue Marx-Lektüre’s ‘monetary interpretation’. They held that expressing labour value in terms of labour time is impossible: the substance of value is not a measurable quantity of labour time but, rather, a social relation. Hence, it is problematic that Neue Marx-Lektüre adherents today should maintain an inaccurate contrast between their reading of Capital and that of ‘traditional Marxism’. (shrink)

interpretation of Marx's economic theory of value. which has been widely accepted up to this day, is based on Marx's approach to a theory of value in his third volume of Capital. But the theory of value of the first volume of Capital, implied by Marx's analyses in the first volume of Capital and only summarized in its first chapter, is inconsistent with the third volume's approach. It is consistent with theories of value (...) which do not hold that prices are deter mined by labour. (shrink)

Jamie Morgan's commentary (Morgan, 2016) on my paper 'The Labour Theory of Property and Marginal Productivity Theory' (Ellerman, 2016) and Ted Burczak's later comments (Burczak, 2016) raise a number of issues that surely will occur to other readers and that need to be addressed. I take the occasion to expand upon the arguments and to explore some related issues. In the narrative that unfolds, Frank H. Knight plays the role of the sophisticated defender of the system of renting, (...) hiring and employing human beings. He was quite clear that the social role of economics is to develop an idealised model, the competitive free enterprise model, and then to frame the normative discussion in terms of that model. Knight would agree with the whole thread of heterodox 'criticism' that the actual economy falls far short of the ideal – which is why I largely eschewed the descriptive shortcomings of ideal model as a purported model of the actual economy. Instead my paper focused on developing a critique of the key part of the idealised model, the marginal productivity theory of distribution under competitive conditions. That critique is based on the usual juridical principle of imputing legal responsibility in accordance with factual responsibility – the principle whose property-theoretic application is the modern treatment of the labour theory of property. Historically, heterodox economics faced a fork in the road in the 19th century: whether to criticise 'the system' by developing the inchoate 'labour theory' as a theory of value or a theory of property. Marx and much of left-wing economics took the labour-theory-of-value road, whereas my paper is part of a modern attempt – Thomas Hodgskin (1832) being an earlier attempt – to take the labour-theory-of-property road. As we will see, much of the debate still revolves around these two roads. Read David Ellerman's original paper "The Labour Theory of Property and Marginal Productivity Theory" › Read Jamie Morgan's commentary on David Ellerman's paper ›. (shrink)

Written before the impressive collapse of the socialist system in Eastern Europe, this book offers a quite objective and serious systematic analysis of the Marxian labor theory of value, Marx's main scientific legacy. After reconstructing the 'prototype' of this theory - which is the theory as it was left by Marx himself in Capital - the author proceeds to a careful and detailed analysis of its foundational problems, taking into account Bohm-Bawerk's important criticisms. After introducing (...) advanced contemporary formal tools, the author proceeds to a thorough discussion of the dialectical method, just in order to tackle the foundational problems of the theory. He provides a formally precise and well motivated definition of abstract labor, and then proceeds to prove the existence of a measurement of abstract labor - i.e. the existence of numerical labor-values. Using this result, the author provides rigorous axiomatic foundations for the theory of value and then proves the existence of a Marxian competitive equilibrium, which is tantamount to the proof of the possibility of reproduction for a capitalist economy. The author finishes the book by showing in detail how the problems of the prototype are solved, by reconstructing the Leontief model of the labor theory of value on the new logical bases. Written in a very clear style, in the language of contemporary philosophy of science, the book is of interest to philosophers of science and economists, applied logicians and all those interested in the scientific legacy of Karl Marx. (shrink)

A reconsideration of the crucial historical role of slavery in the consolidation of the global regime of capital accumulation provides a vital source of Marxian critique for our postcolonial present. The Atlantic slave trade literally transformed African men and women into human commodities. The reduction of human beings into human commodities, or ‘human capital’ – indeed, into labour and nothing but labour – which was the very essence of modern slavery, served as a necessary prerequisite for the consolidation and perfecting (...) of what Marx called ‘labour in the abstract’, and requires us to re-situate enslaved labour as the defining and constitutive limit for how we comprehend labour as such under capitalism. The production of labour in the abstract, or labour ‘in general’, depended nonetheless upon concrete productions of sociopolitical difference, particularly the branding of race. The term ‘Black’, which was devised to literally and figuratively brand the flesh of enslaved people, was also contrived to signify their particular sociopolitical condition of brutal degradation as the ultimate limit for the subjugation of labour. Blackness names that limit. Thus, Blackness is in fact necessary for apprehending labour as such under capitalism. Marx’s scathing critique of wage labour is always haunted by the long shadow of slavery as its limit figure. If we comprehend labour to be the antithesis of capital, then to the extent that Blackness names the ultimate condition of labour’s subordination and subjection to capital, we need to recognise the tendency for all labour under capital to be pressed toward a sociopolitical condition of Blackness (or approximating Blackness), where Blackness does not name any kind of essential identity but the racialised sociopolitical condition of that subordination/subjection. Consequently, the labour theory of value – which has always been in fact, more accurately, a value theory of labour – must be complemented with what we might posit to be a racial theory of labour. Such an ostensibly historical perspective on the foundational role of slavery in the genesis of capitalism is no mere scholastic exercise in the historiography of ‘primitive accumulation’, however, but rather must be re-purposed toward the ends of elaborating what has remained an as-yet underdeveloped Marxian theory of migrant labour. Extrapolating key insights from Marx’s corpus for the formulation of a racial theory of labour, this essay is ultimately concerned with the ways that slavery supplies capitalism with a defining horizon for all labour, and thus how this insight might instructively serve to comprehend the racialised subordination of migrant labour within our global/postcolonial sociopolitical order. (shrink)

The aim of the present paper is to provide a logical reconstruction of the Marxian Theory of Value. This reconstruction is based upon the concept of abstract as opposed to that of homogeneous labor.labour is a social relation that holds in a market economy, whenever the profit rate is uniform; it consists in a comparison of the different labors through the exchange relationship. The author proved in a different place that there exists a mathematical representation of abstract (...) labor which is unique up to similarity transformations. The existence of this function -- which is none other than the value function -- is the basis of the present axiomatization, which includes detailed reconstructions of two of the most important models of the theory. (shrink)

The aim of the dissertation is to show that the logical foundations of the Marxian Theory of Value are reasonably sound. The first chapter presents a concise history of MTV and formulates in a detailed way the problem of foundations in MTV. This is the problem of proving the existence of labor-values in a general economy in which joint products, alternative techniques, and heterogeneous labor are allowed. ;In the second chapter the problem is tackled through the (...) demonstration that there is a measurement of abstract labor in such general systems, where abstract labor is understood as a binary relation over the set of labor expenditures induced by a system of prices, in a commodity economy, that satisfies certain properties. It is also shown that whenever the rate of profit is uniform the price system satisfies such properties. ;Using the results of the second chapter, in the last chapter an axiomatization of MTV is provided and two of the most typical models of MTV are reconstructed in terms of abstract labor in a very detailed way. The first of these is the classical Leontief model and the second one is a more general model due to John K. Roemer. The conclusion of the dissertation is that the foundations of MTV are as sound as those of Neo-classical Economics. (shrink)

The aim of the present paper is to provide a logical reconstruction of the Marxian Theory of Value. This reconstruction is based upon the concept of abstract as opposed to that of homogeneous labor. Abstract labour is a social relation that holds in a market economy, (at least) whenever the profit rate is uniform; it consists in a comparison of the different labors through the exchange relationship. The author proved in a different place (see García de la (...) Sienra, 1987) that there exists a mathematical representation of abstract labor which is unique up to similarity transformations. The existence of this function — which is none other than the value function — is the basis of the present axiomatization, which includes detailed reconstructions of two of the most important models of the theory. (shrink)

Valuing -- Morality and reasonable partiality -- Doing and allowing -- The division of moral labour : egalitarian liberalism as moral pluralism -- Is the basic structure basic? -- Cosmopolitanism, justice, and institutions -- What is egalitarianism? -- Choice, circumstance, and the value of equality -- Is terrorism morally distinctive? -- Immigration and the significance of culture -- The normativity of tradition -- The good of toleration.

The Value of Critique casts its gaze on the two dominant modes of passing judgment in art--critique and value. The act of critique has long held sway in the world of art theory but has recently been increasingly abandoned in favor of evaluation, which advocates alternate modes of judgment aimed at finding the intrinsic "value" of a given work rather than picking apart its intentions and relative success. This book's contributors explore the relationship between these two (...) practices, finding that one cannot exist with the other. As soon as a critic decides an object is worthy enough of their interest and time to critique it, they have imbued that object with a certain value. Similarly, theories of value are typically marked by a critical impetus: as much as critique takes part in the construction of evaluations, bestowing something with value can then trigger critiques. Assembling essays from an international array of authors, this book is the first to put value, critique, and artistic labor in conversation with one another, making clear just how closely all three are related. (shrink)

The publication last year in New Left Review of Robert Brenner's book-length essay ‘Uneven Development and the Long Downturn: The Advanced Capitalist Economies from Boom to Stagnation, 1950-1998’ has already provoked more discussion and controversy on the socialist Left than any other political-economic analysis in recent memory. Predictably, it has also elicited a number of highly critical response from proponents of Marx's theories of labour value and economic crisis. Amongst other things, Brenner has been charged with a one-sided preoccupation (...) with capital-to-capital relations at the expense of the capital-wage labour relation, with misinterpreting and dismissing Marx's law of the falling tendency of the rate of profit, and with ignoring Marx’s value categories entirely. (shrink)