Value is as value does: twixt knowledge and the world economy.

Summary

---

Report

See the full content of this document

Extract

---

Value is as value does: twixt knowledge and the world economy.

Introduction

There has been an enduring paradox in debate around Marx's value theory (Fine, 2001).1 This is that both proponents and opponents of the theory appeal to the same phenomena as the basis for their positions. Value (even if transformed into price of production) does not equal market price, so we must reject the labour theory of value, says one. This is precisely why we need value theory, says the other. And this is before we move onto skills, rent, interest, world economy, non-wage labour, knowledge, monopoly, crises, and so on.

As proponents of value theory, for us this paradox is resolved by the simplicity of the stance adopted on what it consists of: a theory that seeks to trace out how labour-time exercised within capitalist production is attached to market forms, with corresponding consequences. Since this is not a matter of right or wrong, but of material reality, the challenge is that of reproducing the structures, processes, relations and agencies in thought. In this respect, properly interpreted as such, Marx endowed us with a rich body of theory, addressing value in the complex context of the accumulation of capital, its laws of production, and their reproduction through distribution and exchange. Taken seriously and constructively, his contribution suffices to dismiss interpretations that either view value theory as a (generally inadequate) theory of (equilibrium) price or, even if more favourably inclined, impose ideal fixes to value theory rather than tracing out the complexity of value relations (as is often an error in most 'correct' treatments of the so-called transformation problem) (Fine et al., 2004). The point is not to use value theory in order to get some ideal price theory correct, but to select and reproduce material processes in thought. Thus it is hardly surprising that controversies over abstract issues such as the transformation problem should prove so bitter, pervasive and long lasting, for they reflect very big differences in interpretations of Marx as well as his method. By the same token, if anyone has been lucky enough to get the solution fight (and plenty believe they have), there is no guarantee that such virtue will extend appropriately into other areas of application.

Of necessity rather than weakness, Marx's own value theory is both selective and (hence) incomplete, but for two different reasons. First, there are a multitude of determinants in the passage from production processes through to exchange, use and reproduction. Marx's own preoccupation, as a reflection of capital within its most advanced stage, is with the formation of exchange relations, as productivity is enhanced through accumulation of capital (both transformation of value into prices of prod...

See the full content of this document

---