Value and Price in Marx's Capital

Research Papers in Economics, 1994

The purpose of this article is to propose a systematic reading of the transformation procedure illustrated by Marx in the first example of Chapter 9, Capital III, with an effort to convey the non dualistic vision he has of the economy. The article shows that Marx’s texts on the transformation have a radically different meaning than that attributed to them by Bortkiewicz and other authors, and establishes the soundness of Marx’s conclusions. Moreover, the passages where Marx tests the validity of his results are carefully examinated. To do this, we follow an observation made by Marx himself which has been completely neglected in the subsequent literature.

2021

The author presents in this paper the results of an analysis of Marx's theory of the original transformation of the values of commodities into prices of production. In a fragmented form, we find elements of this theory in Capital and other works of Marx. The author has highlighted the reconstruction of the table in Chapter 9 of Volume III of Capital by restoring the re-counting of profits and wages in it by adding to each particular sphere sector A, in which they produce the means of production. This reconstruction, first, made it possible to clarify the economic meaning of the two macroeconomic equations used by Marx in the transformation.Secondly, it allowed us to reconstruct the continuous mechanism of the original transformation of values into prices. This mechanism consists of two stages: the first stage is the formation of average rates of profit in separate spheres of production, consisting of two sectors of production: A (producing the means of production) and B (output ...

Felsefe Arkivi, 2024

Marx’s concept of value has been subject to significant criticism. Robinson argues that the concept is awkward and obscure, as it is meant to explain the prices of commodities and thus must be a kind of price, but it is not. Consequently, Robinson holds that the concept of value makes no sense. Furthermore, according to Harvey, Marx in the Grundrisse confuses value with price. It seems to me that both Robinson’s criticism and Harvey’s exegesis are based on serious misunderstandings. In this article, I first unpack Marx’s criticism of Darimon’s proposal concerning time chits. The upshot is that, for Marx, production relations enjoy a priority, and a monetary reform like Darimon’s cannot fulfill the function of revolutionary change. So, time chits become a triviality. Second, I suggest a reconstruction of what I call Marx’s “nonconvergency thesis.” The thesis states that there is a supervenience between value and price. Marx says that Darimon is ignorant about this thesis, and his proposal relies on the delusion that the two are convergent. Therefore, I maintain that Harvey’s claim is misleading, as he overlooks the nonconvergency thesis articulated in the Grundrisse. And Robinson’s condemnation of the concept of value should be dismissed because her understanding is very much the same as Darimon’s, in that she ignores the two-layered ontological structure between value and price.

Historical Materialism, 2010

Andrew Kliman's Reclaiming Marx's 'Capital' sets out to refute the 'myth' that Marx's original presentation of the theory of the value is internally inconsistent. A century ago, Bortkiewicz purported to demonstrate that Marx's mistake was his failure to adopt simultaneous valuation. Thereafter, twentieth-century Marxian economics worked out a 'corrected' version of Marx's original theory, culminating in Steedman's 1977 Marx after Sraffa. Conclusions Marx himself deemed central were dropped, prominently including the law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit. But simultaneous valuation is absolutely incompatible with Marx's first and fundamental premise, the determination of value by labour-time. On the other hand, if Marx's major theoretical conclusions do consistently follow from his premises, including the transformation of values into prices of production, then the quantitative dimension of his value-theory is internally consistent after all and stands in no need of correction on this score. Advocating a temporal, single-system interpretation, Kliman shows how 'two simple modifications' eliminate 'all of the alleged inconsistencies in the quantitative dimension of Marx's value theory': valuation is temporal, and values and prices are determined interdependently. Kliman's refutation is sound, but his claim to know Marx's intentions, in E.D. Hirsch's sense, is questionable.

SSRN Electronic Journal

In the paper, we develop the research results presented in the author's previous works: https://osf.io/tk43d/ and https://osf.io/8tyma/. Firstly, we tried to reveal the mechanism of formation of the general rate of surplus value in the pre-capitalist economy and to answer the question of why Marx called the value an abstraction but a historical abstraction. Secondly, we have shown that Paul Samuelson's so-called "Eraser algorithm" was justified erroneously. Samuelson's error is rooted in his confusion about two types of technological matrices: Leontief and Dmitriev, in his analysis of the numerical example of Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz. Third, we have identified that the basis of Jan Steedman's erroneous 'redundancy criticism' of value categories is the failure to understand the reality that the technological matrices he uses contain implicit value and distributional categories, i.e., a kind of "Trojan horse". Fourthly, we have drawn attention to the fact that economists in the contemporary debate on the utility of the labour theory of value overlook the fact that this theory is designed to justify market value prices in the transition period from capitalism to socialism. The paper reveals the first steps towards the justification of an appropriate economic mechanism based on market value prices. Marx; transformation problem; labour theory of value; P. Samuelson and I. Steedman's errors; the economic mechanism of the transition to socialism; taxation; market value prices JEL CODES B14; B16; B24; B51; D58; E11; P16 ... I could have turned Volume III into something better than it is. But I ... believe I have done my duty by presenting Marx in Marx's own words, even at the risk of expecting the reader to do rather more thinking for himself. F. Engels (Marx [1892-5] 2004, 460). 2 Marx formulated the problem somewhat differently because he did not assume that the law of value would still be valid after the formation of average profit. In Theories of surplus value, he wrote, "If one did not take the definition of value as the basis, the average profit, and therefore also the cost-prices, would be purely imaginary and untenable." (Marx 1968, 190).

2011

Preface ix Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Marx's Theory of Price in the Simple Circulation of Commodities 2.1 Why Marx begins with the simple circulation of commodities 2.2 Understanding the simple commodity circulation process 2.3 Understanding price in simple commodity production 2.4 The magnitudes of reproduction prices Why start with reproduction prices? Relative reproduction prices Money reproduction prices 2.5 Actual prices Actual prices and reproduction prices Possibility of divergences Sources of divergences The price adjustment process 2.6 A digression on social and abstract labour Chapter 3 Marx's Theory of Price-Capitalist Commodity Production 3.1 Understanding prices in capitalism 3.2 Marx's approach to explaining the magnitudes of prices in capitalism 3.3 The magnitudes of 'prices of production' Relative prices of production Marx's transformation procedure Supply and demand Money prices of production 3.4 Changes in prices of production Relative prices of production Money prices of production 3.5 Prices of production with non-producible inputs 3.6 Monopoly prices v 3.7 Market prices Possibility of divergences Nature of divergences Causes of divergences The price adjustment process Chapter 4 Marx on Smith and Ricardo 4.1 Adam Smith 4.2 Ricardo Chapter 5 Marxist Interpretations of Marx's Theory of Price 5.1 Traditional interpretation Marx's 'transformation problem' Monopoly capitalism 5.2 Modern interpretations The New Interpretation The Temporal Single System Interpretation Chapter 6 The Neoclassical Theory of Price 6.1 Introduction 6.2 The exchange process 6.3 Understanding price The precondition for the existence of prices Formation of prices Form of prices Purpose of prices Nature of prices Relative prices Money prices 6.4 Price constructs Equilibrium prices Long-and short-run prices Competitive and monopoly prices Relative and money prices 6.5 The magnitude of equilibrium relative price 6.6 Changes in equilibrium relative price magnitudes 6.7 The magnitude of monopoly price 6.8 The value of money and equilibrium money price level 6.9 The price adjustment process Relative prices Money prices vi Contents Chapter 7 The Post Keynesian Theory of Price 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Focus and method 7.3 The exchange process 7.4 Understanding price The precondition for the existence of price Formation of prices Form of prices Purpose of prices Nature of prices 7.5 Explicit and implicit price constructs Disequilibrium prices Long-and short-run prices Competitive and non-competitive prices Relative and money prices 7.6 The magnitude of price 7.7 Changes in price magnitudes 7.8 The value of money and the aggregate money price level 7.9 The price adjustment process Chapter 8 Sraffa's Theory of Price 8.1 Focus, method and approach 8.2 The exchange process 8.3 Understanding price Formation of prices Form of prices Purpose of prices Nature of prices 8.4 Implicit price constructs Equilibrium and long-run prices Competitive and non-competitive prices Relative and money prices 8.5 The magnitude of relative price Subsistence production Surplus production Single-product industries Joint-product industries Fixed capital Non-produced inputs Contents vii 8.6 Changes in relative price magnitudes The core arguments Extensions Joint products Non-produced inputs 8.7 The magnitudes of money prices Chapter 9 Concluding Remarks 9.1 Marx's contribution to the theory of price, or why choose Marx? 9.2 Locating Marx's theory of price 9.3 The significance of rehabilitating Marx's theory of price Notes References

John Maynard Keynes reckoned Das Kapital was “an obsolete economic textbook which I know to be not only scientifically erroneous but without interest or application for the modern world.” Marx’s work was a ‘poor version’ of Ricardo and needed to be knocked away. Was Keynes right about this? This paper will consider the logical consistency of Marx’s value theory and its empirical relevance to modern capitalist developments. It will deal with the differences of Marx’s theory as a critique of political economy to that of Ricardo and Keynes.

Journal of The History of Economic Thought, 1993

Patched Version. Fixed grammar and structure errors. A few new sentences added, some taken away. New paragraph added in the section on the development in measure. Still 43 pages, and over 100 quotes, directly engaging Marx's economics like has not been done before.