Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Value theory: Value theory explores how economic value is determined, whether by subjective preferences (as in neoclassical economics), labor inputs (as in classical economics), or other factors. See also Labour, Price._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Karl Marx on Value Theory - Dictionary of Arguments
Rothbard II 392 Value theory of Labour/Marx/Rothbard: (…) the delighted Marx found that Ricardian doctrine was, in effect, a quantity oflabour theory of value. Utility dropped out, and since only reproducible goods and not non-reproducible goods such as Rembrandt paintings were considered explainable, only the cost of production was considered a determinant of the embodied value of goods. And since Ricardo finessed 'rent' as allegedly not a part of cost, the only possible cost except labour hours was profit (interest) or cost of capital, and this was so small as to be readily neglected. Besides, profits are allegedly only a declining residual after the payment of wages, which are doomed to keep rising in money but not in real terms as population continues to press upon the food supply. In the gloomy Ricardian perspective, there are two logical paths towards a call for change in the status quo. For Marx the labour theory of value, the View that labour is the sole producer of value, meant that the capitalist's return, profit, constituted the exploitative extraction of 'surplus value' from the workers. The workers produce all value, but the capitalists are able somehow to coerce the workers into accepting wages that are below the full product.In fact, adopting the Malthusian-Ricardian View of population, the workers are paid a subsistence wage, while the capitalists extract the remainder Rothbard II 393 of the workers' product as their surplus value, or profit. Malthusianism: To the old Malthusian problem: wouldn't the same problem of overpopulation foil a socialist economy? the Marxian answer was that such an iron law of wages (to adopt the term of Lassalle) would not apply under socialism. >Value theory/Engels, >Classes/Marx. RothbardVsMarx: Oddly, neither Marx nor his critics ever realized that there is one place in the economy where the Marxian theory of exploitation and surplus value does apply: not to the capitalist-worker relation in the market, but to the relation of master and slave under slavery. Since the masters own the slaves, they indeed only pay them their subsistence wage: enough to live on and reproduce, while the masters pocket the surplus of the slaves' marginal product over their cost of subsistence. This surplus value extracted from the Slave constitutes the profits of the masters from slave-ownership. In the free society, in contrast, the workers, owning their own bodies and their own labour, pocket their full marginal product (discounted, as an Austrian would add, by the interest return the labourers freely and willingly pay to the capitalists for advancing them the value of their production now rather than wait until after the product is produced and sold). Rothbard: (….) [Marx] also found very handy the Smithian concept (…) that only material commodities, and not immaterial services, constitute production or value. Material goods are frozen labour, whereas immaterial labour services are, in Marxian terms, 'non-productive'. In this area, Marx took a giant step backwards from Ricardo to Adam Smith. All this, however, fitted neatly into Marxian philosophical materialism. >Historical materialism/Marx, >Value/Ricardo. Marx also found that Ricardo had already treated all labour as homogeneous, With any differences in quality simply weighted by some sort of index to reduce them to quantity of labour hours. >Labour. Frozen labour/value/RothbardVsMarx: After all, the Ricardians could and did say that capital earned profits from their supplying workers With capital goods, with 'frozen labour'. Such a service is clear, otherwise the workers would not have had to rely on capitalists for money while working on the product. Marx's reply, that capital goods, being frozen labour, should be owned by the workers Rothbard II 394 misses the point that something, some service must have been added by the capitalists - which (…) was essentially savings and, if we may put it that way, who were advancing the workers' 'frozen time'. >Commodity/Marx. - - - Habermas IV 302 Value Theory/Marx/Habermas: Question: How do the two forms of integration of contexts of action relate to each other, one that takes place in the consciousness of the actors as it were (>action theory) and the other that silently reaches through the actors' orientations (>system theory)? Solution/Hegel: in legal philosophy, Hegel solves this problem in the sense of an idealistic transition from the subjective to the objective mind. Solution/Marx: Marx introduces value theory in order to connect political-economic statements about the anonymous connections of a system with sociological-historical statements about the action connections, structured in the lifeworld, of actors, individuals or Habermas IV 303 collectives. HabermasVsMarx/HabermasVsHegel: these solution strategies have now lost their plausibility. Action and system theory can be understood as remaining parts of these approaches. - - - Mause I 69 Labor theory of value/Marx: Karl Marx (1818-1883) can in some respects be described as a classical economist: Like the representatives of the classical school, he concentrated on production and supply conditions and economic growth and its determinants; Marx' labor theory of values is essentially the same as that of Ricardo. >D. Ricardo._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Marx I Karl Marx Das Kapital, Kritik der politische Ökonomie Berlin 1957 Rothbard II Murray N. Rothbard Classical Economics. An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Cheltenham 1995 Rothbard III Murray N. Rothbard Man, Economy and State with Power and Market. Study Edition Auburn, Alabama 1962, 1970, 2009 Rothbard IV Murray N. Rothbard The Essential von Mises Auburn, Alabama 1988 Rothbard V Murray N. Rothbard Power and Market: Government and the Economy Kansas City 1977 Ha I J. Habermas Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne Frankfurt 1988 Ha III Jürgen Habermas Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns Bd. I Frankfurt/M. 1981 Ha IV Jürgen Habermas Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns Bd. II Frankfurt/M. 1981 Mause I Karsten Mause Christian Müller Klaus Schubert, Politik und Wirtschaft: Ein integratives Kompendium Wiesbaden 2018 |
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> Counter arguments against Marx
> Counter arguments in relation to Value Theory
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