Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 215-220
Author(s):  
Thomas Nail
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Doctoral Dissertation ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Primitive Accumulation ◽  
Labor Theory Of Value ◽  
Labor Theory ◽  
Constitutive Process ◽  
Theory Of Value ◽  
Nature And Society

The conclusion summarizes the main arguments of the book, their limitations, and the direction of future research. Marx did not hold a labor theory of value. He never used this term, not even once. Primitive accumulation did not happen just once or first in sixteenth-century England but is a constitutive process of all value creation. Primitive accumulation is the becoming of value itself. Marx did not believe in fixed developmental laws of nature and society, or at least held incompatible views on this topic. This book has tried to show that Marx’s theory of kinetic dialectics, from his doctoral dissertation to Capital, offers instead an open and pedetic view of nature and history. Marx was not a crude, mechanistic, or reductionistic materialist and certainly not an atomist, as his doctoral dissertation makes explicit. His theories of value, alienation, and exploitation are neither humanist nor anthropocentric concepts.

scholarly journals The World-System and the Earth System

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-202
Author(s):  
Alf Hornborg
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
World System ◽  
Modern Technology ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
Labor Theory Of Value ◽  
Labor Theory ◽  
The World ◽  
Theory Of Value ◽  
Ecological Marxism ◽  
Nature And Society

Efforts to conceptualize the role of asymmetric resource transfers in the capitalist world-system have been constrained by the emphasis on surplus value and the labor theory of value in Marxist thought. A coherent theory of ecologically unequal exchange must focus on asymmetric flows of biophysical resources such as embodied labor, land, energy, and materials. To conceptualize these flows in terms of  “underpaid costs” or “surplus value” is to suggest that the metabolism of the world-system can be accounted for using a monetary metric. This paper rejects both labor and energy theories of value in favor of the observation that market pricing tends to lead to asymmetric resource flows. The Marxist labor theory of value is an economic argument, rather than a physical one. In acknowledging this we may transcend the recent debate within ecological Marxism about whether “nature” and “society” are valid categories. Nature and society are ontologically entwined, as in the undertheorized phenomenon of modern technology, but should be kept analytically distinct. Since the Industrial Revolution, technological progress has been contingent on the societal ratios by which biophysical resources are exchanged on the world market. The failure among Marxist and world-system theorists to properly account for this central aspect of capitalist accumulation can be traced to the pervasive assumption that market commodities have objective values that may exceed their price. Instead of arguing with mainstream economists about whether market assessments of value are justified, it is more analytically robust to observe that market valuation is destroying the biosphere.

The System is the Solution: Marx's Analysis of Capitalism

1986 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 13-13
Author(s):  
George Galster
Keyword(s):  
Production Process ◽  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Economic Base ◽  
Radical Theory ◽  
Labor Theory Of Value ◽  
Labor Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Theory Of Value ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Pedagogic Device

The following note describes a skit designed primarily as a pedagogic device to illustrate in a meaningful (and, hopefully, provocative and humorous) way Marx's analysis of capitalism. Numerous concepts and phenomena are “brought to life” in the skit: exploitation, immiseration and alienation of workers, maintenance wage, labor theory of value, mechanization and the division of labor, systemic tendencies toward economic crises, relationship of various superstructural components (welfare, religion, etc.) to the economic base, and the radical theory of the state. More specifically, the economic base of a hypothetical capitalist society consists of a stylized production process involving “resources” (Oreo cookies), “labor” (students selected from the class) and eventually “capital” (table knives). The ability of the monopoly capitalist to accumulate surplus by exploiting workers becomes manifest. Other elements of the social superstructure (unions, government, religion, etc.)

scholarly journals Whose Right to Rest? Contesting the Family Vacation in the Postwar Soviet Union

2009 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 401-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane P. Koenker
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Human Organism ◽  
Labor Theory Of Value ◽  
Labor Theory ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Personal Worth ◽  
The Family ◽  
Integral Element ◽  
Theory Of Value ◽  
Family Vacation

The idea of leisure and vacations in the Soviet Union at first glance suggests a paradox. As a system based on the labor theory of value, the USSR emphasized production as the foundation of wealth, personal worth, and the path to a society of abundance for all. Work—physical or mental—was the obligation of all citizens. But work took its toll on the human organism, and along with creating the necessary incentives and conditions for productive labor a socialist system would also include reproductive rest as an integral element of its economy. The eight-hour work day, a weekly day off from work, and an annual vacation constituted the triad of restorative and healthful rest opportunities in the emerging Soviet system of the 1920s and 1930s.

scholarly journals Dimensional analysis of price-value correspondence: a spurious case of spurious correlation

2011 ◽  
Vol 69 (274) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro Valle Baeza
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Strong Association ◽  
Marxist Theory ◽  
Measures Of Association ◽  
Market Prices ◽  
Labor Theory Of Value ◽  
Spurious Correlation ◽  
Labor Theory ◽  
New Energy ◽  
Theory Of Value

Labor theory of value has received considerable attention among Marxists and their critics. No agreement has been reached as to what labor theory of value is (Foley, 2000), Itoh, 1988; Kliman, 2006; Laibman, 1992 and Mohun, 2000). Paradoxically there are empirical studies showing strong association between labor values and market prices. Such works could inject new energy into Marxist theory of value; nevertheless some critics have questioned such empirical findings because: a) there is a problem of spurious correlation involved, and b) measures of association vary with changes in the physical units of the analyzed merchandises.

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