Abstract
In treating the law of value and the capitalist production of surplus-value, we have assumed that each industry each produces a single product with simple labour. However, there have been fervent controversies over how to deal with skilled or complex labour, and with joint production, when defining the labour-substance of value. These problems have been focal issues in the debate on the feasibility of Marx’s labour theory of value between neo-classists, neo-Ricardians and Marxians, in addition to the related issue of the transformation problem discussed in Chapter 7. In my view these problems still need clarification, especially from the point of view of our discussion of the distinction between and relation between the forms and the substance of value. Reconsideration of these problems from such an angle would strengthen our understanding of the law of value and the working of the capitalist economy, and thus would also serve to make sounder our frame of reference for a possible socialist economy.
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Notes
P. M. Sweezy ed., Karl Marx and the Close of his System by Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk and Böhm-Bawerk’s Criticism of Marx by Rudolf Hilferding (New York: A. M. Kelly, 1949) p. 86.
E. Bernstein, ‘Zur Theorie des Arbeitswerts’, Die Neue Zeit, XVIII (1899–1900) part I.
N. Okishio, ‘A Mathematical Note on Marxian Theories’, Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, Heft 2 (1963).
B. Rowthorn, Capitalism, Conflict and Inflation (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1980) ch. 8. In his more recent ‘Notes on Skilled Labour’ (mimeo, 1985) Rowthorn has deepened his theoretical view of this problem, and basically come closer to my position in this section. Therefore, my treatment and criticisms of his argument here cannot be applicable to his recent view, although his previous argument would remain as a typical case for the technological approach to this issue.
M. Morishima, Marx’s Economics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973) p. 181.
S. Bowles and H. Gintis, ‘The Marxian Theory of Value and Heterogeneous Labour’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, vols. 1–2 (1977).
I. Steedman, Marx after Sraffa (London: NLB, 1977) ch. 7.
S. Bowles and H. Gintis, ‘Labour Heterogeneity and the Labour Theory of Value: A Reply’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, vol. 5–3 (1981). See also E. McKenna, ‘A Comment on Bowles and Gintis’ Marxian Theory of Value’, in the same issue.
K. Uno, Principles of Political Economy translated by T. Sekine, (Brighton: Harvester Press; Atlantic Highlands, N J . Humanities Press, 1980) pp. 33–4.
H. Braverman, Labour and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974).
Cf. R. Edwards, ‘System of Control in the Labour Process’, in R. Edwards et al. (ed.) The Capitalist System Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1978);
R. Edwards, Contested Terrain (London: Heinemann, 1979);
D. Gordon, R. Edwards, and M. Reich, Segmented Work, Divided Workers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
S Himmelweit, ‘Value Relations and Divisions within the Working Class’, Science and Society (Fall 1984) p. 334. Although I disagree with the treatment of the skilled-labour problem in this paper, the extension of theoretical implication of the problem to the international exchanges and the female workers’ problem in the paper is both suggestive and interesting.
K. Marx, ‘Critique of the Gotha Programme’, in D. McLellan (ed.), Karl Marx: Selected Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977) p. 567.
P. Sraffa, Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960) p. 43.
P. Sweezy, ‘Marxian Value Theory and Crisis’, in I. Steedman et al., The Value Controversy (London: Verso and NLB, 1981) p. 26.
N. Okishio, [Marxian Economics] (Tokyo: Chikuma-shobo, 1977) p. 169.
P. Armstrong, A. Glyn and J. Harrison, ‘In Defence of Value — A Reply to Ian Steedman’, Capital and Class, 5 (Summer 1978) p. 8.
S. Himmelweit and S. Mohun, ‘Real Abstractions and Anomalous Assumptions’, in Steedman et al., The Value Controversy, op. cit. p. 262.
Uno, op. cit. part I. See also M. Itoh, Value and Crisis (London: Pluto Press; New York: Monthly Review Press, 1980) ch. 2.
The similarity and difference between Quesnay’s Tableau and Marx’s reproduction scheme, as well as comparison between Marx’s scheme and Keynes’s notions of aggregate, are analysed by S. Tsuru in his Supplement ‘On the Reproduction Scheme’ to P. Sweezy, The Theory of Capitalist Development (1942) (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1956).
Part II Value, Labour and Capital
P. A. Samuelson, ‘Understanding the Marxian Notion of Exploitation: A Summary of the So-called Transformation Problem between Marxian Values and Competitive Prices’, Journal of Economic Literature, 9–2 (June 1971); also in his Collected Scientific Papers, vol. 3.
I. Steedman, Marx after Sraffa (London: New Left Books, 1977).
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© 1988 Makoto Itoh
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Itoh, M. (1988). The Extension of the Theory of the Substance of Value. In: The Basic Theory of Capitalism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19107-9_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19107-9_6
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