A critique of Shaikh’s two interpretations of Marx’s ‘transformation problem’

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred Moseley
Keyword(s):  
Recent Book ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Transformation Problem ◽  
Total Surplus ◽  
Total Profit

Abstract It is argued in this paper that Shaikh has presented two different interpretations of the transformation problem in his works. In his influential 1977 paper, he presented an “iterative” interpretation in which there is a transfer of value between departments in the economy; and in a series of papers in the 1980s and in his recent book, he presented a different interpretation in which there is a transfer of value between firms in Department 3 and capitalist households. An important common feature of these two different interpretations is that total profit is not equal to total surplus-value. The two interpretations present different explanations of this divergence, which are examined in detail in this paper. It is argued that there is no textual evidence whatsoever to support Shaikh’s second interpretation. A few comparisons will also be made to my “macro-monetary” interpretation of Marx theory according to which there is no transformation problem in Marx’s theory and total profit is always equal to total surplus-value.

scholarly journals The Productive Powers of Labour and the Redundant Transformation to Prices of Production

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-35
Author(s):  
Geert Reuten
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
Transformation Problem ◽  
Power Differentials

AbstractThe famous Marxian ‘transformation problem’ originated from a research manuscript written by Marx in 1864/65, from which Engels assembledCapitaliii(1894). Unequal capital compositions, equal rates of surplus-value and equal rates of profit among different sectors are posited, and reconciled using the problematic concept of ‘prices of production’. Yet the assumption of equal rates of surplus-value is at odds with the subsequent text ofCapitali(1867), where Marx presents various determinants of the rate of surplus-value, and connects productive powers of labour diverging between sectors with divergentvalue-generating potenciesof labour. Given the other determinants, diverging rates of surplus-value then result. Marx disregarded these productive power differentials when he originally formulated his transformation. In a reconstruction, building onCapitali, this omission is rectified. It makes prices of production and hence the dual account systems redundant. The transformation problem then evaporates.

scholarly journals Exchanging without Exploiting

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 171-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Louisa Lange
Keyword(s):  
World History ◽  
Marxian Theory ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
Capitalist Mode ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Basic Assumptions ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Mode Of Production

After Transcritique: On Kant and Marx (2003), Karatani Kōjin’s new book The Structure of World History presents another engagement with Marxian theory from a ‘heterodox’ standpoint. In this book, rather than viewing The Structure of World History from the aspect of mode of production in the conventional ‘Marxist’ sense, Karatani shifts perspective to the modes of exchange. To this end, Karatani appropriates what he sees as Marx’s emphasis on ‘exchange’. In the present essay, by looking at the textual evidence, I critically evaluate whether this appropriation of Marx’s theory is justified. I furthermore contend that Karatani’s reading of the concepts of value, money, capital, and surplus-value from the standpoint of ‘exchange’ (i.e. circulation) arises from a grave misconstrual of Marx’s critical intent. Accordingly, Karatani neglects the critique of exploitation and the systematic production of poverty that informs the basic assumptions of Marx’s analysis of the capitalist mode of production.

Capital in General and Competition

2018 ◽  
pp. 260-278
Author(s):  
Fred Moseley
Keyword(s):  
Main Question ◽  
Levels Of Abstraction ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
Level Of Abstraction ◽  
Total Surplus ◽  
Rate Of Profit

This chapter argues that capital in general and competition are the two main levels of abstraction in Marx’s theory in Capital and that they correspond to the theories of the production of surplus value in Capital I and II and the distribution of surplus value in Capital III. The main question addressed at the level of capital in general is the production of surplus value or the determination of the total surplus value produced in the economy as a whole. The main question addressed at the level of abstraction of competition is the distribution of surplus value, or the division of the total surplus value into individual parts (first the equalization of the rate of profit across industries and then the further division of the total surplus value into commercial profit, interest, and rent).

Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie im 21. Jahrhundert.

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (188) ◽  
pp. 453-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans-Peter Büttner
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
New World ◽  
Neoclassical Economics ◽  
Price Theory ◽  
Transformation Problem ◽  
Iron Cage ◽  
Analytical Tools

While the majority of the scientific community holds Marxian Value and Price Theory to be internally inconsistent because of the so-called “transformation problem”, these claims can be sufficiently refuted. The key to the solution of the “transformation problem” is quite simple, so this contribution, because it requires the rejection of simultanism and physicalism, which represent the genuine method of neoclassical economics, a method that is completely incompatible with Marxian Critique of Political Economy. Outside of the iron cage of neoclassical equilibrium economics, Marxian ‘Capital’ can be reconstructed without neoclassical “pathologies” and offers us a whole new world of analytical tools for a critical theory of capitalist societies and its dynamics.

On Modern Scientific Assessment of the Economic Theory of Marx-Engels-Lenin (Ten Items for Reflection)

2004 ◽  
pp. 111-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Kudrov
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
Scientific Assessment ◽  
General Law

Substantive provisions of the Marx-Engels-Lenin economic theory in comparison with vital realities of XX century are critically considered in the article. Theories of surplus value, labor value, general law of capitalist accumulation, absolute and relative impoverishment of proletariat are examined. The author points to utopianism and inconsistency of Marx's theory and calls Russian economists for creation of new economic theory adequate to challenges of XXI century.

Marx and the “law of value”: Critical appraisal on the occasion of his 200th birth anniversary

2018 ◽  
pp. 27-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. D. Kurz
Keyword(s):  
Karl Marx ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Use Value ◽  
Transformation Problem ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law

The paper celebrates Karl Marx’ 200th birthday in terms of a critical discussion of the “law of value” and the idea that “abstract labour”, and not any use value, is the common third of any two commodities that exchange for one another in a given proportion. It is argued that this view is difficult to sustain. It is also the source of the wretched and unnecessary “transformation problem”. Ironically, as Piero Sraffa has shown, prices of production and the general rate of profits are fully determined in terms of the same set of data from which Marx started his analysis.

Christian-Jewish Dialogue in the Land of Sick Imagination. On the Margins of Waldemar Chrostowski’s Book Kościół, Żydzi, Polska

2010 ◽  
pp. 475-482
Author(s):  
Janusz Salamon, SJ
Keyword(s):  
Recent Book ◽  
Conflict Of Interests ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Church

The article is a polemic with the pessimistic assessment of the current state of the Christian-Jewish dialog presented by Waldemar Chrostowski in his recent book Kościół, Żydzi, Polska [The Church, Jews, Poland]. The author criticizes Rev. Chrostowski for defining the Christian-Jewish and Polish-Jewish relations in terms of strict opposition and unavoidable conflict of interests, and for putting all blame on Jews, while absolving Christians from all their past and present sins which contributed to the tensions between the two communities.

Perdre la mesure… Or, The Ecologics of Extinction

CounterText ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-30
Author(s):  
Stefan Herbrechter
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Solar System ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Current Level ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Human Race ◽  
World Picture ◽  
Adequate Measurement ◽  
Ecological Catastrophe

The article takes its cue from Olivier Rey's recent book Une question de taille (a question of size) and develops the idea of humanity ‘losing its measure, or scale’ in the context of contemporary ecological catastrophe. It seems true that the current level of global threats, from climate change to asteroids, has produced a culture of ambient ‘species angst’ living in more or less constant fear about the survival of the ‘human race’, biodiversity, the planet, the solar system. This indeed means that the idea of a cosmos and a cosmology may no longer be an adequate ‘measurement’ for scaling the so far inconceivable, namely a thoroughly postanthropocentric world picture. The question of scale is thus shown to be connected to the necessity of developing a new sense of proportion, an eco-logic that would do justice to both, things human and nonhuman. Through a reading of the recent science fiction film Interstellar, this article aims to illustrate the dilemma and the resulting stalemate between two contemporary ‘alternatives’ that inform the film: does humanity's future lie in self-abandoning or in self-surpassing, in investing in conservation or in exoplanets? The article puts forward a critique of both of these ‘ecologics’ and instead shows how they depend on a dubious attempt by humans to ‘argue themselves out of the picture’, while leaving their anthropocentric premises more or less intact.

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