A Minor Post-Ricardian? Marx as an Economist

Marx versus Walras on Labour Exchange

“…In this manner Marx s discussions on labour exchange attach importance to the worker s preference regarding the content of her labour Walras and other neoclassical economists as utility-oriented theorists should take due account of this preference but they ignore it This contrast causes Marx s thoughts on labour exchange to embrace forceful and intrinsic criticisms of the neoclassical doctrine 11 However Marx s focus on the worker s subjectivity nearly disappears in Capital Here in principle labour power is treated as a commodity used at the bidding of the capitalist Arguably this change is attributable to the fact that the labour power-labour distinction in Capital is exclusively identified as the cornerstone of the principle of exploitation based on the labour theory of value 12 As a result pushing abstract human labour to the fore Marx in Capital marginalises concrete useful labour as irrelevant to value and exploitation and tends to underestimate labour in the service sector as producing no surplus value Yet it is concrete useful labour not abstract human labour whose concept is shared by neoclassical economists and which concerns the worker s preference Additionally the service industry has become increasingly dominant in today s economy Thus while the establishment of Marx s value and exploitation doctrine in Capital marked the limit of his studies and criticisms of classical economics this doctrine shoved aside those viewpoints in his pre-Capital writings that could lead to convincing counterarguments to the neoclassical theory Most Marxists up to the present followed the direction established in Capital Historical research on Marx s economics too centred around topics as to the value and exploitation doctrine The same is true of the comparison between Marx and neoclassical economists This made the comparative study of them remain secondary to the study of the Marxclassical economist relationship despite the fact that more than a century has passed since the neoclassical school obtained hegemony Consequently critics on the neoclassical side asserted that Marx made little positive contribution to the history of economics and so mainstream economists might well neglect his economics see for example Brewer 1995 By giving attention to Marx s discussions on the labour power-labour distinction in his pre-Capital writings and contrasting them with Walras s counterparts this paper revises the above tendency and shows that Marx s thinking contains an element which independent of his labour theory of value and conception of exploitation can be an intrinsic and potent criticism of the paradigm of neoclassical economics and thereby justify his socio-economic views This also urges the re-evaluation of the development of Marx s economic thought…”

Piero Sraffa’s physical price system and reproduction without production

“…This labour reproduces human society by physically transforming inputs into different outputs that meet human needs, while capitalist competition creates technological advance which means that relative prices, and inputs and outputs constantly change. Brewer and Cutler considered that Marx’s argument for the pre-eminence of social labour were nonetheless ‘unbelievably weak’ (Brewer 1995: 117; Cutler et al 1977: 6). Were they?…”

Production Modes, Marx’s Method and the Feasible Revolution

“…Detractors include Brewer, who controverts that Marx's approach offers few, if any, insights into the far-reaching issues with which mainstream economists concern themselves and thinks this to explain why they hold him in scant esteem (see Brewer 1995). 2 Curiously, yet interestingly enough, in the four-square breakdown used by U. Pagano to illustrate the four economic organisation models he rates as the most prominent of all (Marxian socialism, the rational expectations model, Lange's 1936 model and Hayek's market economy model) we would expect market socialism to be associated with Hayek, but Pagano remarks that despite the traditional contrast between the Marxian and Austrian schools, a combination of the two would probably carry us much further (see Pagano 2006, p. 116).…”

“…In full sync with Sartre's argument that we cannot go beyond Marxism because «we have not gone beyond the circumstances which engendered it» (Sartre 1960, p. 19), 26 in the light of the recent theorisation of a form of revolution which is both possible and desirable in our contemporary world it is possible to argue that Marx's theory of revolution has lost none of its topicality. «Marx's philosophy -Petrović has argued (1975, p. 40) -is both speculation on the essence of being and speculation on revolution, 27 but not speculation on being plus revolution.…”

“…the break with the existing social model) is to be construed as the introduction of a new mode of production. 29 This was doubtless the view of 26 Similarly, forty years after him Musto argued that "thanks to Marx's unequalled critique of the capitalistic production mode, his approach will be a milestone in social science unless and until it is proved wrong" (2005b, p. 155). On this point, see, also, Kellner 1995, p. 26.…”