The market and exploitation in Marxrsquo;s economic theory: a reinterpretation
Photis Lysandrou*
Adopting the view that Marxrsquo;s notion of lsquo;commodityrsquo; has a wider reach than is usually supposed, and that it is this notion, rather than a lsquo;labour theory of valuersquo; that is the cornerstone of his economic theory, this paper shows that Marxrsquo;s account of capitalist exploitation is one that accords equal priority to the production and market domains. Central to this demonstration is an unorthodox explanation as to why Marx posits two alternative rules of prices in Capital.
Key words: Marx, Exploitation, Market JEL classification: B14, B24
1. Introduction There is an identifiable consensus about how Marx constructs the theory of exploitation that is central to his major work, Capital (Marx, 1961). The consensus is that he first deploys a lsquo;labour theory of valuersquo; to fix attention on class relations in production, seen as the original site of surplus creation, before switching to a more conventional account of prices as he explains how exploitation is hidden by a competitive redistribution of the surplus in the market. So entrenched is this broad description of Marxrsquo;s procedure, that it tends to be accorded axiomatic status rather than treated as a particular interpretation to be questioned and possibly overturned.1 This possibility opens up, however, once one rejects the idea that the shift in focus in Capital from the essence of capitalist relations to their outward manifestation is synonymous with a shift from an initial concentration on production to a subsequent prioritisation of the market. The lsquo;essencersquo; to lsquo;appearancersquo; characterisation of Marxrsquo;s procedure is indeed incontrovertible; the lsquo;productionrsquo; to the lsquo;marketrsquo; characterisation, however, is not. It is wrong because the point of entry into Marxrsquo;s theory of capitalism is not the lsquo;labour theory of valuersquo; but the lsquo;commodityrsquo;, a category that can have no meaning outside market space. The objective of this paper is to draw out the implications of this observation to the extent of showing that Marxrsquo;s account
copy; Cambridge Political Economy Society 2000
Manuscript received 3 March 1997; final version received 6 July 1998. Address for correspondence: Photis Lysandrou, The Business School, Stapleton House, University of North London, London N7 8HN, UK; email P.Lysandrou @unl.ac.uk * University of North London. I wish to thank John Sedgwick, Stephen Smith and two anonymous referees for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. 1 Mohun, for example, in his recent lsquo;re(in)statementrsquo; of the labour theory of value, simply takes it as given that its primary rationale is that lsquo;it enables a precise account of exploitation in the production process, and provides for a more coherent basis for the analysis of the labour process than is possible through an exclusive focus on price determinationrsquo; (1994, p. 410).
at Carleton University on June 20, 2015http://cje.oxfordjournals.org/Downloaded from
326 P. Lysandrou of capitalist exploitation is one that accords equal priority to the production and market domains at every stage of its expansion. If this interpretation of Marx is to be sustained, there needs to be an alternative explanation given as to why he does articulate two different rules of prices in Capital, one in terms of values, the other in terms of prices of production.The basic argument here will be that the switch in rules pertains to a change in the commodification density of the market rather than to a change in the marketrsquo;s status vis-agrave;-vis production. The paper divides into three main parts. First, it will be argued that Marx exposes exploitation, not by ignoring or downplaying the role of the market, but by lsquo;thinningrsquo; it; that is, the method of abstraction here consists in reducing the number of commodified entities that occupy market space to just two: lsquo;productrsquo; and lsquo;labour powerrsquo;. Second, it will be argued that the subsequent concretisation of the market, which corresponds to showing how exploitation is concealed, consists less in the foregrounding of the market as such than in its lsquo;thickeningrsquo; as previous restrictions on the depth of commodification are successively lifted. Finally, it will be argued that this unusual reading of the basic structure of Marxrsquo;s Capital, which identifies commodification as the central motif in the exploitation story, places it in a stronger, more credible position vis-agrave;-visits critics.
2. Exploitation in a lsquo;thinrsquo; market 2.1 Social output Marx states that all types of labour activity, embodying different skills, can be expressed as multiples of simple, unskilled labour.1 Suppose also that Marx assumes that there are fixed coefficients in production, i.e., there is one given technology for each particular product, and that the ratio between labour and non-labour inputs is everywhere the same.2 Leaving aside for the present discussion of the circumstances under which Marx introduces these particular restrictions in Capital 1 and then lifts them in Capital 3, note that, together with the labour reduction proposition, they ensure that a given social output can be specified in terms of the total amount of abstract, socially necessary labour time that is expended on the products that make up this output.3 This relation between abstract labour and social output is usually taken to be straightforward. However, there are two fundamentally different ways in which it can be construed, as shown in Figure 1. The boxes in Figure 1 represent an amount of output created by labour activity. This output can be looked at in two ways, in material terms as a given stock of physical goods, and in value terms as a given lsquo;socialrsquo; output. The fact that there is only one box in Figure 1(a), which depicts the conventional interpretation of Marx, is a way of showing how this posits the possibility of the dual representation of output in a single sphere of human action, that of production: while
剩余内容已隐藏，支付完成后下载完整资料
The market and exploitation in Marxrsquo;s economic theory: a reinterpretation
Photis Lysandrou*
Adopting the view that Marxrsquo;s notion of lsquo;commodityrsquo; has a wider reach than is usually supposed, and that it is this notion, rather than a lsquo;labour theory of valuersquo; that is the cornerstone of his economic theory, this paper shows that Marxrsquo;s account of capitalist exploitation is one that accords equal priority to the production and market domains. Central to this demonstration is an unorthodox explanation as to why Marx posits two alternative rules of prices in Capital.
Key words: Marx, Exploitation, Market JEL classification: B14, B24
1. Introduction There is an identifiable consensus about how Marx constructs the theory of exploitation that is central to his major work, Capital (Marx, 1961). The consensus is that he first deploys a lsquo;labour theory of valuersquo; to fix attention on class relations in production, seen as the original site of surplus creation, before switching to a more conventional account of prices as he explains how exploitation is hidden by a competitive redistribution of the surplus in the market. So entrenched is this broad description of Marxrsquo;s procedure, that it tends to be accorded axiomatic status rather than treated as a particular interpretation to be questioned and possibly overturned.1 This possibility opens up, however, once one rejects the idea that the shift in focus in Capital from the essence of capitalist relations to their outward manifestation is synonymous with a shift from an initial concentration on production to a subsequent prioritisation of the market. The lsquo;essencersquo; to lsquo;appearancersquo; characterisation of Marxrsquo;s procedure is indeed incontrovertible; the lsquo;productionrsquo; to the lsquo;marketrsquo; characterisation, however, is not. It is wrong because the point of entry into Marxrsquo;s theory of capitalism is not the lsquo;labour theory of valuersquo; but the lsquo;commodityrsquo;, a category that can have no meaning outside market space. The objective of this paper is to draw out the implications of this observation to the extent of showing that Marxrsquo;s account
copy; Cambridge Political Economy Society 2000
Manuscript received 3 March 1997; final version received 6 July 1998. Address for correspondence: Photis Lysandrou, The Business School, Stapleton House, University of North London, London N7 8HN, UK; email P.Lysandrou @unl.ac.uk * University of North London. I wish to thank John Sedgwick, Stephen Smith and two anonymous referees for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. 1 Mohun, for example, in his recent lsquo;re(in)statementrsquo; of the labour theory of value, simply takes it as given that its primary rationale is that lsquo;it enables a precise account of exploitation in the production process, and provides for a more coherent basis for the analysis of the labour process than is possible through an exclusive focus on price determinationrsquo; (1994, p. 410).
at Carleton University on June 20, 2015http://cje.oxfordjournals.org/Downloaded from
326 P. Lysandrou of capitalist exploitation is one that accords equal priority to the production and market domains at every stage of its expansion. If this interpretation of Marx is to be sustained, there needs to be an alternative explanation given as to why he does articulate two different rules of prices in Capital, one in terms of values, the other in terms of prices of production.The basic argument here will be that the switch in rules pertains to a change in the commodification density of the market rather than to a change in the marketrsquo;s status vis-agrave;-vis production. The paper divides into three main parts. First, it will be argued that Marx exposes exploitation, not by ignoring or downplaying the role of the market, but by lsquo;thinningrsquo; it; that is, the method of abstraction here consists in reducing the number of commodified entities that occupy market space to just two: lsquo;productrsquo; and lsquo;labour powerrsquo;. Second, it will be argued that the subsequent concretisation of the market, which corresponds to showing how exploitation is concealed, consists less in the foregrounding of the market as such than in its lsquo;thickeningrsquo; as previous restrictions on the depth of commodification are successively lifted. Finally, it will be argued that this unusual reading of the basic structure of Marxrsquo;s Capital, which identifies commodification as the central motif in the exploitation story, places it in a stronger, more credible position vis-agrave;-visits critics.
2. Exploitation in a lsquo;thinrsquo; market 2.1 Social output Marx states that all types of labour activity, embodying different skills, can be expressed as multiples of simple, unskilled labour.1 Suppose also that Marx assumes that there are fixed coefficients in production, i.e., there is one given technology for each particular product, and that the ratio between labour and non-labour inputs is everywhere the same.2 Leaving aside for the present discussion of the circumstances under which Marx introduces these particular restrictions in Capital 1 and then lifts them in Capital 3, note that, together with the labour reduction proposition, they ensure that a given social output can be specified in terms of the total amount of abstract, socially necessary labour time that is expended on the products that make up this output.3 This relation between abstract labour and social output is usually taken to be straightforward. However, there are two fundamentally different ways in which it can be construed, as shown in Figure 1. The boxes in Figure 1 represent an amount of output created by labour activity. This output can be looked at in two ways, in material terms as a given stock of physical goods, and in value terms as a given lsquo;socialrsquo; output. The fact that there is only one box in Figure 1(a), which depicts the conventional interpretation of Marx, is a way of showing how this posits the possibility of the dual representation of output in a single sphere of human action, that of production: wh
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