Value, Money and Capital The Critique of Political Economy and Contemporary Capitalism

Introduction

CHAPTER 1. The determinations of value as historically-specific social form. Part I: Materiality and social form of abstract labour

Introduction

‘Rubin’s dilemma’ and the Marxist debate on abstract labour

Situating the contemporary literature on abstract labour

The Wertkritik’s idiosyncratic solution to ‘Rubin’s dilemma’

Abstract labour and value in chapter 1 of Capital

The initial unearthing of abstract labour and value through the analysis of the commodity

From the analysis of the dual character of labour to the synthetic unfolding of the content and form of the value-determinations

CHAPTER 2. The determinations of value as historically-specific social form. Part II: production and circulation

Introduction

The contemporary ‘circulationist’ (over)reaction to the naturalistic reading of Capital: the case of Michael Heinrich

The immanent social character of human labour and its private form

Critical remarks on some current attempts to overcome the pitfalls of the circulationist value-form approach

Contemporary production-centred approaches to value as a historically-specific social form

Co-constitutive value-form theory

Conclusion

Appendix. Brief remarks on the magnitude of value

CHAPTER 3. Systematic and historical modes of explanation in the critique of political economy. A methodological contribution to the controversy over the commodity nature of money

Introduction

Lapavitsas and Ingham on the nature of money

The methodological limits of the explanations put forward in the debate

The contemporary reality of money

The historical genesis of money

Conclusion

CHAPTER 4. Skilled labour and value-production. An alternative approach to a longstanding and unresolved controversy in the critique of political economy

Introduction

Marx on skilled labour

The critiques of Marx’s perspective on the ‘reduction problem’ and the response of Marxists

The critique of the Marxian solution

The ‘rise and fall’ of the classic Hilferding–Bauer response

The more recent proliferation of novel solutions to the ‘reduction problem’

Critical assessment of the complex labour debate

The determination of complex labour in value-production

Conclusion

CHAPTER 5. Rethinking the determination of the value of labour-power

Introduction

The ‘received wisdom’ and its limits

Marx’s discussion of the most general determinations of the value of labour-power in Capital: a critical reading.

Rethinking Marx’s account of the determinations of the value of labour-power

The real subsumption of working class consumption to capital

Content and form of the determination of the value of labour-power: on the role of the class struggle

A brief illustration

Conclusion

CHAPTER 6. Extra surplus value from innovation and the Marxian critique of political economy

Introduction

The debate over extra surplus value as subsidiary to other Marxist controversies

The main arguments in the debate

The ‘potentiated labour’ thesis

The ‘value transfer’ thesis

Marx on the source of extra surplus value

Substance, source and form of extra surplus value

Conclusion

CHAPTER 7. Cognitive commodities and the growing role of intellectual labour in value-production

Introduction

The ‘applicability’ of the law of value to knowledge-intensive commodities according to ‘Cognitive Capitalism’ theorists and Marxist economists

Material specificity and value of knowledge-intensive commodities

Cognitive means of production and the formation of value

The economic content and juridical form of cognitive commodities

Conclusion

CHAPTER 8. A critical look at Global Value Chains: competition and globalisation in contemporary capitalism. The case of the automotive industry

Introduction

The qualitative differentiation of individual capitals as the content of the ‘chain’ form of capitalist competition

The changing organisational forms of capitalist competition and the recent configurations of GVCs

GVCs and the international fragmentation of the subjective productivity of the working class.

The global automotive industry in light of the organisational and spatial reconfigurations of GVCs

CHAPTER 9. The debate over the determinations of ground-rent and the implications for the comprehension of the exchange of agrarian and mining commodities on the world market

Introduction

Controversies over ground-rent and its source

The controversy around differential rent II

Controversies over absolute monopoly rent

Further issues in the investigation of the peculiarities of the primary sector: the problem of the ‘personification of economic categories’

Some implications for the analysis of contemporary capitalism

CHAPTER 10. The specificity of capital accumulation in Latin America. A critique of dependency theory

Introduction

Ruy Mauro Marini’s and Enrique Dussel’s attempts to marry dependency theory and the Marxian critique of political economy

Ruy Mauro Marini’s Dialectics of Dependency

Unequal exchange as the essential ground of Latin America’s dependency in Dussel’s Towards an Unknown Marx

The weaknesses of Marxist dependency theory

The accumulation of capital on a world scale, the international division of labour and the hierarchical stratification of the interstate system: general foundations of uneven development

The immanent unity between economic content and political form of the specificity of Latin American societies

Biography

Guido Starosta is a Professor in the History of Economic Thought at the National University of Quilmes (UNQ) and a member of the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) and of the Centre for Science as Practical Criticism (CICP), in Argentina. His research interests are in the critique of political economy and political economy of development. He is currently investigating economic and political forms of the accumulation of capital in Argentina. He also works on issues of method and subjectivity in the Marxian critique of political economy.

Gastón Caligaris is a Lecturer in the History of Economic Thought at the National University of Quilmes (UNQ) and a member of the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) and of the Centre for Science as Practical Criticism (CICP), in Argentina. His research interests are in agrarian production and the relationship between economy and politics in contemporary Argentine society. Other research interests include dialectical method and value theory in the Marxian critique of political economy.

Alejandro Fitzsimons is a Lecturer in Argentine Economic History at the National University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and a member of the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) and of the Centre for Science as Practical Criticism (CICP), in Argentina. His most recent research examines the forms of valorisation of capital in the industrial sector, with a regional focus on Latin America. His other research interests include the economic dynamics of capital accumulation in Argentina and general topics of the Marxian critique of political economy.