Value and Exploitation: Some Recent Debates

Abstract

In his introduction to the first (1956) edition of Studies in the Labour Theory of Value, Ronald Meek made it clear that his intention in writing the book was to convince critics of the intellectual respectability of the theory. The explosion of academic literature on the subject in the 1970s supplied ample proof of his success, and relatively few would now agree with one of those critics, who unwittingly played a significant part in the writing of Meek’s book, that value is ‘just a word’ (Joan Robinson, 1964, p. 47). But the proliferation of books and articles, the reinterpretation of Marx’s arguments and their mathematical reformulation have served also to generate controversy. Assessments of the merits of Marx’s theory of value continue to differ wildly, even the criteria by which the theory is to be judged remaining a source of profound disagreement.

This is a revised version of a paper given in Australia at the Eighth Conference of Economists at La Trobe University in August 1979. 1 am grateful for helpful comments from G. Catephores, L. Csapo, G. C. Harcourt, M. C. Howard and I. Steedman, none of whom shares responsibility for errors or opinions.