Understanding the Marxian Notion of Exploitation: the ‘Number One Issue’

Abstract

According to Samuelson, ‘The Number One Issue in Appraising Karl Marx’s Theoretical Innovations’ is ‘what Marx claimed as most originally his … namely [his] way of handling “surplus value”’ (1977, p. 250).¹ ‘It is precisely Marx’s models in Volumes I and II of equalized-rates-of-positive-surplus-value-markups-on-direct-wages-alone that have seemed bizarre to most non-Marxian economists,’ who have therefore joined in a ‘near-universal rejection … of these … paradigms as (a) gratuitously unrealistic, (b) an unnecessary detour from which Marx in Volume III had to beat a return, even though … he was too stubborn or too unperceptive or too unscientific to admit [it]’ (ibid.).

* Reprinted from G. Feiwel (ed.), Samuelson and Neo-Classical Economics (Boston: Kluwer-Nijoff, 1982). I am grateful to Ulrich Krause, Heinz Kurz, and Anwar Shaikh for detailed comments and criticism. This paper develops themes raised in Chapter 3, and in doing so repeats some material.