One of the most popular arguments against Marxism offered by barstool-libertarian types is that (i) Marx’s core analysis of capitalism was thoroughly dependent on the Labor Theory of Value (LTV), (ii) the marginal revolution in economics revealed the LTV to be nonsense, and therefore (iii) Marxism as a whole has been empirically discredited.
In an essay here a few months go (“Bibles for Brandy and Profits for Free”), I said:
Marxists have responded to this argument in several ways. Some have thought it was very important to argue against marginalism and defend a traditional understanding of the LTV (because they agree with the anti-Marxist’s initial premise that everything hangs on this question). Others reinterpret Marx’s ideas about value to the point where it’s no longer clear that he and the marginalists are even offering competing theories of the same subject. Still others, like G.A. Cohen or early-career John Roemer, have offered LTV-less reconstructions of some of Marx’s core points about capitalist exploitation. These reconstructions are explicitly presented as revisions of Marx’s arguments—attempts, in other words, to separate the wheat of *Capital’*s core insights from the LTV-chaff.
In my view, all of these responses are misguided (although they aren’t all equally misguided). Instead, the position I’ve come to hold over the course of the last few years of reading and thinking about Capital with different groups of students is that the anti-Marxist argument is wrong about how Marx himself sees the relationship between value and exploitation.
Sadly, I did not get it together to write a new essay here this week. But I am unlocking that one after a few months behind the paywall. Enjoy!
Meanwhile, Andy has already done the artwork for next week’s essay (“Norm Finkelstein is Obviously Correct About the Right”):
I’ll see you guys back here with that one next Sunday!
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