The Past & Present Reading Group is discussing, in the first half of 2024, Karl Marx’s Grundrisse. This work is often considered a crucial read to grasp Marx’s methods of analysis, with Marx diving off Hegel as one might a springboard. Yet our group has immediately plunged into deep swirling waters of postcapitalist debates over money.
The post Value Par Excellence: Money versus Real Values appeared first on Progress in Political Economy (PPE).
In my new book Animals and Capital, I follow through the implications of Marx’s value theory for thinking about capitalist animal agriculture. One important argument of the book is that animal labour power can be understood from the perspective of value, and this provides a fresh way to look at the factory farm.
The post What is the Factory Farm? Notes from Animals and Capital appeared first on Progress in Political Economy (PPE).
Reconstructing the labour theory of value: An interview with Duncan Foley (Part 2: The Capitalist Law of Exchange)
The post Reconstructing the labour theory of value: An interview with Duncan Foley (Part 2: The Capitalist Law of Exchange) appeared first on Progress in Political Economy (PPE).
Marxists tend to like the labor theory of value because it provides a vivid account of exploitation and highlights a basic antagonism at the core of capitalism: capitalists and workers are locked in a battle over the appropriation of the surplus that workers produce. But many commentators assume it is either internally inconsistent or hopelessly outdated. The theory is thus hotly contested, but arguably poorly understood by both critics and advocates alike. The debate has also sometimes been mired in arcane mathematical issues. As a consequence, interesting philosophical and empirical questions have received less attention. We put a number of these questions to Duncan Foley, author of Understanding Capital: Marx's Economic Theory.
The post Reconstructing the Labour Theory of Value: An Interview with Duncan Foley (Part 1: The Commodity Law of Exchange) appeared first on Progress in Political Economy (PPE).