 Value and Exploitation: A counterfactual approachReview of Political Economy, 2003, vol. 15, issue 2, 155-171 Abstract: A deconstruction of the Marxian theories of value and exploitation is attempted by arguing, first, that the labour theory of value is logically and methodologically inconsistent as a basis for a theory of capitalist exploitation and, second, that it is founded on an ontology of the social being which is not plausibly justified. A counterfactual model economy is then built, called Utopia, in which the workers receive the whole net output while commodities exchange at labour values. This model is used as a benchmark to evaluate a capitalist economy where commodities exchange at production prices and workers are exploited. It is shown that the factor of exploitation can be expressed as a ratio between the labour commanded by, and the labour contained in, the net output, or between the value added produced in a capitalist economy and that produced in Utopia. The resulting theory of exploitation entails a weak ontology of the social being, expressing a worker's point of view. Date: 2003 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:revpoe:v:15:y:2003:i:2:p:155-171 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/0953825032000064869 Access Statistics for this article Review of Political Economy is currently edited by Steve Pressman and Louis-Philippe Rochon More articles in Review of Political Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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