labour theory of value objections & defenses

This will jump around a bit, so let me start with the anti-"labor theory of value" stuff, move to the best of the standard "Marxist Political Economy" stuff (I'll skip Mandel and Cliff and the trots, who are pretty much useless, and also a lot of the academic drivel like Weeks, analytic Marxism, etc. If you want a review of that, King and King's book on Marxist economic theories is adequate.) After that, I'll introduce the good stuff and then some good, but less good, stuff.

But first...

Its just my opinion, but until you understand what Marx is on about in Capital and the Grundrisse, you won't understand the criticisms and how terribly, stupidly wrong they usually are because they miss the point. Frankly, reading Capital, and reading it slowly, is always a good thing, and pay attention to his use of terms like 'form', 'form of appearance', substance of value, measure of value, etc.

So...

Bohm-Bawerk is indeed the classical critique. There are also subtle attacks on it by the people following Piero Sraffa who are 'neo-Ricardians' and it is realy the Ricardians who have a 'labor theory of value'; a lot of ham-fisted stupidity by the likes of Samuelson, F. A. Hayek and Milton Friedman; Schumpeter's work; and some Keynesian-Marxists like Joan Robinson, Paul Sweezey, and Paul Baran.

A critical issue is the understanding of Value and form in Marx and IMO (as you will see if you read the exchange between afraser and I) 'Marxist Political economy' pretty much fucks it all up. The best of that milieu, however, are involved in the recent debates over the last 10 years of the transformation problem. see...

The New Value Controversy and the Foundations of Economics

edited by Alan Freeman, Andrew Kliman & Julian Wells AND

Marx and Non-Equilibrium Economics by Freeman and Kliman

You can visit the web site that holds extensive discussions of the so-called transformation problem, http://www.iwgvt.org/ for a lot of good articles on Value, and in defense and against their interpretation of the transformation problem.

The classic of post-WWII Marxist political economy, IMO, is definitely Ernest Mandel's 2 volume "Marxist Political Economy." It has all the crap, formulated in the crappy way, as a large text book of Marxist economics. Mandel is the guru of this stuff. One of the best critiques of Mandel comes from Paul Mattick, available on this site.

BUT the good stuff really starts with I.I. Rubin (most of his main work is on www.marxists.org), which is really essential for one of the clearest readings of the problem of value as a question of social form and why it is more correct to discuss a value theory of labor than a labor theory of value and what that entails. Following Rubin or in the same vein are Paresh Chattopadhyay (several good essays on this site's library, plus his excellent book on the Soviet Union), the Open Marxism group (John Holloway, Werner Bonefeld, and if you read German, Georg Backhaus, some essays on this site, though none immediately relevant to your question), Cyril Smith (essays on this site), and C.J. Arthur ("Value, Labor and Negativity", on this site). There is also the very good book The Incomplete Marx by Felton Shorthall of Aufheben and Aufheben's critique of Mindnight Notes (an autonomist Marxist grouping) and value and their discussion of Harry Cleaver. Which brings me to...

There is also the autonomist Marxist milieu, which has some interesting, if at times misguided things to say. Harry Cleaver's "Reading Capital Politically' (available on this site) is the main book-length work, while Raniero Panzieri's stuff is very good article-length stuff (really what got operaismo and autonomia in Italy started.)

Roman Rosdolksy's book The Making of Marx's Capital is a weird text that straddles MPE and Rubin. Is it worth reading? Not for what you want, but generally yes.

Meaning what?

Start with Marx, IMO read Rubin, Paresh Chattopadhyay, Cyril Smith, CJ Arthur and Felton Shorthall and then and only then move into the other stuff. but that's me. That's only three books (Vol. 1 of Capital, Rubin, Shorthall), and a handful of essays (Arthur, Chattopadhyay, Aufheben, Smith, not necessarily in that order), but that is the basis of a good, solid introduction.

Then go to Bohm-Bawerk, Hayek, Schumpeter and maybe Joan Robinson (Keynes with a little Marx thrown in.) There have to be some short articles or snippets somewhere if you want to avoid the long stuff. use these names as a guide.

If you have a stomach for it after that, dive into the MPE stuff (Freeman, Kliman, Mattick, Mandel.)

If you want a really short discussion, well, good luck. Its a huge problem and not amenable to a brief review, if you want to actually understand it. At least Marx, Rubin, Chattopadhyay, Smith and Arthur.

cheers,

chris