Review of Money and Totality by Fred Moseley — The Internationalists

This is a substantial book which the author admits has been 20 years in the making. [1] It deals primarily with Moseley’s own “Macro-Monetary” interpretation of Marx’s economic writings and takes up and rebuts criticisms of this interpretation. However, the book also looks critically at the major interpretations of Marx’s economic work, by Marxist academic economists, which have emerged in the last 100 years, giving a brief description of them and critically examining their failings. Many people may not realise this, but for the greater part of the twentieth century the accepted view among academic Marxist economists, which was generally known as the Standard Interpretation (SI), was that Marx made a fundamental mistake in his economic analysis which needed to be corrected. The key issue behind this is the so-called “transformation” problem, namely the transformation of values into prices of production. The SI and its offshoots claim that Marx failed to do this correctly and his work needs to be corrected. A number of corrections have been proposed and a further number of variations of these corrections themselves put forward in ever greater complexity. Moseley shows how these criticisms and corrections are founded on a misinterpretation of Marx’s work; and that the corrections each violate some other key aspect of Marx’s work. Moseley argues that Marx did not make a mistake and there is no transformation problem whatsoever....

Important if at all interested in Marx and Marxist/Marxian economics.

Monthly Review
Review of Money and Totality by Fred Moseley

Originally published: The Internationalists (August 22, 2019)

David Norman Smith — Sharing, not selling: Marx against value

In 1975, when I began to study Capital as a first-year graduate student, I was looking for the errors that my undergraduate economics teachers had told me rendered Capital obsolete. Several of these teachers belonged to the Union of Radical Political Economists and saw themselves as Marxists. But they agreed with their non-Marxist colleagues that Marx’s core value concepts were naively Hegelian. The good news, they said, was that the superstructure of Marx’s theory–class, capital exploitation–was sociologically valid. I had already begun to write about capital and class so I found this perspective congenial.(20) But, since I was also drawn to Capital’s value-logic, I was perplexed. I was still a raw beginner, and I was open to the premise that the critical theory of the future would sail from harbors other than Capital. But a simple question remained unclear to me: Was Capital actually wrong?

To see for myself I annotated Chapter 1 of Capital word for word, day after day, for a year, searching for Marx’s fundamental error. Decades later I still haven’t found it. I’ve now been immersed in Capital and Marx’s ancillary texts for a long time, and I always find them profound and convincing.(21) I find it jarring to set Capital aside to read lesser works. But I’ve also taught Capital for decades, and I know from experience that readers find his terminology confusing. So, in what follows, I attempt to explain Marx’s ABCs in a fresh way. My goal is not to reproduce every nuance of Chapter 1 but to capture Marx’s enduring, essential logic....

Monthly Review

Sharing, not selling: Marx against value
David Norman Smith | Professor of Sociology, University of Kansas
Originally published at Continental Thought & Theory 1 (4), 2017, 653-695

Robert Vienneau — Theses For Debate In Reading Marx

I present four claims about Marx's Capital. I strive for topics more general than, for example, squabbles about the transformation problem. I suggest that some of these claims present a useful focus for reading Marx's book, even if part of your focus is arguing why the claim is wrong. If this were more than a blog post, I would need to cite various Marxists and scholars that inspired me.

Short. Not wonkish. Worth thinking about, e.g, relative to "normalizing Marx." Implies Marx was a classical economist more than a separate strain of development, although, owing to its influence politically, Marxism became a separate school. 

Neoclassical economics was not only a reaction to Marx but also to classical economics. Neoclassical economics was also at attempt to structure economics as an academic discipline, which in had not been theretofore, on the foundation of 19th century "scientism." This stripped out a lot of classical analysis, which just so happened to fit the social, political and economic paradigm of bourgeois liberalism, while giving economics the veneer of "science."

Thoughts On Economics
Theses For Debate In Reading Marx
Robert Vienneau

Michael Roberts — Capital.150 part two: the economic reason for madness

Critique of David Harvey's reading of Das Kapital.

Michael Roberts Blog
Capital.150 part two: the economic reason for madness
Michael Roberts

Matias Vernengo — Marx Capital turns 150

Some links of interest.

Naked Keynesianism
Marx Capital turns 150
Matias Vernengo | Associate Professor of Economics, Bucknell UniversiTy

David Harvey — The value of money [excerpt]

Value is a social relation. As such, it is ‘immaterial but objective.’ The ‘phantom-like objectivity’ of value arises because ‘not an atom of matter enters into the objectivity of commodities as values’. Their status as values contrasts with ‘the coarsely sensuous objectivity of commodities as physical objects. We may twist and turn a single commodity as we wish; it remains impossible to grasp it as a thing possessing value.’ The value of commodities is, like many other features of social life – such as power, reputation, status, influence or charisma – an immaterial but objective social relation that craves a material expression. In the case of value, this need is met through what Marx calls the ‘dazzling’ form of money.

Marx is very careful with his language. He refers to money almost exclusively as the ‘form of expression’ or as the ‘representation’ of value. He scrupulously avoids the idea that money is value incarnate, or that it is an arbitrary symbol imposed by convention on exchange relations (which was a widespread view in the political economy of his time). Value cannot exist without money as its mode of expression. Conversely, however autonomous it may seem, money cannot cut the umbilical cord that ties it to what it represents. We should think of money and value as autonomous and independent of each other but dialectically intertwined. This kind of relationship has a long history....

OUPblog
The value of money [excerpt]

David Harvey | Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York Graduate School

Marx’s “Capital” at 150: History in Capital, Capital in History

Today a new generation, experiencing major capitalist crises, increasingly concerned about its prospects and rising inequality, is powering radical movements in the homelands of capitalism behind figures and forces such as Sanders, Corbyn, Mélanchon, Die Linke, Podemos and Cinque Stelle. Will it bring Capital back into the history of these countries? Not before the burden of western misinterpretation that has accumulated over it for a century and a half, nearly crushing it, is removed. That involves rejecting more of our intellectual legacy, mainstream and ‘Marxist’, than we imagine....

What does all this mean for those approaching Capital today? Quite simply, Capital will not re-enter history, the one you must make to prevent capitalism taking humanity down with it, unless you recover the history in it. Park your ahistorical economics and social sciences at the door before you enter. They are not aids to understanding the greatest analysis of how we got here and where we might be headed. Read what Marx says. Pay no attention to those that tell you Capital is hard: they are merely saying ‘read my book first’. You have limited time: spend it on reading Capital. If you must read an introduction, Ernest Mandel’s, remarkably brief and unsullied by the problems discussed here, will do amply. Remember, Capital was serialised in a workers’ paper. You are today’s workers and Capital is your invitation card to history. 

Counterpunch

Marx’s “Capital” at 150: History in Capital, Capital in HistoryRadhika Desai | Professor at the Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada and author of Geopolitical Economy (2013)

Jayati Ghosh — 150 years of ‘Das Kapital’: How relevant is Marx today?

Short summary of the  of Das Kapital's continuing relevance. Clear and succinct.

Real-World Economics Review Blog

150 years of ‘Das Kapital’: How relevant is Marx today?
Jayati Ghosh | Professor of Economics at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, in New Delhi

Gareth Stedman Jones — In retrospect: Das Kapital

Short summary of Marx and his influence.

Nature
In retrospect: Das Kapital

Gareth Stedman Jones

ht Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism

David Fields — New Book: Reading “Capital” Today – Marx after 150 Years

Recent years have seen a surge of interest in Marxian political economy, particularly evident by the resurgence of readers picking up Marx’s most famous work, Capital. Now 150 years after its original publication, there are still fresh interpretations of Capital that can help readers find new pathways to progressive or revolutionary change. Marking the 150th anniversary of its publication, Reading “Capital” Today offers a wide range of leading thinkers’ reflections on this influential text—its political legacy, its limitations, and its continuing relevance in our world....

Radical Political Economy
New Book: Reading “Capital” Today – Marx after 150 Years
David Fields

Lord Keynes — Marx on the Necessity of Money being a Commodity

Interesting excerpts from Das Kapital, volume 3, on the nature of money. Marx understood the hierarchy of money, with metals as the apex of the hierarchy, toward which holders of money retreat in a credit crisis. Marx seems to have assumed that capitalism is based monetarily on commodity fetishism, therefore then

Even though the contemporary system is not a convertible system, there was a retreat into gold at the time of the recent crisis. In fact, I was recommending to friends that they sell riskier assets, especially equity in financial institutions, for gold after Bear Sterns, when it began to look like there could be a global financial crisis. It turned out to be a pretty good call.

But Marx apparently did not think that a capitalistic system could work with a monetary system without gold at the apex of the hierarchy, that is, credit ultimately exchangeable for metals as assets that are no one's liability. Of course, there would not be enough physical metal to meet demand in a real crisis, so the price of metal would be driven up.

Ironically, this view is now held by those who follow Austrian economists, and almost daily posts appear on Austrian economic blogs and at Zero Hedge with the warning that it will be anytime now. 

In fact, a goldbug friend just sent me such a link this morning so that I could partake of the easy money when gold blows off at any minute. Now I see that I should let him know that Marx preceded the Austrian economists in this view and congratulate him on being a closet Marxist.

Social Democracy For The 21St Century: A Post Keynesian Perspective

Marx on the Necessity of Money being a Commodity

Lord Keynes

Lord Keynes — Fiat Money Destroys the Labour Theory of Value

Simple reflection on how Marx understood the nature of money as embedded in his labour theory of value in Part 1 of volume 1 of Capital leads to this conclusion. 

Marx’s whole explanation of the emergence of money in Chapter 2 of Capital assumes that money must be a commodity. For Marx, as commodity exchange becomes developed and people produce things specifically for exchange, socially necessary labour time comes to determine exchange values (Marx 1990: 183–184), and the real value of commodity money arises not in the process of exchange but in the human labour expended in producing it (Marx 1990: 184–185). 

In Chapter 3 of Capital Marx argues that money can only be a commodity that is the product of labour with an abstract socially necessary labour value so that it can be equated with labour values of other commodities in exchange:

Social Democracy For The 21St Century: A Post Keynesian Perspective
Fiat Money Destroys the Labour Theory of Value
Lord Keynes

Barkley Rosser — He's Baaack! Karl Marx And The Transformation Problem

The annual Eastern Economic Association meetings ended yesterday in New York. On Saturday a session on Marx's transformation problem drew an audience of roughly 70 people, with talks by Anwar Shaikh and Duncan Foley, both of the New School, Fred Moseley of Mount Holyoke, with comments by David Laibman, formerly of Brooklyn College and longtime editor of Science and Society, the longest running (since the 30s) scholarly Marxist journal in the US. Besides the unexpectedly large crowd, there was news. 

One piece of news coming from Mosedey is that Karl Marx is about to have a fresh publication in the English language, his original manuscript for Volume III of Capital, which was only published in German in the 1990s....

Econospeak
He's Baaack! Karl Marx And The Transformation Problem
J. Barkley Rosser | Professor of Economics and Business Administration James Madison University

herrnaphta — Marxism and Monetary Theory: A Bibliography

Since reading David Graeber’s Debt last fall, I’ve become interested in the relationship between Marxist economic theory and the heterodox theory of money Graeber supports in his work. Graeber holds to a chartalist position, which argues that money is not, as the classic account in Carl Menger goes, simply the most salable commodity, but rather a symbol that has value because the state requires us to pay taxes in it. Though this theory of money dates back to Aristotle, today it has been developed into the body of theory known as ‘Modern Monetary Theory.’ 

MMT’s focus on the role of the state in making money gives it a very different emphasis from Marx’s analysis in the first three chapters of Capital. There, Marx argues for something quite similar to Menger, drawing an account of the way that a society based on commodity production has need for one commodity to serve as a universal equivalent. In other words, monetary theory appears to make for strange bedfellows. On one side, we have the neo-classicals, the Austrians, and Marx. On the other, the left-leaning post-Keynesians. What to make of all this? 

Personally, I’m pulled by the arguments of MMT. As I began researching what Marxists had to say on the subject, I was relieved to find a number of them arguing that value theory does not require commodity money, and that Marx himself in the later volumes of Capital appears to recognize this....

Marxist Marginalia
Marxism and Monetary Theory: A Bibliography
herrnaphta
h/t Rodger Mitchell at Chartalism

Steve Roth — Identity Games: Saving ≠ Saving? Whodathunkit?

Before I go, one more thought: After coming up with this “accumulation” notion/usage, Very Little Googling revealed that (no surprise) it’s hardly original. It’s right there in Volume I of Das Kapital. (I just discovered this? Hey, I’m self-taught, with the resulting predictably spotty/spotlight reading background. I’m working on it!)

And let’s not forget: It was the 1930s. Kuznets and co. were developing the national accounts, and they were devoted capitalists. They’re gonna use Marxist language, much less concepts and theory? In the National Accounts? Of The United States of America? Not gonna happen.

Asymptosis
Identity Games: Saving ≠ Saving? Whodathunkit?
Steve Roth