A Political Economy of Contemporary Capitalism and its Crisis

2Ricardian Marxism and finance as unproductive activity

1 Marx’s monetary theory of value and capital: a general outline

As has been argued elsewhere (Heinrich 1999, 2009, Milios et al. 2002, Arthur 2002, Postone 2003), Marx’s theory of value does not constitute a “modification” or a mere “correction” of the classical political economy theory of value but rather establishes a new theoretical proposition, prefiguring a new theoretical object of analysis. Marx’s notion of value does not coincide with Ricardo’s concept of value as “labor expended.” It involves a complex conjoining of the specifically capitalist features of the labor process with the corresponding forms of appearance of the products of labor, making it possible in this way for the ...