A "COPERNICAN REVOLUTION" IN MARXIAN VALUE THEORY?
Alan Freeman and Andrew Kliman
Thursday, February 22, 2001, at 7:30 pm
Brecht Forum 122 West 27th Street, 10th floor (Manhattan) Phone: (212) 242-4201 www.brechtforum.org
Sliding Scale: $6 / $8 / $10
Value theory has frequently become an abstruse branch of "Marxian economics" that bears only a tenuous relation to the realities of capitalism. This situation arises, we suggest, because Marxian economists have become consumed by internal anomalies, the alleged "logical errors" of Marx's value theory that they have tried to resolve within the general equilibrium paradigm of orthodox economics. Yet by jettisoning the equilibrium paradigm, researchers from many nations have discovered that Marx's theoretical conclusions re-emerge, free from logical error. The concept of value once again reflects real-world processes of capitalist production, exchange, technological change, growth, and crisis. The new value theory offers an account of today's global economy that is coherent and arguably superior to orthodoxy.
Alan Freeman, co-editor of and contributor to _Marx and Non-equilibrium Economics_, teaches economics at the University of Greenwich (UK).
Andrew Kliman, a contributor to _Marx and Non-equilibrium Economics_, teaches economics at Pace University in Pleasantville, NY.