Value is as Value Does: Twixt Knowledge and the World Economy

Abstract

This paper addresses two important, ocnspicuous topics for the understanding of contemporary capitalism: the world market and the knowledge economy. By locating these within Marx’s value theory, its authors take issue with other interpretations that explicitly reject or misinterpret Marx’s value theory in light of these themes. More generall, these exercises point to the need for value theiry and the fact that it should and can move beyond its traditional terrain, collaborating with other strands of critical thought in understanding developments within contemporary society.

Keywords

• Marxist Political Economy,Value Theory,Knowledge Economy,World Market

References

1. Bell D (ed.) (2007) Victorian Visions of Global Order: Empire and International Relations in Nineteenth- Century Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2. Braverman H (1974) Labor and Monopoly Capital. New York: Monthly Review Press.
3. dos Santos P (2009) On the content of banking in contemporary capitalism. Historical Materialism 17/2: 180–213.
4. Fine B (2001) The continuing imperative of value theory. Capital & Class 75: 7–18.
5. Fine B (2006) Debating the ‘new’ imperialism. Historical Materialism 14/4: 133–56.
6. Fine B (2007) Financialisation, poverty, and Marxist political economy. Poverty and Capital Conference,University of Manchester, 2–4 July. Available at https://eprints.soas.ac.uk.
7. Fine B (2009a) Looking at the crisis through Marx. International Socialist Review 64/March–April: 40–47. Fine B (2009b) Financialisation, the value of labour power, the degree of separation, and exploitation by banking. SOAS Research Students Summer Seminar Series, 30 April. Available at https://eprints.soas. ac.uk.
8. Fine B, Harris L (1979) Rereading Capital. London: Macmillan.

9. Fine B, Saad-Filho A (2008) Production versus realisation: A reply to Kincaid. Historical Materialism 16/4: 191–204.
10. Fine B, Saad-Filho A (2009) Twixt Ricardo and Rubin: Debating Kincaid once more. Historical Materialism 17/3: 192–207.
11. Fine B, Saad-Filho A (2010, forthcoming) Marx’s Capital. London: Pluto Press, fth edition. Fine B et al. (1999) Addressing the world economy: Two steps back. Capital & Class 67: 47–90. 82 Capital & Class 34(1)
12. Fine B et al. (2004) Transforming the transformation problem: Why the ‘new solution’ is a wrong turning. Review of Radical Political Economics 36/1: 3–19.
13. Fine B et al. (2005) Beyond Brenner’s investment overhang hypothesis: The case of the steel industry. New Political Economy 10/1: 43–64.
14. Glyn A (2007) Capitalism Unleashed: Finance, Globalization, and Welfare. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
15. Hardt M, Negri A (2004) Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. New York: Penguin.
16. Hassard J, M Rowlinson (1994) Economics, politics and labour process theory. Capital & Class 53: 65–97.
17. Hassard J, Rowlinson M (2000) Marxist political economy, revolutionary politics, and labor process theory. International Studies of Management and Organisation 30/4: 85–111.
18. Hont I (2005) Jealousy of Trade: International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
19. Jeon H (2009) Knowledge work and debate on the value of information goods. Marxism 21 6/1: 230–72, in Korean.
20. Jeon H (2008) Korean debate on the value of software and knowledge labour. Presented at the 2nd IIPPE international research workshop, Naples, Italy, 10–12 Sept. Available at www.iippe.org.
21. Kang N et al. (2007) Debate on the Value of Information Commodities. Osan: Hanshin University Press, in Korean.
22. Kincaid J (2007) Production versus realisation: A critique of Fine and Saad-Filho on value theory. Historical Materialism 15/4: 137–64.
23. Kincaid J (2008) Production versus capital in motion: A reply to Fine and Saad-Filho. Historical Materialism 16/4: 205–27.
24. Kincaid J (2009) The logical construction of value theory: More on Fine and Saad-Filho. Historical Materialism 17/3: 208–220.
25. Lapavitsas C (2009a) Financialised capitalism: Crisis and nancial expropriation. Historical Materialism 17/2: 114–48.
26. Marx K (1993 [1857–8]) Grundrisse. London: Penguin.
27. Marx K (1990 [1867]) Capital, Vol. 1. London: Penguin.
28. Marx K (1991 [1894]) Capital, Vol. 3. London: Penguin.
29. Meiksins P (1994) Labor and monopoly capital for the 1990s: A review and critique of the labor process debate. Monthly Review 46/6: 45–59.
30. Mintz S (1985) Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. London: Penguin.
31. Moulier-Boutang Y (2006) Antagonism under cognitive capitalism: Class composition, class conscious- ness and beyond. Presented at Conference on Immaterial Labour, Multitudes and New Social Subjects: Class Composition in Cognitive Capitalism, King’s College, Cambridge, 29–30 April.
32. Negri A (2008) Re ections on Empire. Cambridge: Polity Press.
33. Negri A, Vercellone C (2007) Il Rapporto Capitale/Lavoro Nel Capitalismo Cognitivo. Posse, November. Available at www.posseweb.net.
34. Paulré B (2004) Introduction au Capitalisme Cognitif. Le Journée d’Étude, organisée par le GRES et MATISSE- ISYS CNRS-Université Paris 1, Paris, 25 November. Available at http://seminaire.samizdat.net.
35. Pomeranz K, Topik S (2005) The World that Trade Created: Society, Culture, and the World Economy, 1400 to the Present, 2nd edition. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe.
36. Saad-Filho A (2002) The Value of Marx: Political Economy of Contemporary Capitalism. London: Routledge.
37. Solow B (1987) Capitalism and slavery in the exceedingly long run. In Solow and Engerman (eds.) (1987). Solow B, Engerman S (eds.) (1987) British Capitalism and Caribbean Slavery: The Legacy of Eric Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
38. Spencer D (2000) Braverman and the contribution of labour process analysis to the critique of capitalist production: Twenty- ve years on. Work, Employment and Society 14/2: 223–244.
39. Stedman Jones G (2007) Radicalism and the extra-European world: The case of Karl Marx. In Bell (ed.) (2007). Fine et al. 83.
40. Vercellone C (2004) Sens et enjeux de la transition vers le capitalisme cognitif: Une mise en perspective historique. Paper presented at the seminar, Transformations du Travail et Crise de l’Économie Politique, Université de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, 12 October. Available at www.geocities.com/immateriallabour.
41. Vercellone C (2007) From formal subsumption to general intellect: Elements for a Marxist reading of the thesis of cognitive capitalism. Historical Materialism 15/1: 13–36.
42. Vercellone C (2008a) Finance, rente et travail dans le capitalisme cognitif. Multitudes 32. Available at http://multitudes.samizdat.net.
43. Vercellone C (2008b) The new articulation of wages, rent and pro t in cognitive capitalism. Queen Mary University School of Business and Management, London. Available at http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr.
44. Wardell M (1999) Labor processes: Moving beyond Braverman and the deskilling debate. In Wardell et al. (eds.) (1999).
45. Wardell M et al. (eds.) (1999) Rethinking the Labor Process. Albany: State University of New York Press. Williams E (1944) Capitalism and Slavery. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.