Value, Exchange, and Heinrich’s ‘New Reading of Marx’: Remarks on Marx’s Value-Theory, 1867–72
In: Historical MaterialismMember of the MEGA editorial team until 1990
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Member of the Institut für Marxistische Studien und Forschungen (IMSF) until 1990
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Abstract
The exclusive emergence of value and abstract human labour through exchange of mere products is a fundamental principle within the ‘New Reading of Marx’, especially that of Michael Heinrich. He invokes both Capital and the manuscript Additions and Changes, where Marx revised his value-form analysis for the second edition of Capital. However, this manuscript does not support Heinrich’s view. In the same handwritten manuscript, Marx drafted the subsection on the fetishism of the commodity with two passages that Heinrich claims as evidence for his interpretation. Against this, we elaborate Marx’s understanding of abstract human labour as the specific social character of private labour; it does not result from exchange but rather is its prerequisite. Heinrich’s attempt fails to include demand in the magnitude of value. Finally, he does not explain the value-formation by circulation and production. Rather, his one-sided view of exchange means, by way of its logical implications, that the capitalist production process is no longer the unity of the labour process and the valorisation process, but mere production of use-values.
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Z. Zeitschrift Marxistische Erneuerung, № 125–132 (March 2021–December 2022), Frankfurt am Main: IMSF.
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Value, Exchange, and Heinrich’s ‘New Reading of Marx’: Remarks on Marx’s Value-Theory, 1867–72
In: Historical MaterialismMember of the MEGA editorial team until 1990
Search for other papers by Barbara Lietz in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Member of the Institut für Marxistische Studien und Forschungen (IMSF) until 1990
Search for other papers by Winfried Schwarz in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
The exclusive emergence of value and abstract human labour through exchange of mere products is a fundamental principle within the ‘New Reading of Marx’, especially that of Michael Heinrich. He invokes both Capital and the manuscript Additions and Changes, where Marx revised his value-form analysis for the second edition of Capital. However, this manuscript does not support Heinrich’s view. In the same handwritten manuscript, Marx drafted the subsection on the fetishism of the commodity with two passages that Heinrich claims as evidence for his interpretation. Against this, we elaborate Marx’s understanding of abstract human labour as the specific social character of private labour; it does not result from exchange but rather is its prerequisite. Heinrich’s attempt fails to include demand in the magnitude of value. Finally, he does not explain the value-formation by circulation and production. Rather, his one-sided view of exchange means, by way of its logical implications, that the capitalist production process is no longer the unity of the labour process and the valorisation process, but mere production of use-values.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 4105 | 2170 | 70 |
| Full Text Views | 3494 | 58 | 2 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 7204 | 160 | 12 |
