The discontinuity between value and price form: tracking the subtraction of the qualitative

Ruptures represent the pertinent cause of scientific progress. On the one hand, such “scientific breaks” demarcate one type of scientific discourse from another, while simultaneously always putting in place some specific ideological aspect of the science in question. They consequently suture a determinate scientific totality, one that always reflects and serves the ruling class—be it a worldview or a concrete research programme. The article will attempt to trace the notion of value in different economic discourses to outline the historical discontinuities between them. The subsequent aim is to explore the genealogy of quantitative and qualitative determinations of value (ranging from Smith and Ricardo, through Marx, all the way to the marginalists). We will do this by highlighting a shift in the methodological approach of the object of knowledge—a parallax shift of object—i.e. between the positivist and dialectical grounding of notions. In the first part, the paper tracks the impasses arising from the move to mathematized economics via a “marginalist revolution”. In the second and third part, it proceeds with examining the rupture in “objective” and “subjective” aspects of value, reviewing different positions from Marx’s value form (as sensuous–supersensuous thing) and A. Amonn’s compromise based on the “social” form to F. A. von Hayek’s and mainstream economics’ embrace of the price form. The article concludes with a reaffirmation of Marx’s critique of the specific structure of the capitalist mode of production, one in which the subtraction of the abstract/general (“Real abstraction”) is central to a synchronous structure of economic categories. It remains the only genuine critical assessment of such a rupture within the domain of economic scientific strata.