Socially Contingent Value

Acceptance or rejection of some notion of a labour theory of value is often a litmus test for whether one accepts or rejects a distinct Marxian economic analysis. Indeed some economists have given up a labour theory of value altogether, and in so doing place their work outside the Marxian tradition (Lavoie, 1983). Others, however, continue to embrace this project by formulating new ways of conceptualizing the performance of paid and unpaid labour relative to prices and other forms of value (Carchedi, 1991; Kliman and McGlone, 1988; Moseley, 1993). Among the Marxist economists working within a labour theory of value approach, several have offered new ways of conceptualizing value and prices such that values are not simply reduced to direct labour equivalents (Amariglio and Callari, 1989; Kristjanson, 1994; Roberts, 1988; Wolff, Roberts and Callari, 1984). Influenced by Althusser’s critique of reductionist and deterministic modes of reasoning (Althusser, 1970; Althusser and Balibar, 1970) these latter Marxists have emphasized the social determination of value such that when considering Marx’s conception of socially necessary abstract labour as the ‘substance’ of value, the ‘socially necessary’ modifier of abstract labour takes on new significance and import.