Is There Value in the Non-Market Sector?[Le secteur non marchand a-t-il de la valeur ?]

A controversy among French Marxists refers to the way Marxist value theory should consider public services in particular and the bulk of non-market production in general, which represents quite a large share of French "GDP. Harribey (2008, 2013) upholds what he calls an "heterodox Marxism" through the introduction of a new notion : "non-market value". Against liberals (and what he considers to be "orthodox Marxists") who maintain that the non- market sector draws its resources out of the private sector, Harribey sustains the thesis according to which civil servants in particular and workers in the non-market sector in general produce the value of their wages. Hence, the latter are not paid out of fiscal receipts. This "heterodox" notion of "non-market value" raises numerous issues, especially in light of the contemporary readings of Marxist value theory that stresses the centrality of the concept of value-form. Indeed, against a "phlogistic" view of value (Cleaver, 2000), value as such only exists through its form, money. From this perspective, where there is no production for the market, there is no value since money is just a fetish form of labour hours. The notion of "non-market value" appears in this sense contradictory. Yet workers in the non- market sector do produce use values. How could one conceptualize the production of the non- market sector in line with the unitary interpretation of Marxian value theory? In this contribution, an accounting and unitary reading of the law of value is outlined. The unitary concept of monetary equivalent of labour-time (Duménil, 1980; Foley, 1982; Rodríguez-Herrera, 2021) is combined to the accounting operationalization of the distinction between productive and unproductive labour (Brickell, 1984 ; Bryer, 2017). This allows us to suggest a measurement strategy of Marxist categories, on which basis it becomes possible to offer a synthesis of both Harribey's views and his Marxist critics without resorting to the introduction of new notions foreign to value theory such as "non-market value". Bibliography Brickell S.J., 1984, A Book-Keeping Approach to the Labour Theory of Value, Test Market Edition. Bryer R., 2017, Accounting for Value in Marx's Capital: the invisible hand, Lexington. Cleaver H., 2000, Reading Capital politically, Edinburgh, AK Press, 183 p. Duménil G., 1980, De la valeur aux prix de production: une réinterprétation de la transformation, Economica, 135 p. Foley D.K., 1982, « The Value of Money the Value of Labor Power and the Marxian Transformation Problem », Review of Radical Political Economics, 14, 2, p. 37-47. Harribey J.-M., 2008, « Économie politique de la démarchandisation de la société », Actuel Marx, 44, 2, p. 76-91. Harribey J.-M., 2013, La richesse, la valeur et l'inestimable. Fondements d'une critique socio- écologique de l'économie capitaliste, Les Liens Qui Libèrent. Rodríguez-Herrera A., 2021, Travail, valeur et prix : reprise et clôture d'un débat centenaire (1885-1985) à la lumière des textes marxiens, L'Harmattan, 352 p.