IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/17339.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Towards a Political Economy of the Hunters and Gatherers: A Study in Historical Materialism

Author

Listed:
  • Hagendorf, Klaus

Abstract

This paper uses the mode of production of the hunter-gatherers as a background to explain basic economic concepts, in particular the meaning of the labour theory of value and it's relationship to optimization of resources. A proof of the marginal value theorem is presented. A new term is introduced to designate labour surplus value, roundabout labour. The analytical expression for socially necessary labour is derived and Adam Smith's paradox between labour value and the adding-up theorem of wages, rent and profit, is resolved. It is shown that far from being limited to the ancient form of society of the hunter-gatherers the labour theory of value holds also in modern times.

Suggested Citation

  • Hagendorf, Klaus, 2009. "Towards a Political Economy of the Hunters and Gatherers: A Study in Historical Materialism," MPRA Paper 17339, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Sep 2009.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:17339
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/17339/1/MPRA_paper_17339.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Samuelson, Paul, 2012. "Understanding the Marxian Notion of Exploitation: A Summary of the So-CalledTransformation Problem Between Marxian Values and Competitive Prices," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, pages 182-202, August.
    2. Dobb,Maurice, 1975. "Theories of Value and Distribution since Adam Smith," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521099363, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Luis Daniel Torres-González, 2020. "The Characteristics of the Productive Structure Behind the Empirical Regularities in Production Prices Curves," Working Papers 2016, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    2. Roberto Veneziani & Luca Zamparelli & Simon Mohun & Roberto Veneziani, 2017. "Value, Price, And Exploitation: The Logic Of The Transformation Problem," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(5), pages 1387-1420, December.
    3. Freeman, Alan, 2017. "Introduction to Michel Husson's 'Value and price: a critique of neo-Ricardian claims'," MPRA Paper 89949, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 10 Oct 2017.
    4. Blair Fix, 2021. "How the rich are different: hierarchical power as the basis of income size and class," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 403-454, November.
    5. Jonathan F Cogliano, 2023. "Marx’s equalised rate of exploitation," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 47(1), pages 133-169.
    6. Pilar Piqué, 2018. "Los conceptos de “valor” y “sociedad ruda y primitiva” en la obra de Adam Smith," Apuntes del Cenes, Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, vol. 37(66), pages 15-38, June.
    7. Hans-Werner Sinn, 2017. "What Marx Means Today," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(2), pages 229-239, June.
    8. Vaona, Andrea, 2011. "Profit rate dynamics, income distribution, structural and technical change in Denmark, Finland and Italy," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 247-268, September.
    9. Michael A. Clemens, 2021. "The Fiscal Effect of Immigration: Reducing Bias in Influential Estimates," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 2134, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    10. Blair Fix, 2022. "Economic development and the death of the free market," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 1-46, April.
    11. Andrew Kliman & Ted McGlone, 1999. "A Temporal Single-system Interpretation of Marx's Value Theory," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(1), pages 33-59.
    12. Torres-González, Luis Daniel, 2022. "The Characteristics of the Productive Structure Behind the Empirical Regularities in Production Prices Curves," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 622-659.
    13. Fix, Blair, 2019. "How the rich are different: Hierarchical power as the basis of income and class," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2019/02, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    14. Robert Lepenies, 2014. "Economists as political philosophers : a critique of normative trade theory," RSCAS Working Papers 2014/11, European University Institute.
    15. Guillermo José Escudé, 2014. "Addressing the Poverty of Mainstream Economics," Working Papers hal-01233851, HAL.
    16. Escudé, Guillermo J., 2021. "La Teoría del Capitalismo de Karl Marx. Exposición, Crítica y Evaluación [Karl Marx's Theory of Capitalism. Exposition, Critique, and Appraisal]," MPRA Paper 105877, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Alain Lipietz, 1982. "Retour au problème de la « transformation des valeurs en prix de production »," Cahiers d'Économie Politique, Programme National Persée, vol. 7(1), pages 141-165.
    18. Escudé, Guillermo J., 2021. "Karl Marx´s Theory of Capitalism Exposition, Critique, and Appraisal," MPRA Paper 113685, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. PARYS, Wilfried, 2013. "All but one: How pioneers of linear economics overlooked Perron-Frobenius mathematics," Working Papers 2013030, University of Antwerp, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    20. Zhongren Zhang, 2022. "The transformation problem: a mathematical approach of its solution within Marx’s original framework," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 701-728, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    historical materialism; labour theory of value; Marxian economics; roundabout labour; Adam Smith; surplus labour; hunter-gatherer society; marginal value theorem; evolutionary ecology; modes of production; productive forces;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D46 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Value Theory
    • B51 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Socialist; Marxian; Sraffian
    • B14 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Socialist; Marxist
    • Z10 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - General
    • D20 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - General
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:17339. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.