Reclaiming Marx's 'Capital'

A Refutation of the Myth of Inconsistency

By (author) Andrew Kliman Pace University

Publication date:

01 December 2006

Length of book:

250 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

Dimensions:

241x162mm
6x10"

ISBN-13: 9780739118511

This book seeks to reclaim Capital from the myth of internal inconsistency, a myth that serves to justify the censorship of Marx's critique of political economy and present-day research based upon it. Andrew Kliman shows that the alleged inconsistencies are actually caused by misinterpretation. By modifying the standard interpretation of Marx's value theory in two simple ways, the recent 'temporal single-system interpretation' eliminates all of the alleged inconsistencies. Written especially for the non-specialist reader, in a clear, accessible style and with the bare minimum of mathematics, Reclaiming Marx's 'Capital' introduces readers to Marx's value theory and contrasting interpretations of it, the history of the internal inconsistency controversy, and interpretive standards and methods. Kliman then surveys Marx's falling-rate-of-profit theory, the relationship of prices to values (the 'transformation problem'), Marx's exploitation theory of profit, and other topics. The book ends with a discussion of why the myth of inconsistency persists, and a call to set the record straight.
After Bortkiewicz "corrected" it a century ago, almost everyone, orthodox and Marxian economists alike, accepted the view that Marx's value theory is internally inconsistent. In Reclaiming Marx's "Capital," Andrew Kliman, a proponent of what is known as the "temporal single-system interpretation" (TSSI), sorts out a bewildering tangle of approaches and issues in order to demonstrate that the charge of internal inconsistency is false. From this perspective, the controversies concerning Marx's law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit, the so-called "transformation problem," and other basic elements of value theory appear in a fresh new light. Specialists cannot afford to neglect Kliman's argument. Non-specialists will find that Kliman not only argues but teaches. Reclaiming Marx's "Capital" is a fresh attempt to get it right, in terms Marx himself would have recognized.