Exploitation and its unintended outcomes. An axiomatic obituary for Marx’s surplus value.

Kakarot-Handtke, Egmont (2011): Exploitation and its unintended outcomes. An axiomatic obituary for Marx’s surplus value.

Abstract

The present paper scrutinizes the logical foundation of Marx’s dialectic analysis of the evolving money economy. The minimalistic frame of reference is thereby given with the set of structural axioms. It turns out, first, that the commonplace notion of exploitation has to be replaced by crossover exploitation among capitalists and workers; second, that the concept of surplus value cannot explain the existence and magnitude of overall profits; finally, that the real shares of output are determined in the spheres of income and expenditure and not, as classical, Marxian and neoclassical economists unanimously maintain, in the sphere of production.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: New framework of concept;, Structure-centric; Axiom set; Antagonism of profits and wages; Crossover exploitation; Surplus value; Axiom of reals
• Subjects: E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E2 - Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy > E25 - Aggregate Factor Income Distribution; B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B1 - History of Economic Thought through 1925 > B14 - Socialist ; Marxist; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E1 - General Aggregative Models > E11 - Marxian ; Sraffian ; Kaleckian; B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B4 - Economic Methodology > B41 - Economic Methodology

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