Tag Archives: challenge

To the Marxists everywhere, my simple challenge: Is your view that Marx’s theory of wage determination in volume 1 of Capital that real wages in capitalism can and will rise above the value of the maintenance and reproduction of labour, and in the long run will keep rising, vastly improving the living standards of workers? If you say “yes,” then my refutation here of Marx’s view of a rising rate of exploitation in capitalism (from increasing surplus value extracted from workers) is...

In the introduction to volume 2 of Capital written on May 5, 1885, Engels made this famous challenge: “The Ricardian school failed about the year 1830, being unable to solve the riddle of surplus-value. And what was impossible for this school, remained still more insoluble for its successor, vulgar economy. The two points which caused its failure were these:1. Labor: is the measure of value. However, actual labor in its exchange with capital has a lower value than labor embodied in the...