Value, Labor and the Critique of Political Economy

Abstract The following deals with the problem of the theory of value as found in classical political economy and its development and reversal in Marx. The classical economists' theory of value can be considered a theoretical answer to the historical problem of the capitalist mode of production, i.e., a mode of production dominated by a surplus. Thus, the problem of value turns out to be the problem of surplus value. Adam Smith runs into the problem of value because of a theoretical requirement which he inherited from the physiocrats. What is typical ot the capitalist mode of production, i.e., what distinguishes it from other modes of production, is that the surplus becomes the main feature of the whole economic system.