TITLE:
Unequal Exchange? Marx’ Solution to the Value Problem on the World Market
AUTHORS:
Guenther Sandleben
KEYWORDS:
Unequal Exchange, Modification of the Law of Value, Socially Necessary Labour Time, Intensity of Labour, National Capital, Marx
JOURNAL NAME:
Theoretical Economics Letters,
Vol.6 No.4,
July
19,
2016
ABSTRACT: By drawing on his critically developed labour
theory of value, Marx was able to provide a satisfactory answer to the question
of unequal exchange—that is, the question of how the law of value regulates
exchange between two or more countries. Unlike the proponents of classical
political economics, Marx drew an explicit distinction between labour, as
expressed in the form of value, and the same labour, as expressed in the form
of use value. This twofold character is the key to the correct analysis of
magnitude of value and exchange relation. At the heart of Marx’ solution to the
value problem is the concept of “socially necessary labour time”. This concept
includes the average labour of a given country that is required to measure
magnitude of value in relation to time. If the character of average labour
differs from country to country, then the same quantity of labour time measures
values that also differ from country to country. What is modified, then, is not
the magnitude of value itself but labour time as a measure of value. Unlike in
Ricardo’s theory, in Marx’s labour theory of value, the law of exchange also
applies to international trade. As a general rule, what is exchanged are
equivalents. In international trade, no country can acquire a value that is
greater than the value it had before engaging in such trade. A transfer of
value does not occur. Less developed countries can reproduce themselves as well
without being competed out of the market by more developed nations. However,
the exchange of equivalents involves unequal quantities of labour time, but
this “unequal exchange” is determined by production. It is not a matter of
exchange, and thus it is not a matter of exchange rates either.