Abstract
The aim of the present paper is to provide a logical reconstruction of the Marxian Theory of Value. This reconstruction is based upon the concept of abstract as opposed to that of homogeneous labor. Abstract labour is a social relation that holds in a market economy, (at least) whenever the profit rate is uniform; it consists in a comparison of the different labors through the exchange relationship. The author proved in a different place (see García de la Sienra, 1987) that there exists a mathematical representation of abstract labor which is unique up to similarity transformations. The existence of this function — which is none other than the value function — is the basis of the present axiomatization, which includes detailed reconstructions of two of the most important models of the theory.
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de la Sienra, A.G. Axiomatic foundations of the Marxian Theory of Value. Erkenntnis 29, 299–341 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00183068
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00183068