Value, Competition and Exploitation

The 2008 financial crisis presented the opportunity to overturn and rethink much of the stale or misguided parts of economic theory and, in so doing, build a rich and empirically meaningful social science. This never happened. By reconsidering the classical-Marxian tradition using modern tools of economic analysis, this book offers an alternative to the mainstream understanding of notions of value, price, and competition, concepts which serve as the foundation for a theoretically and empirically robust economic theory. Providing a unique synthesis of modern input-output analysis and classical political economics, this book combines current economic theory with historical economic thought. In this way, Value, Competition and Exploitation offers a deeper and more nuanced understanding of today's economic problems than can be gained through mainstream approaches. With a rigorous and empirically informed approach to classical theories of value and price, this book demonstrates that Marx's labor theory of value remains a valuable tool in understanding the structure and dynamics of capitalist economies. Written in an accessible style and presented with a clear structure, this book will be invaluable to economics students of all levels. The topics analyzed will also be of interest to scholars of classical and Marxian economics, as well as scholars of economics more widely.