Simultaneous valuation vs. the exploitation theory of profit: A summing up

Abstract

This paper examines the claims made by Simon Mohun and Roberto Veneziani in their article ‘The incoherence of the TSSI: A reply to Kliman and Freeman’, published in Capital & Class, no. 92. We show that they have effectively conceded that simultaneist interpretations of Marx's theory contradict his conclusion that exploitation (workers' surplus labour) is the exclusive source of profit in capitalism. We demonstrate the errors of logic in their claim that the temporal single-system (TSS) interpretation is incoherent. Thus the results of this debate serve to confirm that the TSS interpretation—contrary to simultaneist interpretations—reproduces all of Marx's principal disputed conclusions, and therefore constitutes a superior interpretation of his theory of value.