Commodities as Products of Capital: A Reply to Skillman’s Review of Money and Totality

Abstract

This paper responds to the most important criticism in Skillman’s review of my book Money and Totality: A Macro-Monetary Interpretation of Marx’s Logic in Capital—that I misinterpret the fundamental concept of the “value” of commodities in Marx’s theory in Volume 1 of Capital. My reply emphasizes the difference between “simple commodities” and “commodities as products of capital.” I argue that Marx’s theory of value is about the value of commodities produced by capital, which is the macroeconomic total price of all commodities, and which is equal to the sum of the actual constant capital advanced at the beginning of the circuit of money capital and the new-value produced by labor of the current period (P = C + N = C + m L_c).

JEL Classification: B51; B14