Ebook: Understanding Marx: A Reconstruction and Critique of Capital

Although this book presents material that is well known among economists who have followed the recent value theory debates, the explanations are in a simplified form accessible to a much wider audience. Returning to the central issue of classical political economy, the search for a valid theory of natural price, Wolff reconstructs the theoretical models of Adam Smith and David Ricardo. He then shows how Marxs reformulation exploded classical political economy. The power and limitations of the ideas of Smith and Ricardo are demonstrated using mathematical linear reproduction models. The theoretical contributions of Marxs writings are critically assessed.

According to Wolff, the emergence of a physical surplus raised three fundamental questions. First, Who gets the surplus? Second, How do the surplus-getters get the surplus? Finally, What do the surplus-getters do with the surplus? Wolff points out that attempts to answer the first two questions led to the notion of a competitive market and to theories of price. Attempts to answer the third led to the classical theories of growth and stagnation, and to the Marxian theory of economic crisis.