Q:  How is Karl Marx like

Rubin ("Hurricane")

Carter?

  

 A:  He's a man that the

authorities came to

blame  for something

that he'd never
done. But it won't
be over until they
clear his name!

 

  

   

Reclaiming Marx's "Capital"

A Refutation of the Myth of Inconsistency

 

by Andrew Kliman

 

Published by Lexington Books, a division of Rowman & Littlefield. 

Part of Lexington's Raya Dunayevskaya Series in Marxism and Humanism.

250 pages, copyright 2007.

 

List Prices

Paperback:  $26.95, £17.99, €28.33 (ISBN: 0-7391-1852-8)

Cloth:  $65, £43, €67.73 (ISBN: 0-7391-1851-X)

Available for ONLY $22.91 from publisher:

Order RMC Online from Lexington!

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Also sold online through www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, www.waterstones.com, www.amazon.co.uk, and elsewhere.

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This book seeks to reclaim Capital from the myth of internal inconsistency, a myth that serves to justify the censorship of Marx’s critique of political economy and present-day research based upon it. Andrew Kliman shows that the alleged inconsistencies are actually caused by misinterpretation. Written especially for the non-specialist reader, with the bare minimum of mathematics, Reclaiming Marx’s “Capital” introduces readers to Marx’s value theory and contrasting interpretations of it, the history of the controversy, and interpretive standards and methods. Kliman then surveys Marx’s falling-rate-of-profit theory, the relationship of prices to values, Marx’s exploitation theory of profit, and other topics. The book ends with a discussion of why the myth of inconsistency persists, and a call to set the record straight.

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Start of Preface

This is a book that names names!  Click on link to see the Index. 

 Table of Contents

 

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What Others Say about Reclaiming Marx's "Capital":

 

“Authors of texts on Marxist economics tend to treat Marx as a distant basis upon which to build their own individual opinions. This al la carte approach stems from … acceptance of the supposed errors and internal inconsistency in Marx’s theory of value. In contrast, Reclaiming Marx's ‘Capital,’ by decisively refuting the allegations of error and internal inconsistency, returns Marx’s own work to centre stage. [It]is thus an important unifying work, rather than just another divisive personal opinion.”  ­­

“In Reclaiming Marx’s ‘Capital,’ Kliman’s arguments – and it is largely a book of arguments – operate like a buzz saw clearing away the underbrush of misplaced criticisms that have kept the real Capital hidden from most of its potential readers. The project is much needed, and brilliantly and clearly (and for this reader, convincingly) executed. Highly recommended for all those who need Capital (and who doesn’t?).”

 

“It had to be done: someone has finally rescued Marx from the Marxists. If you want to come to grips with the most famous, most profound, and yet most-censored critique of capitalism yet seen; if you want access to the real ideas of the man who famously quipped ‘Me, I am not a Marxist’; and most of all, if you don't trust anyone or anything ‘til you've checked for yourself— then this is the place to start.”

 — Alan Freeman, Department of Social Sciences, University of Greenwich

 

“[A]lmost everyone, orthodox and Marxian economists alike, [has] accepted the view that Marx’s value theory is internally inconsistent. … [This book] sorts out a bewildering tangle of approaches and issues in order to demon­strate that the charge of internal inconsistency is false. … Reclaiming Marx’s ‘Capital’ is a fresh attempt to get it right, in terms Marx himself would have recognized.”

— Thomas Jeannot, Professor of Philosophy, Gonzaga University

 

“This is the first comprehensive introduction to all aspects of the transformation ‘problem.’ It will become the standard reference work in the years to come. No serious work on value theory can afford to ignore it.”

— Guglielmo Carchedi, Department of Economics and Econometrics, University of Amsterdam (Ret.)

"For over a hundred years, mainstream economists have argued that Marx's labour theory of value cannot handle the relation between value and price, and that Marx's theory is 'internally contradictory' on this basis. However, I've been reading Andrew Kliman's latest book "Reclaiming Marx's 'Capital': A Refutation of the Myth of Inconsistency" which once and for all refutes these crass claims. 

"Check out Kliman! It's not an easy read, but I think that it constitues a tremendously powerful refutation of all those smart ass economist dude arguments that 'Marx is inconsistent', and therefore not worth studying."    

— Glenn Rikowski, educational theorist, on MySpace, July 26, 2007

 

"My chief inspiration here is the Cambridge-Italian economist Piero Sraffa ....  I was impressed with Kliman's refutation of the Okishio theorem. I didn't think that was possible, and I couldn't see any mistakes in his refutation."

 

— Robert Vienneau, Thoughts on Economics (lead blog article and article of April 25, 2007)

 

 

Lucky Marx who (if Engels is to be believed) was before all else a revolutionary whose 'real mission in life was to contribute, in one way or another, to the overthrow of capitalist society' - he missed the affirmation by 20th Century scholastics that what the working class really needs for its emancipation is proof that he was right all along about the transformation of values into prices and the tendency for the rate of profit to fall!

(Don't you think this is a wee bit anti-intellectual, ad hominem, and untrue, Michael?)  

 

 

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London Book Launch: 

A book launch for Reclaiming Marx's "Capital" took place on July 11, 2007 at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.  Speakers included

• Michael Roberts, columnist at marxist.com
• Alan Freeman, co-editor, Marx and Non-equilibrium Economics
• Martin Graham, member, Economic Committee of the Communist Party of Britain
• Chris Harman, editor, International Socialism journal
• Andrew Kliman, author of Reclaiming Marx's "Capital"

   

  David Black, author of Helen MacFarlane, chaired.

There are Audio Recordings of all of the talks, as well as comments and questions from the audience and speakers' responses.

Media Coverage of Book Launch
"Culture Wars"
"21st Century Socialism"

 

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REVIEWS OF RECLAIMING MARX'S "CAPITAL"

The following reviews are available online:

 

Michael Roberts at marxist.com website:

• "This is an important book. In a nutshell, what Andrew Kliman shows is that Marx's laws of motion of capitalism (how capitalism works and does not work) are logically consistent and theoretically valid. … He has stripped away the obfuscations of the neo-Ricardians. Marx did not make theoretical errors (at least in the areas that the critics have claimed and others have accepted for over one hundred years since Volume 3 of Capital came out). And for that, Kliman must be thanked. … [T]hose who digest the arguments in the book will come away with formidable weapons to defend Marxist economic ideas."

 

Joseph Choonara, International Socialism journal:

• "Setting aside the question of whether Marx’s ideas are right or wrong, Kliman argues that Capital can, and should, be interpreted in such a way as to render it “internally consistent”. … Kliman’s book sets out one such interpretation of Capital, which satisfies this criterion.  All this is done with admirable clarity, in stark contrast to most of the literature on “value theory”. … [T]he interpretation developed by Kliman and others must certainly have a strong case to be considered the most compelling and consistent interpretation of Capital. This book deserves to be read and debated by all those interested in getting to grips with Marx’s theory."

 

brief review in Labour Research:

• "[T]he conventional wisdom is that Marx's value theory is internally inconsistent. Kliman attempts to rescue Capital from this myth, which has served to place Marx out of bounds for modern economic science and has even put off people who are interested in Marxism. Cutting through swathes of misconception, the author writes in an accessible way especially for the non-specialist reader and keeps the maths to a minimum."