Ideology and Economics: Bourgeois Theories of Value

It is often argued, naively in our view, that “economics” is a science. Yet, it is easy to see that while discredited and unscientific theories, such as the Phlogiston theory in chemistry, can easily get replaced by better ideas, there has always been resistance to the development of revolutionary thought in Economics. This has earned the discipline the title of the “dismal science”.

In this episode, we argue that economics is “ideological” in the precise sense that different groups in society conceptualize economic value (and hence profit) from their respective standpoints: the merchant in the perspective of selling things, the industrialist from the standpoint of hiring labor power and buying means of production, and the financier in the perspective of “risk to capital”.

These ideological positions correspond to the class positions held by individuals within the capitalist circuit. In this episode, we discuss bourgeois theories of value with Prof Rick Wolff.

About

The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community.

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