Money and Abstract Labour

Book excerpt: Recent trends in Marxist economic theory have sponsored the methods of modern logic and mathematics. In doing so, they have displaced not only the relatively philosophical style of reflection found in Capital but also certain key problems addressed there by Marx. Ulrich Krause breaks new ground by applying mathematical techniques in an analysis of labor, money and exchange. Rejecting the notion of "homogeneous labor" as a basis of value theory, Krause develops his own understanding of the Marxist concept of "abstract labor," which he then integrates with an analysis of money in the process of commodity exchange. His book concludes with a new discussion of Marx's theory of value and surplus-value. Money & Abstract Labour is a major intervention in one of the most vigorously contested areas of contemporary economic theory.