Essays on Marx's Theory of Value

Rubin was an economic historian and Bolshevik murdered by the Soviet state in the late 1920's during the Stalinist purges.The terminology is old-fashioned but the ideas are surprising and original. Unlike most interpreters of Marx, Rubin actually extends and clarifies Marx's theory of economic value. He explains how Marx's theory of value is essentially concerned with how markets allocate the total available labour of a society to different productive activities. Rubin examines the dynamic, causal relationship between labour time and monetized market exchanges. This is a very different point of view compared to most post-war interpretations of Marx's economic theory. Rubin's book is required reading for anyone who seriously wants to understand Marx's theory of value, and is an undisputed classic of Marxist political economy.

This is the best of the many interpretations of Marx's political economy. It may not be for beginners, who might want to take a look at Perlman's "Reproduction of Everyday Life," Ollman's "What is Marxism," and "Alienation," and, perhaps, Rius' "Marx for Beginners." Even Fischer's "How to Read Karl Marx," is an easier start. Marty Glaberman's work is exemplary in many was as well. But sooner or later the serious critic is going to need to encounter the incredible insights of these two. Perlman and Rubin truly grasp the interaction of commodity fetishism and the social relations capital produces--as a source of enlightened hope. Perlman, who died in his early fifties in Detroit, led a life that was guided by the thought his comrade-wife, Loraine, captured in the title of her book about him, "Having little, being much." Perlman hand-made his earlier books on his own press--with a small collective of people. I think he was trying to demonstrate the possible unity of aesthetics, love, community, work, and the struggle for the truth. The introduction of "Essays" alone is worth the candle. Perlman's "Continuing Appeal of Nationalism," done on the Black and Red Press, is an interesting counterpoint, as is the huge "Against Leviathan."