Valor, Custo e Utilidade Marginal – Parte I

Neste artigo, de fundamental importância para a compreensão do posicionamento histórico dos economistas austríacos com respeito à relação entre valor, custo e utilidade marginal, o autor responde a críticas elaboradas por Heinrich Dietzel contra os teóricos do valor marginal. O autor também discute a situação científica da teoria do valor no final do século XIX

Valor, Custo e Utilidade Marginal – Parte III

Neste artigo, de importância fundamental para a compreensão do posicionamento histórico dos economistas austríacos com respeito à relação entre valor, custo e utilidade marginal, o autor responde a críticas elaboradas por Heinrich Dietzel contra os teóricos do valor marginal. O autor também discute a situação científica da teoria do valor no final do século XIX

Individual Rights, Economic Transactions, and Recognition: A Legal Approach to Social Economics

Modernity brought the idea of individual property rights as a com- plex phenomenon. However, economics adopted a simplistic view of property as a fundamental institution, understating the complex interaction of different rights and obligations that frame the legal environment of economic processes with an insufficiently elaborated tool. Here, a more elaborate view of legal elements will be propose

Marx, the labour theory of value and the transformation problem

This article reconsiders what Marx says about the transformation problem in Chapter IX of Capital Volume III, in the light of Marx's claim, made in Capital Volume I, that the value of a commodity is determined by the socially necessary labour time that goes into its production. The article criticises the traditional way of thinking about the transformation problem, according to which what Marx is doing in Chapter IX is considering the transformation of values into prices ('prices of production'). I argue that Marx's prices of production may be thought of as modified values. The discussion in Chapter IX is usually seen as a supplement to the labour theory of value. On this view its purpose is to explain how and why the prices of commodities sometimes deviate from their values. Against this view, the paper argues that Marx's remarks in Chapter IX can be seen as an elaboration on or development of the labour theory of value. It is a refinement of the account offered in Capital Volume I, which takes into consideration what Marx had in mind there when he introduced the notion of socially necessary as opposed to actual labour-time. The paper draws attention to the importance of Marx's distinction between the individual value of a commodity (determined by actual labour-time) and its social value (determined by socially necessary labour-time). It also draws attention to the methodological difficulties that are generated by any attempt to read Marx in this way

Explaining Structural Change: Actions and Transformations

Theories of structural change identify the range of transformations that are possible under given economic structures. However, in order specify a path of change out of those which are possible, these theories need to make explicit or implicit assumptions about actions taking place within structures. This, we argue, suggests that (i) these theories can identify potential, but not actual paths of change; and (ii) structural change is to some degree open-ended, because existing structures open up a range of possibilities but do not determine the specific actions taken therein. In order to explain which path of structural change is activated under specific historical conditions, we need to study how actual actions take place within structures. The paper suggests a way to do so, pointing to the interface between theory, which highlights possibilities for structural change, and history, which may 'close' such open-endedness in different ways depending on context

Schumpeter: Theorist of the Avant-Garde

This paper argues that Schumpeter’s 1911 edition of ‘Theory of Economic Development’ can be fruitfully read as a theory of the avant-garde, in line with such theories developed by artistic avant-garde around the same time, in particular by the Italian Futurists. In particular it will show that both Schumpeter and other avant-garde theorists sought to break with past (1), identify an avant-garde who could force that break (2), find new ways to represent the dynamic world (3), embrace the new and dynamic (4) and promote a perpetual dynamic process, instead of a specific end-state or utopia (5). This new reading helps us to understand the cultural meaning of this seminal text in economics. Secondly it greatly facilitates our understanding of the differences with the later interwar German edition and English edition, which were more cautious in their embrace of the new, less focused on the individual qualities of the entrepreneur and placed more emphasis on historical continuity. Thirdly this reading suggests a different reason for the bifurcation between Schumpeter and the rest of the Austrian school of economics. Traditionally this split is explained by Schumpeter’s affinities with the Lausanne School, this paper instead suggests that the crucial break between Schumpeter on the one hand and Böhm-Bawerk, Wieser and later members of the Austrian School on the other hand is their theory of and attitude toward social change