Question

1) What is the relationship between necessary labor and surplus value?

2) What are the basic tenets of Veblen’s critique of neoclassical economics? Explain them.  

3) What are the bases of Rosa Luxemburg’s theory of imperialism? Can her theory be seen as defective? If so, why?

4) Kaldor analyzed the relationship between income distribution and economic growth. Why his conclusion is considered one of the most significant conclusions of post-Keynesian economics. Discuss.  

5) As we know, capital to Marx is not just a thing. It is rather a process, or more accurately, a “moment” in an ongoing process in which the value of capital seeks to expand. Discuss. Hint: Refer to the general formula for capital.

6) Hodgson makes some essential arguments on why it is important to take account of habit in human behavior in his article on institutional economics. Discuss them.

7) According to many, in expanding on classical value theory, Sraffa solved Ricardo’s problem of finding an invariant measure of value. How did he do it? Does it make sense? Why?

8) Sen speculated that Sraffa was very much instrumental in Wittgenstein’s philosophical shift. What are the bases of Sen’s speculation? In what ways, do you think Sraffa influenced Wittgenstein’s philosophical approach?  

Answer 1

ANSWER-1)

Surplus value refers to the between the value that living worker creates in process of production and value paid by the capitalist to the laborer in the form of wages. The necessary labour time refers to the labor time (per day or per week) which laborer is required to work (in the average conditions of the industry of their day), for the production of the equivalent of their own livelihood (at the historically and socially determined standard of living of their day). The production of surplus value may be increased by reducing the necessary labour time and increasing the surplus labour time. A decline in the necessary labor-time is primarily connected with increasing the productivity of labor in branches of industry that produce the means of subsistence for the laborers, because in the final analysis, it results to decline in the labor power value. This, in turn, brings a fall in necessary labor-time and a corresponding raise in surplus labor-time in all branches of capitalist industry. Thus the necessary labor and surplus value are connected.