Another Look at the Labour Reduction Problem in Marx

Abstract

When Ronald Meek published his Studies in the Labour Theory of Value in 1956, its undogmatic tone, its obvious depth of knowledge in the history of economic thought, and its heroic attempt to bring Marx up to date in relation to problems of monopoly immediately placed it among the two or three best expositions of Marxian economics in the English language. The book was republished in 1973 with a new and long introduction, which gave striking witness to the stimulating impact of Sraffa on orthodox Marxism. Ronald Meek never ceased to be a Marxist, but in this introduction he candidly admitted that there were serious, unsolved problems in the standard versions of Marx. Among the many unsolved problems he included the so-called ‘skilled labour reduction problem’: I would now be rather more critical of certain aspects of Marx’s treatment of the quantitative side of the value problem. His treatment of the unskilled labour problem (below, pp. 167–73), although suggestive enough, is rather fragmentary and incomplete, and there seems little doubt that he underestimated the importance of the problem (Meek, 1973, p. xvi).