‘Testing’ the Labor Theory of Value with Metaphysical Alchemy BLAIR FIX March 2026 Economists have developed a timeworn algorithm for ‘testing’ untestable theories: they take what they can observe, which is usually monetary value, and declare that it measures what they cannot observe. I call this algorithm ‘metaphysical alchemy’. Here, I explore how Marxists use […]
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The Review of Capital as Power is pleased to announce that Isabella K. Sabatino has won the 2026 CASP Essay Prize for her landmark paper ‘Humbug Labor Values’.1 Sabatino’s paper takes aim at Anwar Shaikh’s method for ‘testing’ the labor theory of value. The backstory behind Sabatino’s work is that in 1974, Shaikh published a […]
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Humbug Labor Values ISABELLA K. SABATINO March 2026 In 1974, Anwar Shaikh published a landmark paper demonstrating that the Cobb-Douglas production function was in fact an accounting identity. As such, under fairly general conditions, the function would appear to ‘work’, even for nonsense data that spelled the word ‘HUMBUG’. In this paper, I argue that […]
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Originally published at Economics from the Top Down Blair Fix Download: PDF | EPUB … the value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of labour spent on it … — Karl Marx In the 1860s, Karl Marx declared that all value stemmed from labor. A century-long firestorm ensued. On its own, Marx’s claim […]
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Abstract Various studies of mass culture use the Marxist labour theory of value to conceptualize how capital is being accumulated from cultural production and its broader social and immaterial dimensions. However, there is a significant methodological problem that lingers. The issue stems from the concept of economics and, more technically, the definition of capital. If […]
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