In their critique of capitalism, Marx and Engels clearly formulated the fundamental principles of the
alternative to capitalism:

• Labor-time accounting is the inevitable economic basis of communist society.
• The commune is the political form in which the economic liberation of labor can take place.

Some critics of capitalism do not like this alternative. They want to live in a society but be free of it. The theorists of this modern form of utopian socialism claim to „undertake a fundamental reinterpretation of Marx’s mature critical theory in order to reconceptualize the nature of capitalist society.“ (Moishe Postone)

In the essays collected here, David Adam shows that this reinterpretation of the central categories of
Marx’s critique of political economy by the proponents of the so-called „Value criticism“ is simply based on a misunderstanding of Marx’s critique of value, and that at the same time this revision of Marx’s critique of capitalism prevents a serious examination of the question of the economic viability of a socialist society by leading people to regard „self-management“ on the basis of labor-time accounting as a kind of capitalist program.

David Adam

Labor-Time Accounting and the Withering Away of the State

Contributions to the critique of common misconceptions

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-3982582535

Hardcover, 143 p., 15 $

Red & Black Books 2024