Kreisfreie Stadt Jena, Alemania
A new synthesis of Marxian form-analysis of value and Sraffian production models would contribute to the construction of a comprehensive value theory. The value-price-transformation problem and the reduction problem indicate that the labor theory of value cannot be considered a contradiction-free scientific theory. Sraffa’s production models provided a way of calculating relative prices without reference to labor values. Subsequently, some leftwing Sraffians argued that Marxian value theory should be abandoned. They showed that central ideas of Marx can be demonstrated based on Sraffa’s production models. These critics, however, ignore that there is more to Marxian value theory than the determination of value magnitude by abstract labor. The form-analysis of value in Capital Volume 1 is designed to explain the specific structural characteristics of capitalist economies. Form-analytical value theory cannot be replaced by Sraffian models and should rather be connected with them in an approach to update the critique of political economy.