THEORY OF VALUE AND MONEY IN DEFENCE OF THE ENDOGENEITY OF MONEY.

John MILIOS (National Technical University of Athens)

The Classical (Ricardian) theory of labour value was introduced as a well-defined theoretical construct which aimed at expounding the way of functioning of a capitalist economy. According to it, value should be identified with the quantity of labour expended on the production of a commodity, and could be measured separately for each one commodity and independently of money.

However, not only commodities, but also all other forms of useful things that have ever been produced in human history were (and will always be) products of labour. Useful things become commodities, hence values and exchange values, not simply because they are products of labour but because they are products of what Karl Marl defined as abstract labour, i.e. labour which is performed within the framework of the capitalist mode of production.

The Marxian approach is a new complex theoretical construct, which replaces the Classical semi-empirical category of "labour expended" with a monetary theory of value: Value is a specific social relation manifesting itself in money. The value of a commodity cannot be determined as such, but only through its form of appearance; it cannot be determined in isolation but only in relation with all other commodities in the exchange process. This exchange-value relation is expressed through money, which thus becomes the most general form of appearance of capital. Value is the key notion which deciphers what capital and money is. It does not belong to the world of empirically detectable (and measurable) quantities; only money does.

The Marxian monetary theory of value allows the comprehension of the endogeneity and non-neutrality of money: Money is not the representative of a commodity or a formal (exogenously issued by a certain authority), but the "embodiment" of the capital relation: It is thus created in accordance with the process of expanded reproduction of this relation.