Simultaneous Valuation vs. the Exploitation Theory of Profit: A summing up

Prepublication version of ‘Simultaneous Valuation vs. the Exploitation Theory of Profit: A summing up’, forthcoming in Capital and Class #94, Spring 2008 This paper examines the claims made by Simon Mohun and Roberto Veneziani in their Capital and Class #92 article entitled ‘The incoherence of the TSSI: a reply to Kliman and Freeman’. We show that they have effectively conceded that simultaneist interpretations of Marx’s theory contradict his conclusion that exploitation (workers’ surplus labor) is the exclusive source of profit in capitalism. We demonstrate the errors of logic in their claim that the TSS interpretation is incoherent. The debate thus confirms that the TSS interpretation – contrary to simultaneist interpretations – reproduce all Marx’s principal disputed conclusions and therefore constitutes a superior interpretation of his theory of value.