Abstract

This dissertation is a re-assessment of the status of Marxist theory--and in particular, of Marxist economic theory--a century after the death of Marx. I first argue that all attempts to prove that Marxism is not a scientific theory of society fail, and conclude that Marxism is today a legitimate scientific challenger to the currrently dominant capitalist paradigm. I maintain that in such disputes, the victor is determined on the basis of how well the competing theories do on a particular crucial experiment. ;Chapter Two discusses the dispute over the theory of value that emerged in economics at the end of the Nineteenth Century. I argue that both Marxists and capitalists have misunderstood this debate in several ways, but most important is the widespread failure to see that the crucial experiment that will determine the victor cannot be found in the theory of value. One must instead turn to an examination of business cycles and crises. ;Chapter Three takes up this question. I discuss the central law of classical and neo-classical economic theory regarding cycles and crises, Say's law. I argue that Keynes and Kalecki together mount a powerful attack on Say's Law that complements the Marxian theory, and draw upon an article by Henry Smith from the 1937 issue of the Review of Economic Studies to show the similarity between Marx's account and the then-emerging theories of effective demand in economics. I conclude that nothing in economic theory or economic history serves to render Marx's theory obsolete. On the contrary, Marxism today is at least as powerful as the capitalist theory theoretically, although not practically. ;Chapter Four takes up some questions of the structure of a socialist society. I believe that the failure of socialism to make significant progress among the American population is due at least in part to socialists' failure to present a vision of a new society; too much energy is devoted to the criticism of capitalism without working out the institutions that will govern a socialist system and a way that ensures democracy and economic efficiency. . . . UMI