Social needs versus economic efficiency in China : Sun Yefang's critique of socialist economics edited and translated with an introduction by K.K. Fung. by K.K Fung

Author:K.K Fung [Fung, K.K]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Ethnic Studies, General, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781351696418
Google: iFgPEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-09-08T04:36:32+00:00

A Tentative Comment on the Role of “Value” in Socialist and Communist Political Economy

According to my understanding of the category of value, I suggest that we should greatly elevate the position of this category in socialist political economy. But I do not think that value should be independently expressed as a law or a formula. Nor do I think that "value" should be understood as a law of the commodity economy.

If economic laws in general should not be expressed in isolation as a formula, then that is all the more reason why the law of value should not be expressed in isolation as a formula. But according to my understanding of the category of value in the socialist society, value should not be associated with commodities and commodity production in the same chapter either. Commodities and commodity production can be dealt with in one chapter. The law of value should underlie each and every chapter of socialist political economy. In other words, it should be expressed through an overall analysis of the socialist economy.

To avoid further misunderstanding, I am going to reiterate the following for the benefit of my critics. What I mean by the law of value here is not the regulating functions and influence exerted through the deviation of price from value that many economists usually emphasize. The concept of "value" that I am talking about here is the concept of value in a broad sense. It is what Engels said: "all that would be left in a communist society." The influence exerted by price deviation can be treated in relevant chapters as remnants from the past in the transitional period. (As we mentioned earlier, this influence is no longer very great. What we should emphasize now is exchange of equal values and direct expression of value through planned prices.)

But what steps should we follow to study the socialist economy? I think we should basically follow the steps taken by Marx in his writing of Capital. We should analyze the socialist economy in the same order that he analyzed the capitalist economy. In other words, we must first analyze the production process, then the circulation process, and finally the whole production process in the socialist society.

The direct object of study in Capital was obviously the capitalist society. But while analyzing the specific laws of the capitalist economy, Marx also analyzed the general laws of social production. These general laws are what Engels termed as "all that would be left" after eliminating the capitalist characteristics. These are what we should carefully study in Capital today.

In our struggle with the enemy in the old society, we always emphasized uniqueness, and not commonality and generality. But the ruling class always emphasized commonality and generality to cover up class antagonism. For example, they always talked about nationals and people in general. But we said there were no nationals and people in general. There were only workers, peasants, capitalists, landlords, bureaucrats, etc. The same applied to economic laws. We did not usually talk about economic laws in general.

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