Accounting for Value in Marx's Capital: The Invisible Hand

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Many scholars discuss Marxs Capital from many perspectives, but Accounting for Value uniquely advances and defends an accounting interpretation of his theory of value, that he used it to explain capitalists accounts. It confirms and builds on the Temporal Single-System Interpretations refutation of the charge that Marxs illustration of the transformation from values to prices is inconsistent, and its defense of his Law of the Tendential Fall in the Rate of Profit. It rejects other interpretations by showing that only a temporal, single-system interpretation is consistent with Marxs accounting.

The book shows that Marx became seriously interested in accounts from the late 1850s during an important period in the development of his critique of political economy, asking Engels for information and explanations. Examining their letters in the context of Marxs evolving work, it argues, supports the hypothesis that discovering he could explain them with his theory of value gave him the breakthrough he needed to decide how to present his work and explains why, in 1862, he decided to change its title to Capital. Marxs explanations of capitalist accounting, it concludes, amount to an accounting theory that explains how individual capitalists and the capital market use what is, for many, the invisible hand of accounting to control the production and distribution of surplus value.

Marx claimed his theory of value was a work of science, a critique of political economy that would deliver a theoretical blow from which the bourgeoisie would never recover. He failed, critics argue, because his critique depends on hypothetical entities, which we cannot directly observe, such as value and abstract labour, surplus value, which means his theory is not open to empirical refutation. The book, however, argues that he used his theory of value to explain the phenomenal forms of profit, rate of profit, etc., by explaining the observable accounting principles and practices capitalists use to calculate and control them, in which, as he said, we can glimpse the determination of value by socially necessary labor time, which experience could have refuted.

Reviews

Marx wrote to Engels, in 1862, that in all quarrels with the statisticians, he found the theoreticians had always been in the wrong. Rob Bryer is one of those few accomplished theoreticians who takes due account of statistical method and in particular accounting, to which Marx paid scrupulous attention. In a convincing and refreshing work, Bryer throws new and much-needed light on Marxs theory of economics, of value, and his profound understanding of the way business works. -- Alan Freeman, University of Manitoba
Rob Bryer is one of the most important critical accounting intellectuals of our time. In light of the recent financial crisis in which seemingly real assets with tradable market values were rendered worthless, this important and timely book he provides a compelling explanation of both Marxs theory of value and the role of accounting as a technology of both capitalist ideology and political economy. In its consideration of accounting practices and how they informed Marxs own writings, the book is exceptional. It not only presents important historical understandings but provides us with powerful conceptual tools to both explain the crisis ridden political economy of 2017 and to enable change in the future. -- Christine Cooper, Strathclyde University
This is an intriguing book based on life-long research. Rob Bryer is obviously as knowledgeable on Marxs writings on accounting, as on accounting history. He offers here a sound analysis on the links between Marxs theory of value and capitalist accountings principles and practices. -- Eve Chiapello, PSL Research University

Author Bio

Rob Bryer is professor emeritus of accounting at Warwick University.