Value without Fetish presents the first in-depth English-language study of the influential Japanese economist Uno KÅzÅâs (1897-1977) theory of âpure capitalismâ in the light of the method and object of Marxâs Critique of Political Economy. A close analysis of the theories of value, production and reproduction, and crisis in Unoâs central texts from the 1930s to the 1970s reveals his departure from Marxâs central insights about the fetish character of the capitalist mode of production â a departure that Lange shows can be traced back to the failed epistemology of value developed in Unoâs earliest writings. By disavowing the complex relation between value and fetish that structures Marxâs critique, Uno adopts the paradigms of neoclassical theories to present an apology rather than a critique of capitalism.
Elena Louisa Lange, PhD (2011), is a philosopher and Japanologist at the University of Zurich. Her research on Marxâs Critique of Political Economy has been widely published in peer-reviewed journals. She is also a co-editor of Concepts of Philosophy in Asia and the Islamic World (Brill, 2018).
Acknowledgements Note on Translations and Transcriptions
Part 1 The Method of The Critique of Political Economy
1 Introduction â Marxâs Critique of Fetishism as Method
â1.1âThe Critique of Fetishism and Unoâs Theory of âPure Capitalismâ
â1.2âThe Aporias of Classical Political Economy
â1.3âThe Critical Function of Marxâs Labour Theory of Value. Against Some Readings of âFormâ in Contemporary Value Form Theory
2 Whatâs âPureâ about Capitalism? Unoâs Three-Level Method and the Theory of Principles
â2.1âThe Limits of the Three-Level Method (sandankairon)
â2.2âPure Theoryâs X-Axis: The Law of Population
â2.3âPure Theoryâs Y-Axis: The Commodification of Labour Power
Part 2 The Object of The Critique of Political Economy
3 Unoâs Theory of Value â Value without Fetish (1947â69)
â3.1âThe Problem of Abstract Labour in Unoâs Theory of Value
â3.2âUnoâs Theory of Value: Methodological Individualism and the Fetishism of Use Value
â3.3âUnoâs Theory of Money: Baileyan Assumptions
â3.4âUnoâs Theory of Capital: M-C-Mâ as Pure Form
4 The Principles of Political Economy (1952/1964) in Light of Marxâs Critique of Political Economy
â4.1âThe Reconstruction of Capital
â4.2âThe Law of Value as the Law of General Social Equilibrium (Uno)
â4.3âSurplus Value and Profit: The âTransformation Problemâ in Unoâs Perspective
â4.4âThe Law of Value as the Law of Crisis (Marx)
5 Unoâs Legacy in Japan and Beyond
â5.1âMoney vs. Value? The âMonetary Approachâ in the Post-Uno School of Value Theory
â5.2âThe âDialectic of Capitalâ as the Apologetic of Capital in the Anglophone Uno School
â5.3âThe Meaning of Real Subsumption or the Real Subsumption of Meaning: Aspects of Anglophone Uno School Historiographies
References Index
All interested in Marxism and its non-European reception, students and instructors in the humanities and economics, Japanese intellectual history, all interested in a deeper understanding Marxâs theory of value.