Laws of Chaos : A Probabilistic Approach to Political Economy

In this unusual study, Farjoun and Machover attempt to do nothing less than rebuild two central concepts of political economy: price and profit. Using a probabilistic-statistical approach, they redefine both of these notions and then proceed to a discussion of relations between 'labour value', price and profit. Theories of probability and statistics are, of course, well-established in all natural and population scienoes, but with one or two notable exceptions, have been largely ovePlooked uy political economists. By treating the capitalist economy as 'a large and disorderly collection of moving objects', Farjoun and Machover succeed in resolving many of the contradictions that arise between the rigidity of certain analytical schemas and the wealth of empirical observation supporting them. Laws of Chaos is a challenging, innovative work , signalling a marked departure from the duality of Marxist and Sraffian approaches. Classic work of political economicsIn this classic work of political economy, Emmanuel Farjoun and Moshé Machover rebuild two fundamental concepts of the discipline: price and profit. They redefine the basic notions of political economy, relying on probabilistic–statistical methods of the kind used in the modern foundations of other sciences. This amounts to a rigorous new foundation of the labour theory of value. A defining work of Econophysics, republished for the first time since 1983, Laws of Chaos remains a challenging, innovative work of Marxist economics. Emmanuel Farjoun, Moshé Machover. Includes Index. Bibliography: P. [237]-261.