Exploitation and Its Unintended Outcomes: An Axiomatic View of Marx's Surplus Value

Abstract

The present paper scrutinizes the logical foundation of Marx’s dialectic analysis of the evolving money economy. The minimalistic frame of reference is thereby given with the set of structural axioms. It turns out, first, that the commonplace notion of exploitation has to be replaced by crossover exploitation among capitalists and workers; second, that the concept of surplus value cannot explain the existence and magnitude of overall profits; finally, that the shares of output are determined in the spheres of income and expenditure and not, as classical, Marxian and neoclassical economists unanimously maintain, in the sphere of production.

Keywords: new framework of concepts, structure-centric, axiom set, antagonism of profits and wages, crossover exploitation, surplus value, axiom of reals

JEL Classification: B14, B41, E11, E25