1. As defined by Ronald Meek, the term “cost theory” includes “any theory which approaches the problem
of the price of a commodity from the angle of the ‘costs’ (including profits) which have to be covered if it is
to be worth a producer’s while to carry on producing it. Some ‘cost theories’ say no more than that the
equilibrium price is determined by the cost of production; others go further and seek for an ultimate determinant of the cost
of production itself.” Studies in the Labour Theory of Value, 2nd ed. (New York and London: Monthly
Review Press, 1956) 77n. In this chapter, the cost of production theory and the labor theory of value are used interchangeably,
unless otherwise specified. In mutualist theory, the non-labor components of cost are themselves reducible either to labor-value
or to scarcity-rents; the mutualist labor theory of value, therefore, is simply a subspecies of the cost theory that takes
it to its logical conclusion.
2. Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Chicago, London, Toronto: Encyclopedia
Britannica, Inc., 1952) 13
3. David Ricardo, Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, 3rd ed. (London: John Murray, Albemarle
Street, 1821), vol. 1 of Piero Sraffa ed., The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo (Cambridge University Press,
1951) 11.
4. Ibid. p. 35.
5. Thomas Hodgskin, Labour Defended Against the Claims of Capital (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1963 (1825)) 27-8.
6. Friedrich Engels, “Preface to the First German Edition of The Poverty of Philosophy by Karl Marx”
(1884), in vol. 26 of Marx and Engels, Collected Works (New York: International Publishers, 1990) 279.
7. See, for example, Dirk Struik’s “Introduction” to The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of
1844 (New York: International Publishers, 1964); Norman Fischer, “The Ontology of Abstract Labor,” Review
of Radical Political Economics Summer 1982; and E. K. Hunt, “Marx’s Concept of Human Nature and the Labor
Theory of Value,” Review of Radical Political Economics Summer 1982.
8. Karl Marx, “Afterword to Second German Edition of Capital” (1873), vol. 35 of Marx and Engels, Collected
Works (New York: International Publishers, 1996) 15.
9. Maurice Dobb, Political Economy and Capitalism: Some Essays in Economic Tradition 2nd rev. ed (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1940, 1960) 53.
10. Maurice Dobb, Theories of Value and Distribution Since Adam Smith: Ideology and Economic Theory (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1973) 118.
11. Ibid. 166.
12. Dobb, Political Economy and Capitalism 24, 136.
13. Ibid. 24-5.
14. Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Capital and Interest: A Critical History of Economical Theory, trans. William Smart (New
York: Brentanno’s, 1922) 286.
15. William Stanley Jevons, The Theory of Political Economy, 5th ed. (Kelley & Millman, Inc., 1957)
1-2.
16. Böhm-Bawerk, Capital and Interest 383.
17. Ibid. 383-4.
18. Ibid. 384-5.
19. Ibid. 385-6.
20. Ibid. 386.
21. Ibid. 386-7.
22. Ibid. 387.
23. Carl Menger, Principles of Economics, trans. James Dingwall and Bert F. Hozelitz (Grove City, PA: Libertarian
Press, Inc., 1976) 101.
24. Ibid. 116-7.
25. Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, The Positive Theory of Capital, trans. William Smart (London and New York: MacMillan
and Co., 1891) 135-6.
26. Ibid. 332.
27. Smith, Wealth of Nations 24.
28. Ibid. 25-6.
29. Ibid. 94-5.
30. Ricardo, Principles of Political Economy and Taxation 12.
31. Ibid. 88.
32. Ibid. 382.
33. Ibid. 67-84.
34. Ibid. 364-5.
35. Ibid. 385.
36. Ibid. 386-7.
37. David Ricardo, “Notes on Malthus,” qt. in Dobb, Theories of Value and Distribution 120.
38. John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy: With Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy, in
vol. 3 of Collected Works of John Stuart Mill (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965) 471-3.
39. Ibid. 475.
40. Ibid. 464-5.
41. Ibid. 469.
42. Ibid. 490.
43. Ibid. 494-5.
44. Engels, “Preface to the First German Edition of The Poverty of Philosophy” 286-7.
45. Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, vol. 6 of Marx and Engels, Collected Works (New York: International
Publishers, 1976) 134-5.
46. Karl Marx, Grundrisse, vol. 28 of Marx and Engels, Collected Works (New York: International Publishers,
1986) 75-6.
47. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Capital vol. 3, vol. 37 of Marx and Engels, Collected Works (New York:
International Publishers, 1998) 229.
48. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Capital vol. 1, vol. 35 of Marx and Engels, Collected Works (New York:
International Publishers, 1996) 49.
49. Meek, Studies in the Labour Theory of Value 178-9.
50. Ibid. 204-5.
51. Ibid. 205n.
52. Benjamin Tucker, “Why Wages Should Absorb Profits,” Liberty July 16, 1887, in Benjamin Tucker, Instead
of a Book, By a Man Too Busy to Write One, Gordon Press Facsimile (New York: 1897/1973) 289-90.
53. Benjamin Tucker, “A Criticism That Does Not Apply,” Liberty July 16, 1887, in Ibid. 323.
54. Benjamin Tucker, “Protection, and Its Relation to Rent,” Liberty October 27, 1888, in Ibid. 328,
331.
55. Benjamin Tucker, “Pinney His Own Procrustes,” Liberty April 23, 1887, in Ibid. 251.
56. Benjamin Tucker, “Liberty and Land,” Liberty December 15, 1888, in Ibid. 335-6.
57. Benjamin Tucker, “Voluntary Cooperation,” Liberty May 24, 1890, in Ibid. 105.
58. Benjamin Tucker, “Rent: Parting Words,” Liberty December 12, 1885, in Ibid. 306.
59. Tucker, “Protection, and Its Relation to Rent” 332.
60. Böhm-Bawerk, Capital and Interest 387.
61. Böhm-Bawerk, Positive Theory of Capital 233.
62. Ibid. 233-4.
63. Dobb, Political Economy and Capitalism 14-7.
64. Dobb, Theories of Value and Distribution 10-1.
65. Leif Johansen, “Marxism and Mathematical Economics,” Monthly Review January 1963 508.
66. Leif Johansen, “Labour Theory of Value and Marginal Utilities,” Economics of Planning September
1963 100.
67. Ludwig von Mises, Human Action (Chicago: Regnery, 1949, 1963, 1966) 236-8.
68. Ibid. 546-7.
69. Murray Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State: A Treatise on Economic Principles (Auburn University, Alabams: Ludwig
von Mises Institute, 1993) 275-6.
70. Dobb, Theories of Value and Distribution 112-3; Meek, Studies in the Labour Theory of Value 123, 245-6.
71. Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics: An Introductory Volume. 8th ed. (New York: The MacMillan
Company, 1948) 580, 587-8.
72. Ibid. 348.
73. Ibid. 84.
74. Ibid. 349.
75. Ibid. 366.
76. Ibid. 372.
77. Ibid. 402.
78. Ibid. 372.
79. Ibid. 346-7.
80. Ibid. 577.
81. Ibid. 503.
82. Ibid. 817.
83. Ibid. 818.
84. Ibid. 95.
85. Ibid. 818.
86. Ibid. 819.
87. Ibid. 821.
88. Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State 239.
89. Ibid. 292.
90. Ibid. 302-3.
91. Ibid. 304.
92. Böhm-Bawerk, Capital and Interest 140.
93. Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State 305.
94. Marshall, Principles of Economics 346-7.
95. Ibid. 577.
96. Joseph Schumpeter, Ten Great Economists From Marx to Keynes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965) 40-1.
97. Benjamin Tucker, “Does Competition Mean War?” Liberty August 4, 1888, in Tucker, Instead of a
Book 405.
98. Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State 239.
99. Ibid. 292.
100. Böhm-Bawerk, Positive Theory of Capital 148.
101. Murray Rothbard, Power and Market: Government and the Economy (Kansas City: Sheed Andrews and Mcmeel, Inc.,
1970, 1977) 88-9.
102. Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State 303.
103. Dobb, Theories of Value and Distribution 205-6.
104. Ibid. 114.
105. Ibid. 179-82.
106. Dobb, Political Economy and Capitalism 160.
107. Ibid. 160n.
108. Ibid. 160.
109. Ibid. 140.
110. James Buchanan, Cost and Choice: An Inquiry in Economic Theory, vol. 6 Collected Works (Indianapolis:
Liberty Fund, 1999) 9.
