A General Theory of Value and Money: Foundations of an Axiomatic Theory

Abstract

This article is the first part of “A General Theory of Value and Money” and sets out the foundations of an axiomatic theory of value and money. Its purpose is to equip the public to explain the four facts that define the modern capitalist economy: the long-term post-war decline of the economies of the global North, the financial instability which produced the 2008 crash, the prolonged post-war growth in inequality between the global North and the global South, and the exceptional 30-year growth of China. The axiomatic method is poorly understood among economists. It allows us to interrogate empirical evidence in a systematic way, and is therefore the necessary precondition for an inductivist, scientific enquiry into economic events, that is, an enquiry whose starting point is the explanation of facts. The second part of “A General Theory of Value and Money,” to follow, deals with the empirical conclusions, especially the analysis of accumulation, the rate of profit, and financial crashes.