Introduction

For the last century and a half, critical approaches to political economy have been shaped and dominated by the Marxist tradition, and any alternative non-mainstream perspective is inevitably compared to and measured against the Marxist approach. But Marxism itself has become an obstacle to thinking creatively about the economy, not least because it is complicit in the discourse of the monolithic capitalist market economy that we must now move beyond. While Marxists have a very different perspective on the economy than mainstream economists, most still take it as read that there is only one economic form of any significance in the world today: a capitalist economy based on wage labour and the sale of commodities in the market. This chapter criticises two of the central pillars of Marxist political economy that have contributed to this perspective: first, the concept of mode of production, which has not only encouraged the view that our economy is overwhelmingly capitalist but also encapsulates an overly monolithic conception of capitalism itself; and second, Marx's labour theory of value, which in addition to many other flaws, tends to support the obsessive identification of capitalism with wage labour. As a consequence Marxists have failed to recognise that capitalism has developed new forms of making profit that do not fit with the classic Marxist model, including many that have emerged and prospered in the new digital economy.

Like some of my precursors in the search for an alternative political economy, I recognise that there are strengths as well as weaknesses in the Marxist tradition (e.g. Mark Harvey & Geras, 2013, p. 2; Sayer, 1995, p. viii). Marxist political economy has made important contributions to challenging capitalism and remains a major source of intellectual resources. But we cannot make productive use of those resources if we treat Marxism either as holy gospel or as anathema. This chapter will acknowledge some of the elements of Marxist thought that should be reused in an alternative political economy, but also criticise some of those that must be discarded.

There is already considerable diversity and debate on the issues covered by this chapter within the Marxist tradition, and some of the arguments offered here have antecedents within these debates. Unlike those Marxists who have made similar arguments before, however, I regard them as fatal to the larger framework of the doctrine.