IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lev/wrkpap/wp_1062.html

The Value of Money: A Survey of Heterodox Approaches

Author

Listed:
  • L. Randall Wray

Abstract

This paper examines heterodox theories of the determinants of the value of money. Orthodox approaches that tie money's value to relative scarcity of money or to the price level are rejected as inconsistent with the monetary theory of production embraced by heterodox traditions linked to Marx, Veblen, and Keynes. This paper examines and integrates (1) recent contributions by David Graeber and Duncan Foley that reinterpret Marx's labor theory of value, (2) the interpretation of Keynes's liquidity preference theory as a theory of asset pricing that began with Sraffa and was further developed by Minsky and Kregel, and (3) Modern Money Theory's approach to sovereign currency. As Heilbroner argued, money is central to the internal logic of the capitalist system, and is what makes capitalism truly different from other social organizations. Our theory of value informs our beliefs about how the deep structure of the economic system generates a system of prices denominated in the money of account.

Suggested Citation

  • L. Randall Wray, 2024. "The Value of Money: A Survey of Heterodox Approaches," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_1062, Levy Economics Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_1062
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.levyinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/wp_1062.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marc Lavoie, 1992. "Foundations of Post-Keynesian Economic Analysis," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 275.
    2. Dimitri B. Papadimitriou & L. Randall Wray, 2021. "Still Flying Blind after All These Years: The Federal Reserve's Continuing Experiments with Unobservables," Economics Public Policy Brief Archive ppb_156, Levy Economics Institute.
    3. Sam Levey, 2021. "Modeling Monopoly Money: Government as the Source of the Price Level and Unemployment," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_992, Levy Economics Institute.
    4. Duncan K. Foley, 1982. "The Value of Money the Value of Labor Power and the Marxian Transformation Problem," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 14(2), pages 37-47, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eckhard Hein, 2006. "Money, interest and capital accumulationin Karl Marx's economics: a monetary interpretation and some similaritiesto post-Keynesian approaches," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(1), pages 113-140.
    2. Eckhard Hein, 2005. "Money, Interest, and Capital Accumulation in Karl Marx’s," Method and Hist of Econ Thought 0501002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Hein, Eckhard, 2002. "Money, interest, and capital accumulation in Karl Marx's economics: A monetary interpretation," WSI Working Papers 102, The Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI), Hans Böckler Foundation.
    4. Hein, Eckhard, 2004. "Money, credit and the interest rate in Marx's economic. On the similarities of Marx's monetary analysis to Post-Keynesian economics," MPRA Paper 18608, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Sergio Parrinello, 2014. "A search for distinctive features of demand-led growth models," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 67(270), pages 309-342.
    6. Tae-Hee Jo, 2013. "Saving Private Business Enterprises," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(2), pages 447-467, April.
    7. Hein, Eckhard & van Treeck, Till, 2024. "Financialisation and demand and growth regimes: A review of post-Keynesian contributions," ifso working paper series 32, University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute for Socioeconomics (ifso).
    8. Alan Freeman, 1998. "A General Refutation of Okishio’s Theorem and a Proof of the Falling Rate of Profit," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Riccardo Bellofiore (ed.), Marxian Economics: A Reappraisal, chapter 10, pages 139-162, Palgrave Macmillan.
    9. Gahn, Santiago José, 2021. "On the adjustment of capacity utilisation to aggregate demand: Revisiting an old Sraffian critique to the Neo-Kaleckian model," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 325-360.
    10. Eckhard Hein, 2007. "Interest Rate, Debt, Distribution And Capital Accumulation In A Post‐Kaleckian Model," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 310-339, May.
    11. Jonathan F Cogliano & Roberto Veneziani & Naoki Yoshihara, 2024. "The dynamics of international exploitation," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(5), pages 1420-1446, August.
    12. Eric Tymoigne, 2006. "The Minskyan System, Part III: System Dynamics Modeling of a Stock Flow-Consistent Minskyan Model," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_455, Levy Economics Institute.
    13. Hiroaki Sasaki & Shinya Fujita, 2015. "Demand and Income Distribution in a Two-Country Kaleckian Model," Discussion papers e-14-017, Graduate School of Economics Project Center, Kyoto University.
    14. Severin Reissl, 2015. "The return of black box economics - a critique of Keen on effective demand and changes in debt," IMK Working Paper 149-2015, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    15. Eckhard Hein, 2016. "Secular stagnation or stagnation policy? Steindl after Summers," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 69(276), pages 3-47.
    16. Wenzlaff, Ferdinand & Kimmich, Christian & Richters, Oliver, 2014. "Theoretische Zugänge eines Wachstumszwangs in der Geldwirtschaft," ZÖSS-Discussion Papers 45, University of Hamburg, Centre for Economic and Sociological Studies (CESS/ZÖSS).
    17. Andrew Mearman, 2010. "What is this thing called ‘heterodox economics’?," Working Papers 1006, Department of Accounting, Economics and Finance, Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Bristol.
    18. Naoki Yoshihara & Roberto Veneziani, 2009. "Exploitation as the Unequal Exchange of Labour: An Axiomatic Approach," Working Papers 655, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    19. Gilberto Tadeu Lima & Antonio J. A. Meirelles, 2007. "Macrodynamics of debt regimes, financial instability and growth," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 31(4), pages 563-580, July.
    20. Veneziani, Roberto & Yoshihara, Naoki, 2014. "One million miles to go: taking the axiomatic road to defining exploitation," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2014-10, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • B14 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Socialist; Marxist
    • B24 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Socialist; Marxist; Scraffian
    • B25 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Austrian; Stockholm School
    • B51 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Socialist; Marxian; Sraffian
    • B52 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Modern Monetary Theory;
    • E11 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Marxian; Sraffian; Kaleckian
    • E12 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Keynes; Keynesian; Post-Keynesian; Modern Monetary Theory

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_1062. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lindsey Carter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.levyinstitute.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.