La Loi de la valeur et le matérialisme historique

by Samir Amin

French

122 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1978

About the author

Samir Amin (Arabic: سمير أمين) (3 September 1931 – 12 August 2018) was an Egyptian-French Marxian economist, political scientist and world-systems analyst. He is noted for his introduction of the term Eurocentrism in 1988 and considered a pioneer of Dependency Theory.

Reviews

[Massimo Andolfatto · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this work, Samir Amin has helped me to understand the more complicated parts of Capital Volume 3, in particular by showing how absolute rent and the rate of interest are determined by historical processes—theorizing them as objective laws, such as the law of value, is unscientific. Also, I like how he attributes the setting of the rate of interest to the state—representing the average capitalist. My main critique is that he should include a legend for the algebraic symbols—for the benefit of those who aren’t trained “economists”—for when he references Sraffa’s models, etc.