Smith’s “Perfect Liberty” and Marx’s Equalized Rate of Surplus-Value
WORKING PAPER
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The reasoning behind Marx’s use of an equalized rate of surplus-value is the mobility of labor found in Adam Smith.
When Marx’s theory of surplus-value is considered in the context of the long-period method, the dynamics of surplus-value and its importance to Marx’s overall framework can be properly presented. This approach reveals that Marx’s use of an equalized rate of surplus-value across sectors of production in Volume III of Capital is not merely a convenient assumption. The equalization of the sectoral rate of surplus-value is in fact one of the central tendencies of Marx’s framework, and is elevated to the level of an economic law by Marx.