Paul Sweezy Quotes

American economist (1910–2004)

Paul Marlor Sweezy (April 10, 1910 – February 27, 2004) was an American Marxian economist, political activist, publisher, and founding editor of the long-running magazine .

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Alternative Names: Paul Marlor Sweezy • Paul M. Sweezy

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The expansion of value, which is the objective basis or main-spring of the circulation M-C-M, becomes his subjective aim, and it is only in so far as the appropriation of ever more and more wealth in the abstract becomes the sole motive of his operations that he functions as a capitalist, that is, as capital personified and endowed with consciousness and a will. Use values must therefore never be looked upon as the real aim of the capitalist; neither must the profit on any single transaction. The restless never-ending process of profit-making alone is what he aims at.

Turning from political economy in a narrow sense, it is apparent that the commodity-producing form constitutes the most effective possible veil over the true class character of capitalist society.

Supply and demand will be in equilibrium only when the price of every commodity is proportional to the labor time required to produce it. Conversely prices proportional to labor times will be established only if the forces of competitive supply and demand are allowed to work themselves out freely. The competitive supply-and-demand theory of price determination is hence not only not inconsistent with the labor theory; rather it forms an integral, if sometimes unrecognized, part of the labor theory.