The value-price gap is the permanent engine of capitalist crisis, not a logical flaw

Evidence

I am inclined to side with Michael Perelman (1987, 110–127): the transformation problem is not a problem at all – it is a dialectical heuristic. It is not a flaw in Marx’s logic that leads to the irreconcilability of real value and price – it is that these two are never reconciled under capitalism. The gap between the two is a productive lacuna in Marx’s work which allows us to pinpoint a key element of capitalist crisis, and also, importantly, to locate finance as a key element of a much broader system of exploitation, not just a particularly ugly form of economic power in its own right. — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 103

Categorization

• DEFINE: Reframes the transformation problem as a dialectical heuristic rather than an error — key concept for the book’s theoretical apparatus.
• XREF: Directly positions finance within a broader system of exploitation — connects to deWaard’s argument that finance colonizes culture rather than being a separable sector. — connects to: Pollock located capitalism’s crisis in sectoral disproportions rather than falling profit rates — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 239; All capitalist growth rests on a gap between wages and value created — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 1137; Surplus value is the gap between labour infused and labour bought — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 795

Broader Connections

• All capitalist growth rests on a gap between wages and value created #corroborates (0.85) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1137
• Surplus value is the gap between labour infused and labour bought #expands (0.80) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 795