ABSTRACT
IN THE Kyoto University Economic Review,1 Professor Shibata brought up the question of the relative merits of Marxian economics and the modern theory of economic equilibrium. He contends that the theory of general economic equilibrium which has its most precise and complete formulation in the works of the School of Lausanne, “is ineffectual in making clear systematically either the organization of present-day capitalistic society or the laws of its development,” while the Marxian political economy, “though it is now shown to contain many defects, sets forth theories which are either intended to enunciate systematically the organization of present-day capitalistic society and the laws governing its development, or have inseparable and necessary bearings on them.” And Professor Shibata asks what it is that makes Marxian economics so powerful a tool for understanding the basic phenomena of capitalism while the mathematical theory of economic equilibrium is quite powerless.
