The Dictionary of Human Geography

the ‘exchange-value’ of a commodity, and des-
ignated ‘labour’ as use-value and ‘labour-
power’ – the actual commodity transacted
between employers and employees – as
‘exchange-value’. This in turn allowed him to
claim, without contradiction, that in a capital-
ist mode of production (see capitalism),
‘labour-power’ as a commodity had both a
market price and an underlying value, which
was thesocially necessary labour time necessary
for its (re)production. Capitalists purchased
‘labour power’ in order to consume its use-
value, ‘labour’, which had the unique capacity
to produce more value than necessary for its
reproduction – in short, ‘surplus-value’.
Hence, in one fell stroke, Marx was able to
resolve the contradiction that had plagued
Smith and Ricardo, recuperate the labour the-
ory of value, and provide a basis for capital
accumulationas the accumulation of sur-
plus-value. Notice that Marx did not seek a
‘natural price’ explanation; rather, he clearly
inserted the adjective ‘socially necessary’ in
order to indicate the geographical, historical
and relational basis of value. Marx’s labour
theory of value was subsequently attacked on
several fronts, most persistently around its
ostensible failure to systematize the relation-
ship between value and market price – the
so-called ‘transformation problem’.
Diane Elson’s (1979) innovative reading of
Marx’s theory of value – which David Harvey
endorses inLimits to capital(1999 [1982]) –
circumvents both the critique that Marx’s for-
mulation stands – and falls – on labour being
the physical substance of value as well as the
transformation problem by arguing that what
Marx really intended was to draw attention to
the rationalizing practices whereby labour in a
capitalist mode of production is continuously
enrolled in abstracted form through the wage/
money relation. This not only involves a discip-
lining of labour through surveillance, monitor-
ing, punishment and incentive contracts; but,
more pointedly, these mechanisms are to be
themselves viewed as symptomatic of a system
of generalized commodity exchange – that is,
a dominant and more-or-less competitive
market system – where wealth and worth are
measured in an impersonal, abstract money
form. Thus, a ‘value theory of labour’, as
Elson presents it, is a condensed expression
of the imperative for capitalists to constantly
cut labour costs and raise labour productivity
in order to survive, and for workers to become
continuously more productive at their tasks in
order to not become dispensable. In Elson’s
words: ‘My argument is that theobjectof

Marx’s theory of value was labour. It is not a

matter of seeking an explanation of why prices

are what they are and finding that it is labour

[thus, Elson sidesteps the nettlesome ‘trans-

formation problem’]. But rather of seeking an

understanding why labour takes the form it

does, and what the political consequences

are’ (1979, p. 123). vg

Suggested reading

Althusser (1997 [1970]); Cohen (1978); Elson

(1979); Engels (1978 [1884]); Postone (1996);

Read (2003).

Lamarck(ian)ism A theory of evolutionary

change originating with the French naturalist

Jean Baptiste de Lamarck (1744–1829). A

non-Darwinian doctrine of organic progres-

sion, early Lamarckism differed significantly

from its laterNeo-Lamarckian successor. The

dynamic behind Lamarck’s own scheme of

evolution along separate lines of development,

rather than by common descent, was the

active power of nature (combining processes

of environmental stimulus, the adaptive habits

of organisms in adjusting to modified condi-

tions, and the use and disuse of organs) to

impel life along predetermined sequences

(Burkhardt, 1977).

In the decades around 1900, when Darwin-

ismwasin eclipse asa consequence ofa series of

criticisms within the scientific community, the

Lamarckian mechanism of the inheritance of

acquired characteristics achieved considerable

support as providing an alternative mechanism

for evolutionary transformism (Bowler, 1983).

This marginal component of Lamarck’s ori-

ginal scheme became the central plank in Neo-

Lamarckian interpretations of evolutionary

change, which routinely considered that those

organic modifications on which natural selec-

tion operated were environmentally induced.

Particularly in the USA, but also in Britain,

this alternative evolutionary theory attracted

widespread support during the second half of

the nineteenth century despite the absence of

agreed empirical corroboration. Particularly

prominent were the palaeontologists Edward

Cope and Alpheus Hyatt, the geologists Joseph

LeConte and Clarence King, and the Duke of

Argyll and George Romanes in anthropology

and psychology. In France, theSocie ́te ́Zoologi-

que d’Acclimatationunder Isidore Geoffroy St-

Hilaire vigorously promulgated Lamarckism in

projects on environmental adaptation that had

implications for human migration and coloni-

alism (Osborne, 1994). Most dramatic of

all was the theory’s official endorsement in the

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LAMARCK(IAN)ISM