Description:
The book draws on Professor Cheng Enfu's "New Four Theory" on value, wealth, and distribution, among which the "new living labor value theory" is particularly creative.
Brief description: Cheng Enfu, born in July 1950, is the Director of the Academy of Marxist Philosophy and director of Western Economic Studies Center of CASS, and the President of WAPE (World Association of Political Economy). Besides, Cheng Enfu is the chief editor of the journals International Critical Thought and World Review of Political Economics (World Association of Political Economics) published by Routledge and Pluto Press, respectively. His academic expertise is in theoretical economics.
Review Quotes:
A breath of fresh air from China, this fascinating book lifts a veil from the influence of Marxist thinking in China's economic successes. It shows how debates initiated by Marxists lie at the forefront of a blend of policies whose striking achievements have little to do with Western economic orthodoxy. A major contribution to Marxist theory and a highly practical work, it confronts the complexity and uniqueness of China's economic miracle by developing Marxism in exciting and innovative ways. Offering Western readers an unparalleled introduction to the dynamism and breadth of Chinese Marxist thinking, it extends the boundaries of political economy in creative and productive directions of world-wide importance.
Alan Freeman, Geopolitical Economy Research Group, University of Manitoba
Prof. Cheng Enfu's "Shanghai School" of Marxist economics has brought together a group of Chinese scholars, whose work has unusual depth and breadth. Starting from classical Marxist foundations, with the theory of value at its center, they have studied both early and present-day sources, both Marxist and non-Marxist, from both China and around the world. The book uses qualitative analysis and quantitative methods, in theoretical and empirical applications. But this work is not just exposition and development of theory. The authors also apply their concept of value creation, derived from Marx but by no means rigidly confined to his ideas, to vital matters of policy, especially relevant to today's China and to the current explosion of high-tech services, managerial and cultural labor. Anyone interested in the Marxist political economy tradition, or in the present-day world and China's place in it, cannot afford to miss this volume.
David Laibman, Professor Emeritus, Economics, City University of New York
Editor, Science & Society
This book is certainly a landmark, a mile-stone in the research of Marxist Labor theory! Expounds on the essence of Marx's "theory of value" and its contemporary form Professor Cheng Enfu et.al. have not only explored the existing huge continent, but demonstrated an innovative approach.
Jean Claude Delaunay, Paris-East University
The book demonstrates that the labour that produces material and spiritual goods directly for the purpose of market exchange and that directly serves the production and reproduction of labour commodities, including the management labor and scientific and technical labor, are all value-creating or productive labor. The authors of this book have long studied and explored the development of Marx's labor theory of value and have put forward a new point of view. It is different from the view that only material production creates new values for commodities. The book is scientifically innovative and worth studying.
Wang Zhiwei, Professor of Beijing University, Consultant of the Chinese and Foreign Economic Studies Association