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Notable Quote

"The third volume of Marx's Capital contradicts the first. A system erected on a certain fundamental principle receives, in the third volume, a superstructure in direct conflict with it. The contradiction is obvious and enormous."

— von Böhm-Bawerk, Eugen event 1896

From Karl Marx and the Close of His System

Context: Karl Marx and the Close of His System (1896). Böhm-Bawerk identifies the fatal flaw in Das Kapital: Volume I claims all value comes from labor, but Volume III concedes that market prices of production systematically diverge from labor values. Marx never resolved this; his followers attempted to paper over it for decades. Böhm-Bawerk's critique remains the gold standard refutation of the labor theory of value.

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