Dissolving the value-price transformation Rubik's cube: A response to Steve Toms’ review of Accounting for Value

Abstract

Toms disputes the Temporal Single-System Interpretation's claim to have refuted Bortkiewicz’s influential charge that Marx's transformation from values to prices is ‘inconsistent’. This is a claim that Bryer supports with a replacement cost accounting interpretation, which Toms asserts leaves the ‘problem’ an ‘unsolved’ Rubik's cube. This conclusion is seriously misleading, the note argues, which illustrates the dangers from failing to always take the ‘social turn’ in accounting history research.