1A CRITIQUE OF BENETTI’S CRITIQUE OF MARX’S DERIVATION OF THE NECESSITY OF MONEY

Carlo Benetti’s critique of Marx’s derivation of the necessity of money (Benetti 1990, pp. 163-69) is well known in Mexico and widely accepted (e.g. Hernandez) (although not universally accepted; e.g. Robles).1 Very succinctly put, Benetti’s critique is that Marx’s derivation of the general form of value by “inverting ” the expanded form of value is logically flawed; more precisely, that the “inversion ” of the expanded form of value does not yield the general form of value, but instead yields the same expanded form of value. This note argues that Benetti’s critique is itself logically flawed for two main reasons: Benetti misinterprets Marx’s concept of the expanded form of value and Benetti misinterprets the logic of Marx’s derivation of the general form of value. I conclude that Marx’s derivation of the necessity of money as the general form of appearance of the value of commodities is logically sound and that Marx’s theory is in fact the only economic theory that is able to derive the necessity of money from its fundamental value theory. I regard this to be a very significant relative strength of Marx’s theory. I will first briefly review Benetti’s critique and will then present my critique of Benetti’s critique