Comparative advantages, capital accumulation and socialism

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Abstract
The theory of international trade and prices is one of the least developed in Marxist economics. It is partly because of this that the Ricardian theory of comparative advantages has been almost unanimously accepted even by Marxists as the explanation of the mechanism behind international trade, prices and specialization. This paper exposes both the weakness of the Ricardian theory (it is based on meaningless comparisons) and the mystifications which derive from it (it is blind to unequal exchange and it focuses on a non-existent ‘universal society of nations’). The Ricardian theory is thus both the theoretical reflection of, and a further condition for, a capitalist type of development. The present ‘modernization’ economic policy in China, which is based on this theory, is discussed in the light of this paper's results.

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