Kozo Uno

Kozo Uno (宇野 弘蔵, Uno Kōzō, November 12, 1897 – February 22, 1977) was a Japanese economist and is considered one of the most important theorists on the field of Marx's theory of value. His main work Principles of Political Economy was published in 1964. Among his scholars are Thomas T. Sekine and Makoto Itoh.

Uno based his work on a rigorously Hegelian reading of Marx's Capital. This led him to his well-known conclusion that Marxian analysis had to be conducted at three separate levels:

1. The "pure" theory of Capital, freed from the complications of history – highly abstract exercises in dialectical logic on the basic, core dynamics of capitalist economy.
2. A "middle" level, which traces the general development of capitalism through distinct historical stages – mercantilism, classical liberalism and so on.
3. The analysis of the 'messy' details of capitalist economy in the real world, concentrating on particular narratives rather than an overall picture.

Uno and his followers have come in for criticism from the wider Marxist tradition for insisting on this separation. Simon Clarke sees this schema as "scholastic formalism", and the second level as an arbitrary addition to provide a link between the other two, rather than an analytically necessary one. As Kincaid points out, though, Capital is primarily a logically rather than chronologically argued work, which looks at the laws of capitalist development and draws mainly supporting evidence from historical data. Thus, the separation of the Uno school represents an acknowledgement of this logical nature, and registers the key problem of how the critique can be linked to actual economic development in a way that competing schools often cannot.

Main work

• Uno, Kozo: Principles of Political Economy. Theory of a Purely Capitalist Society. Translated from the Japanese by Thomas T. Sekine. Brighton, Atlantic Highlands/New Jersey 1980.