The essay deals with the orthodox teachings of capital accumulation, the essential demand crisis and real wages by comparing it to Karl Marx's Das Kapital.

English economists such as Alfred Marshall had concentrated on ideas of cost production, supply and demand and the marginal utility of money in his famous textbook Principles of Economics.

[3] Robinson herself considered Keynes' The General Theory too narrow in its focus,[4] and attempted to synthesise her own dynamic analysis of economics through a post-Keynesian lens in her essay.

Yet for Robinson, although the value of labour is an accurate starting point, it does not consider the real-life effects of climate, fertility and the conventions of free markets (XIX),[1] as some areas produce more agricultural output primarily due to the better crop growing conditions.

[6] In Robinson's view, Marx saw this theory as an equilibrium, a balance between the demand of society and the social labour time of a product which drove the market's prices (23).

[1]  She sympathised with Marx's ideas that the rate of wages and employment varied based on the wider class struggle and the average share of profit accumulated by the economic system (34).

[1] For example, if capital in an economy decreases, the wages may decline but the capitalist will still gain profits by making labourers work more hours, include women and children in the workforce while simultaneously increasing the workload (30-31).

[1] Robinson argues Marx identified the correct issue in effective demand but because of his theory of falling profits he was unable to offer a sufficient alternative (51).

[1] Imperfect competition refers to the failure of a market to fulfil the optimal level of distribution, resource allocation, production, employment and other economic factors.

[1] In Robinson's view, the goal of the economist is to build off the ideas started by Marx and refined by Keynes to analyse short term consequences by looking at the larger structures in place that result in bigger changes overtime.

(95)[1] The long-term changes that Marx identified in rates of profit, real wages and class structures are the building blocks for further academic methods to analysis the broader laws of capitalism.

If Orthodox economists cannot move past short term fluctuations with wages, profits and capital accumulation, they will fail to address the larger long-term effects (95).

[12] However, is largely supportive of the wider discussion that Robinson is provoking that re-states core issues of value theory and income distribution which are in Shove's mind long "overdue.

"[13] British academic Eric Roll showed appreciation towards her unifying focus on Marx's system in regard to exploitation and employment and compared her essay to Paul Sweezy's The Theory of Capitalist Development (1942) in importance.

"[17] In modern economics, Fletcher Barager argued Robinson's critiques of Marx were not destructive but constructively building on the ideas of labour value theory, capital accumulation and effective demand crisis.