ENG 177 Reading Capital Today

Capital Vol. 1: A Critique of Political Economy

Author: Karl Marx

Publication Date: 1867

The Communist Manifesto

Author: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels

Publication Date: 1848 (European Revolutions)

Value, Price and Profit

Author: Karl Marx

Publication Date: Speech given in 1865, published 1898

general formula for capital (within sphere of circulation)

M-C-M’

SNLT

socially necessary labor time

commodity

a good or service produced by human labor and offered on market for sale; must be a use-value

• produces use values for others (social use values), is exchange value in its price, has value

dual nature of commodities

• objects of utility + bearers of value

• can have use values w/o value (utility not mediated thru labor, like air)

  • can be useful without being a commodity (self-sustenance)

  • can’t have value without use values

Communist Manifesto main points

• all written history as history of class struggles; antagonism —> some sort of revolution —> social transformation

• bourgeoisie epoch: simplified class antagonisms, bourgeoisie and proletariat directly facing e/o as the 2 classes (absorbed others)

  • modern bourgeoisie as product of series of revolutions (modes of production/exchange)

  • bourgeoisie as playing revolutionary part (revolutionizing production —> whole of society), especially in expansion of bourgeoisie modes of production

• bourgeoisie creates the instruments of its own destruction (including the proletarians); proletarians uniting as the majority against bourgeoisie rather than the advancements in production

• Section 1: narrative, essay, logical argument, conceptual history

• Section 2: “you” and “we”, rhetorical guide for debates/arguments

• need Communist Party to lead the proletariats

  • Communism as the negation of the negative condition of bourgeoisie society

  • self-abolition of proletariat as a class, centralize all instruments of production in the state’s hands

• Socialists wanting to go back to previous forms of economy, Communists wanting to go forward (push Capitalism further along, pro-productivity)

• manifesto as genre of text trying to get its readers to do something

bourgeoisie

“the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labor”

proletariat

“the class of modern wage laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live”

Value, Price and Profit main points

• need to fight for wage raises in order to be able to fight the larger fight of revolution and systemic reform

• counter-report to Weston’s official report to the IWA Council

• amount of production and real wages are variable

• rise in wages —> rise in demand for market price of necessities

• extent of banking system affects how much currency is needed to circulate the same amount of values

• price cannot explain value, but value can for price (asymmetry)

• profits are derived from selling commodities at their value

Marx’s Voices in Capital

1, 2: Political Economy (ironizing Smith and Ricardo, speaking in the language of political economists)

3: logic of the formula (math, equations)

4: dialectical realism

use value

utility, possessing properties that are useful to society in general, fulfilling a social need; concrete labor

exchange value

expresses a ratio of how much of one commodity is worth in relation to another; abstract labor

value

the quality of an object having labor in it as well as being an object of utility

price

monetary expression of value; estimation/representation

• historically, state setting price of money

• for now, consider price = value, although it can fluctuate around value

the sale

C-M

the purchase

M-C

money

the universal commodity

• use-value is its exchange value

• a symbol; a token of cheaper metal can function as a representation of value just the same as gold (standing in for the same weight in gold)

• when taken out of circulation, becomes a store of value rather than representative of exchange-values/mediator of exchange of commodities

buying to sell

M-C-M

selling to buy

C-M-C

surplus value

the extra amount of money received in M-C-M’, s=C’-c

valorization of value

value’s ability to define and magnify its own worth; M-C-M’ as limitless (runaway)

Who does Marx address in VPP?

John Weston

Who are the Political Economists that Marx refers to in Chapter 1?

Adam Smith and David Ricardo

Who does Marx heavily critique in Chapter 9?

Nassau William Senior (all profit in last 1 hour of the day)

3 Kinds of Social Reproduction

natural needs, biological reproduction, education

commodity fetishism

treatment of commodities as if they have value inherently; relationship between people are not thought of in the exchange of commodities, even though it is the past labor by humans which have put value into commodities

Labor Theory of Value

states that the value of a commodity is determined by its SNLT; Value Theory of Labor states the opposite

concrete labor

creates use values

abstract labor

creates values

constant capital

the capital that is invested in the means of production, viewed from perspective of capitalist (tools, machinery, building/factory, materials, energy); none of these commodities create new value, but transfer preexisting value

• raw materials and auxiliaries (immediately) vs. means of labor (slowly)

variable capital

the capital invested in labor power that needs to be purchased from the market, viewed form perspective of capitalist; amount of value that labor power can create is not fixed

rate of surplus value/degree of exploitation

surplus labor/necessary labor, or s/v

hidden abode

the site of production i.e. the factory (in contrast to the market)

means of production

tools + materials; passive, become extension of worker’s mind and body, work as bringing life to the dead (dead labor within the harvested materials + tools)

useful labor

transformation of old dead labor —> new use values/commodities

labor power

the commodity of the capacity for labor; value determined by SNLT like other commodities (social reproduction); use-value in ability to create more value

concentration

centralization

surplus labor

surplus population

normal working day

cooperation

division of labor

silent compulsion

productive worker