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November 2014 Marx: ‘Das Kapital’

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Karl Marx Das Kapital: Kritik der politischen Oekonomie (Capital: A Critique of Political Economy)  Hamburg, 1867  Volume 1; first edition

arx’s Capital has been making 150 years ago when Capital was first something of a comeback in published in Germany in 1867. Indeed, M recent years. Discarded after whatever influence Capital has come to have the collapse of the Soviet Union, the book on the world stage, it must surely be has once again garnered interest due to the understood in the first instance as a severity of the recent recession and talk of repudiation of Adam Smith’s free-market income inequality, the “1 percent,” and the economics and his Wealth of minimum wage. In addition, the study of Nations. For Capital lays bare the flaws in political economy, long considered a classical political economy, which, during dinosaur of a genre by economists, has Marx’s lifetime, put paid to the most likewise made a surprise return, most influential economic thinkers of the day, notably with Thomas Piketty’s unlikely namely Adam Smith, but also David bestseller Capital in the 21st Century. Part Ricardo and, to a lesser extent, Thomas of the interest in Marx and his brand of Malthus. Capital is thus itself not another political economy has surely come from the communist manifesto, but instead a suspicion that the free and competitive meticulous work of political economy, one markets unhindered by federal that seeks to dissect and explain the regulations do not enrich the majority of workings of the industrial, capitalist mode of people, and that the notion of an “invisible production. hand” of the market has proven to be If the Communist Manifesto begins with disastrously flawed (think subprime one resounding bang (talk of an infamous mortgage crisis). So out goes Milton “spectre” haunting Europe and the Friedman, and in steps Karl Marx. declaration of history as the “history of class Strangely, then, history would appear to be struggles”), Capitalopens with more of a coming full circle. For this particular whimper, one perhaps more likely to induce ideological battle was already waged some narcosis than revolution. Marx takes us

1 through an analysis of the commodity and agrarian economies (rather than by the the process of exchange (“Die Ware und Der industrial capitalism of which Marx wrote) Austauschprozess”), hardly revolutionary where the book found its audience. The incendiaries. Instead, the first three chapters Russian printing of 3,000 copies, for of Capital are notoriously difficult, dull, and example, sold out within 12 months. at times tedious. Even Marx’s closest friend, Despite its challenging and convoluted Engels, complained that the opening “is nature, the premise of Capital is rather dreadfully tiring, and confusing, too.” Many simple: that profit is only possible in a readers simply give up at the prospect of 800 capitalist economy through the exploitation pages of such abstract and scientific and impoverishment of workers. To be clear, rhetoric. according to Marx, exploitation is not a by- Although for the reader Capital begins product or a regrettable consequence of difficultly, for its author, the book’s profit-making under capitalism, but rather its beginnings were downright painful. From its defining feature, its sine qua non. Capitalism initial outline to its completion was a span of is able to generate “surplus value” precisely almost 20 years, a period in Marx’s life because it has produced a commodity (labor characterized by tireless research, power) that, as it is used, creates more value suffocating poverty, and deteriorating than it costs. A worker paid an hourly wage health. His carbuncles and liver problems of $10 to make shirts will “repay” that $10 are by now well-known (so painful, in fact, through his labor in, say, 30 minutes. But, of were the boils that he eventually had to write course, the employer has paid for an entire standing up). Of his own financial straits, he hour. What the worker manufactures, joked that nobody else had ever written so therefore, in the remaining 30 minutes is the much about money, having so little of it source of profit. This is the dark and ugly themselves. If not for the generosity of secret that Marx brings to light. Engels, Marx would almost certainly have If Capital lacks the bombastic and landed in debtors’ prison. To compound his dramatic rhetorical flourishes of pain, upon its publication, the book must the Manifesto, it nevertheless, in its own have seemed a terrible failure. The initial often muted way, delivers perhaps more run of 1,000 copies (of which this edition is sustained and powerful blows to capitalist one) took five years to sell (although today a ideology than its more widely read copy might fetch more than $30,000). predecessor. Generating press, favorable or otherwise, And even though Capital may well be a was itself a hopeless exercise (Engels turned difficult read, it is not without its literary to writing reviews himself using various touches. Marx was an avid reader of Balzac pseudonyms, but to little effect). Ironically, and Shakespeare; he was also most certainly it was in those countries marked by largely a fan of Victorian horror fiction. Capital is

2 thus filled with lively allusions: to after all, why pay workers a decent wage if the Merchant of Venice,Frankenstein, it means losing market share to another, not Dickens, and vampires. As he sets out to so beneficent capitalist? If capital functions find the source of profit (a problem that successfully, then it produces as a matter of Smith also faced), for instance, Marx course all manner of social ills: depressed articulates his figurative journey as a wages, unemployment, recessions, high Dantean descent into hell. Once the reader infant mortality rates, low life expectancy moves beyond those initial opening rates, a criminal class, and poverty. Wealth chapters, therefore, the book comes alive, necessarily becomes concentrated in fewer populated with all manner of blood-suckers, and fewer hands, and more and more of the animated monsters, and the living dead (as population find themselves on the edge of Marx presents his capitalists). Particularly financial ruin—a bleak vision indeed. No lively are those passages of invective in wonder Marx predicted that capitalism which Marx dismisses earlier “bourgeois” would generate its own collapse. thinkers in his own characteristic snarky and One of the more common misconceptions sardonic fashion. about the book is that it outlines how an Ultimately, the story Marx weaves is one alternative, communist society might that has a broad historical scope. For a organize its economy or its own mode of capitalist mode of production to be possible, production. It does not. All that can be said, Marx argues, certain conditions are then, about what it means to be a “Marxist” necessary: a period of primitive based on this book is that a Marxist is a accumulation (the concentration of wealth, critic of capitalism. What the book does, land, and private property in the hands of the however, is dissect and expose the many few), money, mercantilism, banks, a system ways in which workers are exploited and, in of credit, and (most significantly) a so doing, suggests ways that unions might proletariat—that is, a body of workers push back against the system (changing the denied ownership of the means of conversation away from the rate of profit, production and whose only salable for example, toward a company’s rate of commodity is their own labor power. exploitation, for which Marx provides a Capitalism is thus neither a “natural” simple formula). economic system nor the only viable In terms of lasting influence, Capital has economic system. It is historically specific clearly enjoyed its greatest impact in the and contingent upon the unfolding of certain realm of politics rather than economics. This forces over time. Within such an economy, is particularly true in Asia, Africa, Central “competition,” often seen as the motor of and South America, and developing democracy and liberty, actually promotes, countries generally. It is no exaggeration to according to Marx, a race to the bottom; say that this book changed the history of the

3 world. To see just how far Capital’s reach culture, ideology, hegemony, discourse, or has extended, one need only consider the even narrative). Even so, Capitalhas been fact that by the mid-1980s, one-third of the and continues to be an undeniably influential world’s population could reasonably be said book. In its analysis, it models the to live under a Marxist government. In dialectical materialist approach. It provides a Western Europe and North America, form of social history that takes its however, the influence of Capital has been perspective from the bottom up. Its considerably less dramatic. In the United discussion of the working day and how States, for example, Marxism as a political exploitative systems become naturalized and force might well have suffered a death blow. internalized inform the work of later Nevertheless, Marxism (rather like thinkers such as Gramsci, Althusser, and psychoanalysis) has most certainly survived even Michel Foucault (especially if not flourished in American academia. Yet, his Discipline and interestingly, as a book, Capital is still Punishment). Structuralism, feminism, and largely ignored by academics in favor of post-colonialism all have debts to Marx’s Marx’s earlier works that address more analysis. clearly the operations of ideology and the At the very least, Capital has the potential “superstructure” (which happens to be to change radically one’s way of looking at mentioned just once in Capital and only the world. After reading Capital, it is hard then in a footnote). not to see how many of the more serious If the point of Capital was to draw back issues of our day, at root, continue to pit the the curtain in order to focus upon the real interests of capital against those of the relations of production, then academics have ordinary worker. instead been fixated upon the curtain (although we tend to call it, variously, —Alex Macleod, PhD, Lecturer, English

Sources

Althusser, Louis and Étienne Balibar. Reading Capital. Trans. Ben Brewster. New York: Verso, 2009. Harvey, David. A Companion to Marx’s Capital. New York: Verso, 2010. Wheen, Francis. Marx’s Das Kapital: A Biography. New York: Grove Press, 2006.

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