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Title: Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (Penguin Classics) by Karl Marx, Ben Fowkes, J. M. Cohen ISBN: 0-14-044568-4 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: May, 1992 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.84 (38 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Critique of Political Economy, not an econ text book
Comment: For all those proponents of capitalism, this book will not interest you much. Marx writes to expose capital (money, interest, profit, value, etc) as a relation between people, as a relation of domination and exploitation. The central defense of capital by political economy meant a critique of political economy as the rational expression of a mad world.
What does it mean to try to give a rational explanation of a mad world, a world built upon exploitation/domination and the insubordination of that exploitation/domination (good, old class struggle, like in that bastion of U.S. power, South Korea)? Certainly not a text book on how it works, but a critique of the madness of calling exploitation/domination 'rational', 'moral', 'free', etc. Marx exposes the inherent fragility of capital's power because capital only exists as alienated labor power, the creativity of workers turned against themselves. All the wealth of all the rich and powerful is the product of the labor power of the workers.
Marx's ultimate message is that the capitalist needs the worker, but the worker's only need is the overthrow of capital and the establishment of a humane society: "The free development of all depends on the free development of each." (Marx, 1844 Manuscripts)
As for 'empirical' matters, capitalism has impoverished the vast mass of human beings for the vast wealth of a few. To see the misery, hunger, disease, and human debasement created by capital's thirst for profit and then to say 'capital has nothing to do with this' is to tell lies. To say that capital does not give rise to all the dictatorships of the world is telling lies. To say "Let the market sort it out." is to say "Let things stay as they are." With all our wealth, all our productive capacity, only capital prevents a world of abundance, and therefore a liberation from 'things', a liberation from exploitation/domination. The defence of capital depends on moral bankruptcy, class privilege, and inhumanity being the standard of human conduct.
I suggest a look at John Holloway, Werner Bonefeld, and Richard Gunn, among others, for an intelligent, impassioned and insightful reading of Marx. And happily, Amazon carries their 3 vol. set, Open Marxism.
Rating: 5
Summary: Surprising
Comment: I was greatly surprised to find that Communism and Socialism are not discussed in Capital, volume 1. This leads me to believe that the most vehement criticisms of this book are by people who haven't read it. I am not by any means a communist, but I found this book to be an excellent description of capitalism. Since we are still living in a capitalist system, much of what Marx says is still relavent today, for example, his analysis on how capitalism exerts continious pressure to lengthen the work day. I regularly read the Economist and found Marx's criticism of the magazine entertaining. It is worth knowing, for example, that the Economist opposed shortening the work day of CHILDREN to 10 hours. In another fascinating section, Marx uses the depopolation of Ireland based on the Potato Famine and the resulting land grab by the rich to disprove Malthus' theory on population. He proves how, despite losing half of its population to famine and emigration, poverty continued to rise, and the rich continued to get richer. He ends the chapter on this prophetic note: "The accumulation with the Irish in America keeps pace with the accumulation of rents in Ireland. The Irishman, banished by the sheep and the ox, reappears on the other side of the ocean as a Fenian. And there a young but gigantic republic rises, more and more threateningly, to face the old queen of the waves."
Rating: 1
Summary: My "real" review + response
Comment: One can see that this book is worthless when, in the first few pages, Marx says something along the lines of "If an amount of corn changes for a quantity of eggs, then the value of that quantity of corn equals the value of the eggs".
There is actually a double inequality of value, as the marginalist revolution proved
Marx's theory of surplus value is wrong on a number of counts. Neo Marxist John Roemer has pointed out that this was a mathematical trick. Purchase of goods generally happens prior to the time when they are employed in production. Hence, when value is expressed in terms of units of labor, the fact that an economy is expanding (as it was when Marx wrote this text) will show that one recieved more units in the present than they paid in the past of whatever commodity value is expressed it.
The main flaw of this text is the fact that interest may be justified on account of time preference. This can be found in Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk's Capital and Interest, the classic critique (absolute destrcution) of Marx.
Now, on to the response to the reader from Dulles. Can the reader from Dulles read?
I never implied that Marx lived in the 18th century. My point was that he relied on the objectivist view of value propagated by the classical school, originating in the 18th century. I think my statement "Back then, dead white males such as Smith and Ricardo" should have tipped you off to that (Okay, okay, Ricardo wrote in the 19th century).
Equally confusing is your notion that I claimed the Spanish Dominicans wrote about the growth of large corporations. I actually said "spanish economists of Centuries earlier who disproved the so called 'value paradox'?"
Being so ignorant of economics, I always thought the value paradox referred to why a useful good like bread cost less than a frivolous one such as diamonds, not the growth of large corporations.
But, I must confess, in my haste to be clever, I overstated the contributions of the Spanish Scholastics. While they introduced subjectivist value theory, they didn't actually solve the value paradox.
But don't be so quick to call Marx a genius.While his views certainly represent the logical culmination of the classical school, there was other, more advanced economics that he could have learned from at the time. Hermann Heinrich Gossen, a Prussian economist writing around the same time as Marx elucidated the law of diminishing marginal utility in his 1854 book "The Development of the Laws of Exchange among Men and of the Consequent Rules of Human Action".
I would also like to point out another foible of yours I find funny. My user name is clearly "Walt Byars" , however, you consistently spell my last name "Bryars". Does it make sense for you to make fun of me for saying Marx lived in the wrong century (which I didn't) when it could easily be a single letter typo?
The reason wrote such a sarcastic review is because I such took pride in a witty comment I had made immediately before. A leftist I knew mentioned that capitalism was "reactionary", so I made the brilliant counter - "Which is more reactionary, The Laor theory of Value of the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility?" and "The productivity Theory of interest or the Positive Theory of Capital"?
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Title: The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Martin Edward Malia ISBN: 0451527100 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: October, 1998 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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Title: Wealth of Nations (Great Minds Series) by Adam Smith ISBN: 0879757051 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: December, 1991 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (Great Minds Series) by John Maynard Keynes ISBN: 1573921394 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: May, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Penguin Classics) by Karl Marx, Martin Nicolaus, Martin Nickolaus ISBN: 0140445757 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: November, 1993 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (Great Minds) by David Ricardo ISBN: 1573921092 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: November, 1996 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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