An Introduction to the three volums of Karl Marx's Capital

242 Pages·1610·6.48 MB·English

AN I N T R O D U C T I O N
to the
T H R E E V O L U M E S of
K A R L M A R X ’S
C A P I T A L
Michael Heinrich
Translated by Alexander Locascio
PB2884 / $15-95 MARXISM / ECONOMICS
“An excellent little introduction to Marx’s masterpiece.”
—Doug Henwood, editor, Left Business Observer
“A ‘must-read’ in our time of crisis.”
— Paul LeBlanc, La Roche College; author, From Marx to Gramsci
“The best introduction to Capital I have read.”
— Michael Perelman, California State University, Chico; author, The Invisible
Handcuffs of Capitalism
“A brilliant presentation of Marx’s Capital.”
—Paddy Quick, St. Francis College; member, Union for Radical
Political Economics
“Likely the best short introduction to Marx’s Capital
to ever appear in English.”
— Riccardo Bellofiore, University of Bergamo, Italy; co-editor, Re-Reading Marx
“The best and most comprehensive introduction
to Marx’s Capital there is.”
—Werner Bonefeld, Department of Politics, University of York
“A fundamental reinterpretation and understanding
of Marx’s theory.”
—John Milios, National Technical University of Athens, Greece
Michael Heinrich teaches economics in Berlin and is managing editor of
PROKLA: Journal for Critical Social Science. He is the author of The Science of
Value: Marx’s Critique of Political Economy between Scientific Revolution and
Classical Tradition, and editor, with Werner Bonefeld, of Capital and Critique:
After the “New Reading" of Marx.
ISBN-13: 978-1-58367-288-4
MONTHLY REVIEW PRESS
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An Introduction to the Three Volumes
of Karl Marx’s Capital
-------------------------------------
An Introduction to the Three Volumes
of Karl Marx’s Capital
by MICHAEL HEINRICH
Translated, by Alexander Locascio
MR
MONTHLY REVIEW PRESS
New York
Copyright © 2004 by Michael Heinrich
All Rights Reserved
Originally published as Kritik der politischen Ökonomie: Eine Einführung
by Schmetterling Verlag GmbH, Stuttgart, Germany © 2004 by Schmetterling
Verlag GmbH. English translation by Alexander Locascio published by Monthly
Review Press 2012 © by Monthly Review Press
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Heinrich, Michael, 1957-
[Kritik der politischen Vkonomie. English]
An introduction to the three volumes of Karl Marx’s Capital / by Michael
Heinrich ; translated by Alexander Locascio.
p. cm.
“Originally published as Kritik der politischen Vkonomie: Eine Einf|hrung
by Schmetterling Verlag GmbH, Stuttgart, Germany, c2004, by Schmetterling
Verlag GmbH.”
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-58367-288-4 (pbk.: alk. paper) - ISBN 978-1-58367-289-1
(cloth : alk. paper) 1. Marx, Karl, 1818-1883. Kapital. 2. Marxian
economics. I. Title.
HB501.M37H4513 2012
335.4’1—dc23
2012019993
Monthly Review Press
146 West 29th Street, Suite 6W
New York, New York 10001
www. monthlyre view, org
5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Preface.......................................................................................................... 7
1. Capitalism and Marxism................................................................ 13
2. The Object of Critique in the Critique
of Political Economy..................................................................29
3. Value, Labor, Money.......................................................................39
4. Capital, Surplus Value, and Exploitation....................................81
5. The Capitalist Process of Production ..........................................99
6. The Circulation of Capital...........................................................131
7. Profit, Average Profit, and the
“Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall”..............141
8. Interest, Credit, and “Fictitious Capital” ...................................155
9. Crisis................................................................................................169
10. The Fetishism of Social Relations in Bourgeois Society..........179
11. State and Capital............................................................................199
12. Communism—Society beyond the Commodity,
Money, and the State .....................................................................219
Bibliography............................................................................................225
Notes..........................................................................................................229
Index..........................................................................................................238
.
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Preface
Protest is occurring again. In 2011 the “Arab Spring” rocked the Arab
world and overthrew a number of rulers, who which seemed to be invin­
cible, at least by to their people. In summer people in several countries of
Western Europe were inspired by the actions of the Arab Spring. They
conquered public places to protest against the policies of their govern­
ments. And in fall 2011 “Occupy Wall Street” started in New York, lead­
ing to “Occupy” movements in many other countries. With the bank­
ing crisis of 2008 more people than ever during the last decade question
capitalism: is it really the system that provides freedom and wealth for
the majority as it is promised by its supporters? Or is it the system that
brings wealth only to the 1 percent and economic pressure and misery
in at different levels to the 99 percent? Even beyond traditionally left
circles, discussions about the destructive consequences of “’’capitalism
are taking place.
That this is not a matter of course is proven by a quick glance into the
past. At the beginning of the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union,
it seemed as though capitalism had ultimately and globally triumphed as
an economic and social model to which there was no alternative. Although
there had always been many on the left who did not see a desirable alterna­
tive to capitalism in Soviet “really existing socialism,” such distinctions no
AN INTRODUCTION TO KARL MARX’S CAPITAL
longer seemed important. To most people, a society beyond the capitalist
market economy appeared only as an entirely unrealistic utopia. Instead of
protest, accommodation and resignation reigned.
But it was also—and in particular—the 1990s that showed that capital­
ism, even after its apparent “final victory,” continued to go hand in hand
with processes of crisis and immiseration; and Kosovo, Afghanistan, and
the first war in Iraq showed that wars in which the developed capitalist
countries were not only indirecdy, but indeed very direcdy involved, were
by no means a thing of the past. All this was taken up in different forms by
the new “counter-globalization” movement and other social movements
and made the point of departure for critique. Initially, these critiques
were focused on single issues and posed limited demands that remained
within the framework of the system. Furthermore, the critiques often
rested upon a simple black-and-white moralism. However, throughout
the course of these conflicts, fundamental questions kept being asked:
about contemporary capitalism’s mode of operation; about the connec­
tion between capitalism, the state, and war; and also about what kinds of
changes are actually possible within capitalism.
Leftist theory became important again. Every transformative practice
assumes a particular understanding of that which exists. If, for example,
we demand the introduction of a Tobin tax (that is, the taxation of cur­
rency transactions) as a crucial means for the “taming” of a capitalism
“unleashed,” then this implies a certain theorization of the importance of
financial markets, about tamed or untamed capitalism—whether or not
these assumptions are made explicit. How contemporary capitalism func­
tions is not an abstract, academic question. The answer to this question
has an immediate practical relevance for every anticapitalist movement.
It is thus not surprising that since the end of the 1990s grand theo­
retical narratives have been en vogue again, such as Empire, by Antonio
Negri and Michael Hardt, Manuel Castells’s The Information Age, or the
recently published Debt: The First 5,000 Tears by David Graeber. Such
books, although very different politically and in terms of content, em­
ploy Marx’s categories to a greater or lesser extent: pardy they are used
to analyze contemporary developments; partly they are criticized as ob­
solete. It is obvious that today one cannot avoid Marx’s Capital if one