Marx on Economics

279 Pages·1961·8.093 MB·English

by  Robert Freedman

PELICAN BOOKS
Marx orf'Etortomicsi > - ■ \
Karl Heinrich Marx was born at Trier in Germany in 181 . He
studied law aCttie'University .of .Bonn, and then proceeded to
Berlin University, where he studied literature, Iawjffistory,-and
finally philosophy. He received his Ph.D. at Jena in 1842. He
worked as a journalist in Cologne and then in Paris, where he
met Friedrich Engels with whom he formed a close friendship.
Although much influenced by the work of Hegel, Marx in a
sense reversed it by adopting -a doctrine of materialism. He began
to relate the state of society to its economic foundations and
means of production and recommended armed revolution on the
part of the proletariat He was expelled from France in 1845 and
taught economics in Belgium for three years. He and' Engels pre-
pared the Communist Manifesto (1848) as a statement of the
Communist League’s policy. After revisiting France and Ger-
many briefly during 1848, he sought permanent asylum in Eng-
land in 1849 and lived in London until his death in 1883.
Supported by the generosity of Engels, Marx and his family
nevertheless lived in great poverty. After years of research, much
of which he carried out at the British Museum, he published in
1867 the first volume of his great work, Das Kapital. Two pos-
thumous volumes Were later completed from the mass of notes
and manuscripts he left. Karl Marx's other writings included
Poverty of Philosophy, Contribution to the Critique oftQalitical
Economy, Theories of Surplus Value, and German Ideology.
it
*
Marx
on Economics
EDITED BY ROBERT FREEDMAN
Introduction byHarry Schwartz
PENGUIN BOOKS
Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
First published in the U.S A., by Harcourt Brace 1961
Published in Pelican Books 1962
Reprinted 1963, 1968, 1971, 1973
■ Copyright © Robert Freedman, 1961
Made and printed in Great Britain by
Hazel! Watson & Viney Ltd, Aylesbury, Bucks
Set in Linotype Times
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subsequent purchaser
TO WILFRID HARRIS CROOK

CONTENTS
Preface .
a
Introduction by Harry Schwartz -
r
part i: The Ideological Underpinnings
A. Economic Interpretation of History
B. The Class Struggle ’
part II: Marxian Economic Analysis
A. Labour Theory of Value
1. Value in Use and Value in Exchange
2. Socially Necessary Labour-time
3. Demand and Value
4. The Value of Labour-power
Appendixes to the Labour Theory of Value
a. Commodity Fetishism
b. The Doctrine of Increasing Misery
B. Theory of Exploitation
1. Constant and Variable Capital
2. Surplus-value
3. The Rate of Surplus-value
C. Accumulation and the Falling Rate of Profit
1. Organic Composition of Capital
2. The Falling Rate of Profit
3. Equalization of the Rate of Profit
4. Market-prices and Market-values
CONTENTS
D. The Breakdown of Capitalism 146
1. The Capitalist and Accumulation 146
2. The Reserve Army of Unemployed, Crises,
and Wages* 148
3. Monopoly, Capitalism, and Crises 162
4. Deficiency in Demand and Crises 170 ,
5. Crises Due to Internal Contradictions 175
6. Crises- Say’s Law, Monetary Crises,
Disproportions in Production 186
a. Causes of Crises in General 186
b. Overproduction of Commodities and
Overabundance of Capital 189
c. Unity of Purchase and Sale, of the Process
of Production and the Process of
Circulation 192
d. General and Partial Overproduction 203
e. Expansion of Production and Expansion
of the Market (cid:127) 213
part in: The Nature of a Communist Society
A. Value, Rent, and Money in a Communist Society 229
B. The Allocation of Output and Labour in a
Socialist and Communist Society 232
C. The Relationship of Man to Work, Man to
Man, and Man to the State 234
Sources 243
Index 247
PREFACE ,
e
This 'is a book on Marxian economics. Its general purpose is
to permit the reader to discover the subtlety, complexity, and'
imaginative genius of Marx for himself.
Most students of Marxian economics rarely read the master,
but are content to let- his critics speak for him. This happens
because the twenty-five hundred pages of Capital, three hun-
dred pages of The Critique of Political Economy, more than
four hundred pages of Theories of Surplus Value, his Critique
of the * Gotha Programme, German Ideology, Communist
Manifesto, and other writings are forbidding in volume and
turgid in prose. Beyond this, economic doctrines are scattered
repetitiously throughout his works, seemingly without system,
Marx often overwhelms his reader not only by the bulk of his
writing, but also by the power of his expression and the force
of his logic.
This volume has as its function, bringing together in one
place, as systematically arranged and logically ordered as
possible, all. of Marx’s major statements respecting ideology,
and methodology, Marxian economics, and the shape of
’ socialism and communism. The main focus of the collection
is, of course, Marx’s analysis of the nature of capitalism.
Difficult decisions had to be made about when to cut and
how to arrange the mass of material. In general, I have tried
to organize the work in such a way as to make it possible for
the reader to follow the course of the argument. I have tried
to tie the selections together with brief summaries of the
excerpts, without judgement or criticism.
* Marx on Economics grew out of my own need in a course
in comparative economic systems to present Marx’s theories
in such a way as to challenge the student’s critical judgement
It should be useful not only to economists, but to students of
Marx in other fields of inquiry. The book’s intent is to provide