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Cover:Layout 1 3/14/12 2:09 PM Page 1 MARX’S DAS KAPITAL MMAARRXX’’SS DDAASS KKAAPPIITTAALL M A R X ’ S F O R B E G I N N E R S F O R B E G I N N E R S ® D ® A S MICHAEL WAYNE K BY A Marx’s DasKapitalcannot be put into a box marked “economics.” It is a P ILLUSTRATIONS BY work of politics, history, economics, philosophy and even in places, I T SUNGYOON CHOI literature (yes Marx’s style is that rich and evocative). Marx’s Das Kapital A L For Beginners is an introduction to the Marxist critique of capitalist production and its consequences for a whole range of social activities such F O as politics, media, education and religion. Das Kapitalis not a critique of R a particular capitalist system in a particular country at a particular time. B Rather, Marx’s aim was to identify the essential features that define E capitalism, in whatever country it develops and in whatever historical G I period. For this reason, Das Kapitalis necessarily a fairly general, abstract N analysis. As a result, it can be fairly difficult to read and comprehend. At N E the same time, understanding Das Kapitalis crucial for mastering Marx’s R insights to capitalism. S® Marx’s Das Kapital For Beginnersoffers an accessible path through Marx’s arguments and his key questions: What is a commodity? Where does wealth come from? What is ‘value’? What happens to work under capitalism? Why is crisis part of capitalism’s DNA? And what happens to our consciousness, our very perceptions of reality and our ways of thinking and feeling under capitalism? Understanding and learning from Marx’s work has taken on a fresh urgency as questions about the sustainability of the capitalist system in today’s global economy intensify. Michael Wayne is a Professor in Screen Media at Brunel University in London. He has written widely on Marxist cultural theory, film, television and the media. KNOW MORE. READ LESS.TM A ® US $16.99 / $18.99 CAN DOCUMENTARY COMIC BOOK www.forbeginnersbooks.com HISTORY / ECONOMICS Book2:Layout 1 3/19/12 1:36 PM Page I MARX’S DAS KAPITAL F O R B E G I N N E R S ® Book2:Layout 1 3/19/12 1:36 PM Page II Book2:Layout 1 3/19/12 1:36 PM Page III MARX’S DAS KAPITAL F O R B E G I N N E R S ® MICHAEL WAYNE BY ILLUSTRATIONS BY SUNGYOON CHOI ®FOR BEGINNERS® an imprint of Steerforth Press Hanover, New Hampshire Book2:Layout 1 3/19/12 1:36 PM Page IV For Beginners LLC 155 Main Street, Suite 211 Danbury, CT 06810 USA www.forbeginnersbooks.com Text ©2012 Michael Wayne Illustrations ©2012 Sungyoon Choi This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without priorpermission of the publisher. A For Beginners® Documentary Comic Book Copyright © 2012 Cataloging-in-Publication information is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN # 978-1-934389-59-1 Trade Manufactured in the United States of America For Beginners® and Beginners Documentary Comic Books® are published by For Beginners LLC. First Edition 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Book2:Layout 1 3/19/12 1:36 PM Page V contents introduction 1 chapter one The Commodity 3 chapter two The Exchange of Commodities 15 chapter three Circulation and the Buying of Labor-Power 25 chapter four Value 43 chapter five Work Under Capitalism 59 chapter six Reproduction and Crises 78 chapter seven Commodity Fetishism and Ideology 109 chapter eight After Capitalism? 130 Book2:Layout 1 3/19/12 1:36 PM Page VI Book2:Layout 1 3/19/12 1:36 PM Page 1 introduction Karl Marx Karl Marx’s Das Kapital,Volume I, was first published in 1867. It brought together in an original way more than twenty years of thinking by Marx about capitalism. Das Kapital is a critique of capitalism. It is not this or that particular example of capitalism that is his target. Instead Marx want- ed to identify the essential features that make capitalism capitalism, in whatever country it develops in and in whatever historical period. For this reason, Das Kapital is necessarily a fairly general, abstract analysis – one of the reasons why it can be a difficult read. Another reason is that its penetrating critique of capitalism is at- tacking the very system that you, dear reader, and I, author of these words, have grown up in, become socialized within. So it is some- times a quite counterintuitive read in that it does not accept the many commonsense assumptions we have and which the institutions sur- rounding us usually reproduce. Capitalism is a social and economic system that has been develop- ing and maturing for approximately 400 years. Since the publication of Das Kapital, capitalism has tried to prove Marx’s critique wrong or irrelevant, but it continues to fashion tools for each new genera- tion wanting to understand the world. Today, capitalism’s presence around the globe is more or less complete, its dominance almost undis- puted. So why do we need to read Marx’s book anymore? Because most people have at least an inkling that all is not right with the world. And many people have more than an inkling that there are very large problems confronting the human race. Marx’s Das Kapital provides the most systematic account for why that might be the case. 1 Book2:Layout 1 3/19/12 1:36 PM Page 2 Das Kapitalcannot be or should not be put in a box marked “economics.” It is a work of politics, history, economics, sociology, philosophy and even at times literature (yes, Marx’s style can be that rich and evocative). It even contains early examples of Marxist literary crit- icism. Marx often cites great authors such as Shakespeare, Goethe and Balzac to illustrate issues to do with the nature of money. For example, when he is considering how the bourgeoisie (and the capitalist system more broadly) is torn between the passion to accumulate money and the desire to enjoy the fruits of that wealth, he cites the protagonist of Goethe’s tragic play Faustas the very im- age of bourgeois man: Two souls, alas, do dwell within his breast; The one is ever parting from the other. As we shall see, two souls forever parting from each other (the divided human being split by conflicting imperatives) is a typical mo- tif in Marx’s account of capitalism. Marx’s approach here is revealing of his method overall. He tends to read politics, economics, religion, philosophy and in this example literature for their HIDDEN social content. The main object of his inquiry in Das Kapitalis why and how economic categories such as money, profit, capital and so forth actively repress the social content which determines them. How- ever, because these categories refer to things that form the very tissue of our everyday life, Das Kapitalis a capacious proj- ect, giving us insights that go far beyond the usual parameters of “economics.” Das Kapitalbegins a bit like a detective story, reconstructing what is really happen- ing from everyday clues that appear so inno- cent of having any story to tell. When Inspector Marx arrives on the scene it is not even clear a crime has been committed. But it has. 2 Book2:Layout 1 3/19/12 1:36 PM Page 3 the commodity chapter one: Marx began his critique of capitalism with something very ordinary and everyday. The commodity. The first words of Das Kapitalare: The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails presents itself as an im- mense accumulation of commodities, its unit being a sin- gle commodity. Our investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of a commodity. — Marx, Das Kapital Everyone knows that a commodity is something that is bought and sold, or traded for something else thought to be of equal worth. And it is plain that commodities are bought and sold because they are useful for people. So a commodity has two sides to it. It has a use value and an exchange value. An exchange value expresses itself as the price at which the commodity exchanges. This then is our opening definition of a commodity: It is something that is bought and sold because it is useful for people. Expressed like this, there does not seem to be a problem. The use-value side of the commodity and the exchange-value side seem to fit snugly together. A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood. Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties. — Marx, Das Kapital 3