The traditional Marxian picture of a two-class polarisation seems far removed from today's diverse society. Re-examining the very foundations of the Marxian theory in the process, the author argues that important critiques can fruitfully be understood and to accomplish the goal, he extends the traditional concepts in innovative and original ways.
In this book Ernesto Screpanti provides a rigorous examination of Marx’s theory of exploitation, one of the cornerstones of Marxist thought. With precision and clarity, he identifies the holes in traditional readings of Marx’s theory before advancing his own original interpretation, drawing on contemporary philosophy and economic theory to provide a refreshingly interdisciplinary exegesis. Screpanti’s arguments are delivered with perspicuity and verve: this is a book that aims to spark a debate. He exposes ambiguities present in Marx’s exposition of his own theory, especially when dealing with the employment contract and the notions of ‘abstract labor’ and ‘labor value’, and he argues that these ambiguities have given rise to misunderstandings in previous analyses of Marx’s theory of exploitation. Screpanti’s own interpretation is a meticulously argued counterpoint to these traditional interpretations. Labour and Value is a significant contribution to the theory of economics, particularly Marxist economics. It will also be of great interest to scholars in other disciplines including sociology, political science, and moral and political philosophy. Screpanti’s clear and engaging writing style will attract the interested general reader as well as the academic theorist.
Written during the winter of 1857-8, the Grundrisse was considered by Marx to be the first scientific elaboration of communist theory. A collection of seven notebooks on capital and money, it both develops the arguments outlined in the Communist Manifesto (1848) and explores the themes and theses that were to dominate his great later work Capital. Here, for the first time, Marx set out his own version of Hegel's dialectics and developed his mature views on labour, surplus value and profit, offering many fresh insights into alienation, automation and the dangers of capitalist society. Yet while the theories in Grundrisse make it a vital precursor to Capital, it also provides invaluable descriptions of Marx's wider-ranging philosophy, making it a unique insight into his beliefs and hopes for the foundation of a communist state.
Theories of Surplus Value is a book that, unlike Marx, actually needs an introduction. Theories was intended to be collected and published as the fourth volume to Marx's Capital, but after Engels had successfully collected and published volumes two and three after Marx's death, Engels died before he could publish it. Theories has had a long history of being in-and-out of publication, and particularly in-and-out of being an actually accessible publication. In 1905, the infamously-hated-by-Lenin Karl Kautsky, published the first edition of the manuscript in three volumes separated and rearranged by Adam Smith in volume one, to David Ricardo in the other two volumes, with the breakup of the Ricardian school as the third volume. Kautsy's version circulated in print and was translated to many languages over the decades, remaining the sole version of Theories until The Institute of Marxism-Leninism published a new German version. This arrangement, while still relatively close to Kautsy's narrative arrangement of tracing surplus value from Smith to the Ricardian split into "vulgar economics," annotated the manuscript with different topic headings. This version was then translated into English by Progress Publishers and this is the version of the book which circulates today and is considered to be the most accurate version to Marx's notebooks. This Radical Reprint by Pattern Books is made to be accessible and as close to only manufacturing cost as possible. This second volume of Theories of Surplus Value covers Smith, Ricardo, and Rodbertus' theories of rent, to the theory of cost-price, to growth and productivity in agricultural labor, to extensive diagrams on rent and the influence of machines. These three volumes, in totality, are to show how the classical theories of value led to a theory stuck within the market paradigm and caught in the loop of capitalist circularity. For Marx, the current ontology of political economy only ruled within the scope of pragmatism within the market system, and these programs no longer offered any integrated theory of capitalism.
This is a synopsis of Capital, Volume I, written by Engels in 1868. Upon Capital's release, Engels began constructing a comprehensive summation. On April 17, 1868, he wrote Marx: "I have a limited time at my disposal and the summarising of your book requires more work than I thought; after all, once having taken up the work, I must do it properly...." Engels' synopsis serves two useful contributions: First, Engels was a far more rapid writer than Marx, and more readable. Second, Engels could distance himself from the massive web of ideas without "losing his place in it," and identify primary points to be made. Engels could achieve this because he was intimately involved with the production of Capital. Marx forwarded sheets to Engels as they were printed; Engels sent back his impressions and thoughts. This text was published in Fortnightly Review. Engels only summarized the first four chapters of Volume I of Capital. Attention Books Sellers: Visit http: //createspace.com/5956005 and buy this book in discounted price Discount code: EQ8FYMXG
In Marx Matters noted scholars explore the way a Marxian political economy addresses contemporary social problems, demonstrating the relevance of Marx today and outlining how his work can frame progressive programs for social change.
Marx's Capital was a book that revolutionised political economy and for the first time opened our eyes to the real workings of capitalism. It was, however, met with a wall of silence from the mainstream economists and the establishment. Despite this, Capital became regarded in the workers' movement as the Bible of the working class... The aim of this book, written by authors from the International Marxist Tendency, is to help guide readers through the pages of volume one of Capital; to bring out the main themes and ideas contained within it; and to discuss the relevance of this great Marxist classic in terms of understanding the crisis-ridden world around us today - and, most importantly, how we can radically transform it.
Results of the Direct Production Process(otherwise known as Results of the Immediate Production Process) is part of a third draft of Capital which Marx wrote between the summer of 1863 and the summer of 1864, based on a plan Marx made for the work in December 1862. This manuscript has been lost, apart from a few pages from what would become the first five chapters of Capital, some related footnotes, and what was to become the sixth chapter. The pagination and content of this sixth chapter indicate that it followed on from five previous chapters. By the time Capital was completed however, this chapter had not been not included. The content of the chapter ranges over a variety of subjects, but most particularly deals in greater detail than elsewhere with (i) the "formal" and "real" subsumption of the labour process by capital, and (ii) productive and unproductive labour. Results of the Direct Production Process is to be read with the preceding five books in the Radical Reprints series: Theories of Surplus Value Volumes 1 - 3 by Karl Marx, Essays on Marx's Theory of Value by I.I. Rubin, and Capital and Community by Jacques Camatte, for these, along with Results, add onto the project of realizing and dismantling capital as a totality that Marx was unable to complete with only the three volumes of Capital that were finished and published. It is in this work that Marx's theory is illuminated, piecing together the fragments of Marx's total conception of Capital. As Camatte wrote in Capital and Community, "In a way it provides a key, not to understand Capital which is self-sufficient, but to the entire work surrounding it." This Radical Reprint by Pattern Books is made to be accessible and as close to only manufacturing cost as possible
