Marx's Capital: An Introductory Reader

by Venkatesh Athreya (contributor), Vijay Prashad (Contributor), Jayati Ghosh (Contributor)

There s really no escaping it: if you want to understand capitalism, you simply have to read Karl Marx s Capital. But this is easier said than done. Capital is Marx s magnum opus consisting of more than 2,000 pages, over three volumes. It is a masterpiece of analysis, of relentlessly methodical and logical reasoning. So is Capital only for the expert? No. Capital can be read and understood by beginners as well, provided they are guided into it. Which is exactly what this volume does. Seven leading Marxist scholars lay out the conceptual framework of Capital as well as investigate its various themes in essays written specially for this Reader. Moreover, each of the authors has taken care to not limit him/herself to only preliminary explication of concepts, and has also gone into matters of advanced theory. The volume as a whole also has a broadly similar trajectory the first couple of essays lay the foundation, the middle four essays graduate from basic concepts to theoretical discussion and debates, and the last essay does not go into basic concepts at all, but applies the method of Capital to theorise about contemporary capitalism. This introductory Reader, then, does two things: it equips new readers with the basic conceptual keys that could unlock the vast treasure trove of Marx s analysis and insights, as well as offering fresh insights into Marx s magnificent work to the initiated.

Genres: Economics, Politics, Nonfiction, Philosophy

135 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2010

Reviews

[Prerna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of essays written by various Indian Marxist intellectuals serves as a good primer to understanding certain core-concepts covered by Marx in his three volumes of capital. However, in my opinion, it cannot be read as a stand-alone as some of the essays are quite technical in nature and can only be properly grasped within the broader concept of Marx's original work.

I started reading this after I finished Capital volume 1 (I'm still collating my personal notes on that) and while I was comfortable with many of the concepts elaborated on here, I had some difficulty with certain essays because they cover topics from Capital volumes two and three. Nevertheless, they were very valuable reads as I won't actually be reading volumes two and three anytime soon (maybe even never, I do not know if I have the intellectual capacity to absorb them.)

To be fair, one of the most important purposes of this book is to inspire readers to actually pick up Capital. The essays are on various topics like reading Capital, writing Capital, reading Capital in the age of finance, reading Marx on technology etc. While they all sound daunting, it is of utmost importance to understand that Marx wrote from his personal experiences. And as Vijay Prashad explains in his essay within this collection, we must take courage because writing Capital was way harder than reading it will ever be.

[The Conspiracy is Capitalism · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Global South) Marxism 101…

Preamble:
--Growing up in North America, it took a while to reach this book:

1) Distinguishing between “liberals” (cosmopolitan capitalism) vs. “leftists”:
--The first step to escaping capitalism’s 2-party trap (liberals vs. conservatives): Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies

2) Evaluation of “Marxism-Leninism” (i.e. ruling communist parties from USSR to China/Cuba/Vietnam etc.):
--This topic is unavoidable, yet it shouldn’t be all-consuming.
--With the following 2 “sides”, my interest is less on their starting points (abstract generalities) but instead on their directions (once they are applied to the details of specific case studies), i.e. they start to converge towards the messy middle-ground. Thus, I avoid staying at the level of labels and instead treat these as lenses in a diverse toolbox (rather than wielding a single hammer):

a) Opposition by “libertarian socialism”/“anarchism”:
--Starting point: Marxist-Leninism is vanguardist/statist hierarchy, antagonistic to workers’ control (socialism)/egalitarianism.
--The first leftists I started with were US leftists critiquing capitalist imperialism. They also had an anarchist leaning, so they can be rather antagonistic to Marxism-Leninism. Ex. Chomsky opposes not just the USSR/Stalin, but also describes Lenin as an opportunist/“right-wing deviation of the socialist movement”.
--As leftists, critique is the norm. My concern is deciphering the range, from comradely critiques to outright hostilities. Context matters, from some supposedly-sterile academia vs. the real world plagued by reactionary violence/divide-and-rule/sabotage. There are many contradictions between/within principles, diplomacy, etc.
-- “What is Politics?” applies this lens further:
-“11 - Why Every Communist Country is a One-Party Dictatorship”
-“11.1 Why the Russian Revolution Failed: When Rich Kids do all the Socialism”: this episode also focuses on Marxism’s intellectual bias towards industrialization/the proletariat (urban wage labour) providing the material basis/organized class consciousness for socialism (thus, anticipating socialist revolution in the most developed Western capitalist nations); this also means the dismissal of (or at least disconnect from) the peasantry (and colonized Global South) as backwards.

b) Surviving “siege socialism”/“war communism”:
--Starting point: Marxism-Leninism actually survived imperialist/reactionary violence.
--Chomsky may be a bit more sympathetic towards Global South anti-colonial Marxist-Leninists, presumably recognizing the extremes of surviving imperialist intervention/domestic reactionary violence. How much did this apply to the USSR? Blum’s Killing Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions Since World War II writes:

History does not tell us what a Soviet Union, allowed to develop in a “normal” way of its own choosing, would look like today. We do know, however, the nature of a Soviet Union attacked in its cradle, raised alone in an extremely hostile world, and, when it managed to survive to adulthood, overrun by the Nazi war machine with the blessings of the Western powers. The resulting insecurities and fears have inevitably led to deformities of character not unlike that found in an individual raised in a similar life-threatening manner.

…Also see Parenti’s Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism, esp. Ch.3 “Left Anticommunism” challenging Chomsky etc.

--I really see the best of both “sides” converging. The aforementioned “What is Politics?” recognizes how the Global South anti-colonial movements that adopted Marxism-Leninism were impressed by USSR’s:
i) rapid industrialization: now, given climate/ecological crises, there are so many contradictions here (ex. “development”, “indigenous”: Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador). Marxism’s intellectual dismissal of the peasantry became a central debate for these Global South movements seeking economic development while their nations were overwhelmingly peasants rather than urban proletariats (thus, the “Agrarian Question”). A single solution for socialist socioecological relations just doesn’t make sense to me; I believe socialism should ideally be a diverse set of experiments integrated by diplomacy.
ii) national independence: successfully repelling Western imperialism/Nazism, i.e. surviving “siege socialism”; how to deal with capitalist reactionary violence (which snuffs out the ideal space needed for diverse experiments) is clearly another central debate, ex. the debate on revolution between anarchism (immediately abolish the State) vs. Marxism (temporarily keep the State to repel reactionary violence) etc. Once again, we need to move beyond generalities and dive into specific cases.
iii) social mobility/services: ousting prior elite class and providing social mobility, providing social services (mass literacy/public health/land reform/women’s rights/welfare etc.) which compelled Western capitalism to compete with their own welfare state. Is it a coincidence that the West’s welfare state has eroded particularly since the end of the USSR?

…These are nothing to scoff at considering Global South colonial conditions; consider a comparison between post-colonial India (capitalism/liberalism) vs. post-colonial China (Marxist-Leninist communist party).
--This is where I started reading Indian Marxists:
i) Vijay Prashad (featured in this book) introduced me to Global South histories with his eloquent lectures.
-The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World
-Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism
-Red Star Over the Third World (for a much more positive view of Lenin, framed not as a reactionary opportunist, but an evolving revolutionary)
…This led me to Bagchi’s history of capitalism: Perilous Passage: Mankind and the Global Ascendancy of Capital
ii) Next, unpacking global capitalism (geopolitical economy) led me to Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik (another featured author): Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present

Highlights:

--I’ll skip repeating prior reviews:
i) Marx’s Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1
ii) Harvey’s (British-American Marxist) A Companion to Marx's Capital.
…Note: both Vijay Prashad and Prabhat Patnaik have directly debated with Harvey on how to theorize capitalism’s imperialism. Prashad’s debate is more general (see this video discussion) while Patnaik’s debate is more economic (see A Theory of Imperialism).
iii) Wheen’s (British liberal) Marx's Das Kapital: A Biography
…Instead, I’ll highlight perspectives unique to this book, which demonstrates how 7 Indian Marxist scholars take inspiration from Marx’s Capital project (despite Marxism’s aforementioned Eurocentric origins):

1) Evolving Methods/Tools:
--We really get a sense of studying Marx as a dynamic researcher constantly evolving (i.e. how he thinks; his methods), rather than static dogma (i.e. what he thinks, which after all changes and seems to contradict itself).
--Marx’s “Capital” project was very much unfinished, and it’s interesting uncovering the evolution of the project. Here’s a short lecture by Utsa Patnaik on the project’s context. Here’s an example of an earlier plan (1858 letter):

1. Volume on Capital
1.1. Capital in general [Capital Volume 3?, published posthumously]
1.1.1. Process of production of capital [Capital Volume 1, 1867]
1.1.2. Process of circulation of capital [Capital Volume 2, published posthumously]
1.1.3. Profit and interest
1.2. On competition
1.3. On credit
1.4. On joint stock companies
2. Volume on Landed Property
3. Volume on wage labour
4. Volume on the State
5. Volume on international trade
6. Volume on the world market and crises

--Prashad emphasizes how Marx evolved to critique Classical political economy (i.e. Adam Smith/David Ricardo etc.):
i) move beyond their surface categories (land/rent/wages/prices/interest; market supply/demand; cost of production)
ii) decipher what made the emerging capitalism unique: commodity, esp. commodification of labour (selling labour-power) and capitalist production (extraction of surplus value; capital: how it circulates and accumulates).

…see comments below for rest of the review…

[Kunal Agarwal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great essays explaining the working of economic machine of capitalism and neoliberalism.

Read this if you want answers to following questions:

How capitalism works? It's history and how it originated from feudalism? What are the principles of it's working? How it has contradictions of progress and crisis built into it? How workers used to be exploited historically and what is the situation today? What is Marx's theory of surplus value? Why there is ever increasing inequality inspite of so much technological innovation? Why workers are still at subsistence wage levels inspite of ever growing rate of profits and output? What role does free moving international finance capital plays? What might be the road ahead?

While you might not agree with everything said but it gives you a much-needed enlightenment to see the world from the economics and historical perspective.

[Rishabh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good primer to some of the key ideas in Marx's Kapital.

[Jody Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The last chapter is the only part I found fully worth reading. The other chapters have some interesting parts, but most do a poor job of defining introductory concepts and I think would leave a new reader with the wrong understanding at a few points. Much of the best parts were just direct quotes from Marx, which one can get from Capital itself. Could have used more editing both to improve clarity and to fix basic spelling/grammar/copy errors of which there were a few.