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Kritik der politischen Ökonomie: Eine Einführung in «Das Kapital» von Karl Marx
The global economic crisis and recession that began in 2008 had at least one unexpected outcome: a surge in sales of Karl Marx's Capital. Although mainstream economists and commentators once dismissed Marx's work as outmoded and flawed, some are begrudgingly acknowledging an analysis that sees capitalism as inherently unstable. And of course, there are those, like Michael Heinrich, who have seen the value of Marx all along, and are in a unique position to explain the intricacies of Marx's thought. Heinrich's modern interpretation of Capital is now available to English-speaking readers for the first time. It has gone through nine editions in Germany, is the standard work for Marxist study groups, and is used widely in German universities. The author systematically covers all three volumes of Capital and explains all the basic aspects of Marx's critique of capitalism in a way that is clear and concise. He provides background information on the intellectual and political milieu in which Marx worked, and looks at crucial issues beyond the scope of Capital, such as class struggle, the relationship between capital and the state, accusations of historical determinism, and Marx's understanding of communism. Uniquely, Heinrich emphasizes the monetary character of Marx's work, in addition to the traditional emphasis on the labor theory of value, this highlighting the relevance of Capital to the age of financial explosions and implosions.
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First published January 1, 2004
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About the author
Michael Heinrich
59 books66 followersMichael Heinrich is a German Marxist political scientist. He taught economics for many years at the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin and was managing editor of PROKLA: Journal for Critical Social Science. He has written in depth on Marx’s critique of political economy in his book, The Science of Value. His An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx’s Capital is probably the most popular introduction to Marx’s economic works in Germany.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 99 reviews
December 30, 2020
Man Heinrich why would you do that to me, making me go back on a fresh review not two weeks old. Heinrich's basic argument is that Capital is simply a critique of political economy at the level of abstract logic, enumerating the fundamental laws governing capital accumulation, and that any embedding in history mentioned throughout is simply there to accommodate the reader and make stuff more recognizable. That's indeed one reading, and Marx does present a coherent whole if read at that level. But on re-reading Capital it strikes me how much Heinrich leaves out. Yes, there are fundamental laws, but they're laws governing a domain that is bracketed by circumstances shaped by human, political actions. The chapters on co-operation, primitive accumulation, the development of machinery, and so on, are chock full of decisions that cannot be reduced to "autopilot" trade-unionist level struggle, nor to any linear conception of capitalist development. Capital ís a work of history, too, and for the embarrassment caused I'm gonna have to dock you one star, sorry.
August 2, 2012
I purchased this book hoping to find some succor in my reading of Capital Vol II. Much to my chagrin, all of Volume II is covered in 10 pages. 100 are Volume 1, 40 are volume III, and the rest are musings on other Marxists matters (fetish, communism, the state, etc.). Thus, the author, like most people, has a serious problem with presenting appearance and essence. The appearance is that this book is an introduction to all three volumes, where as it's really an interpretation that picks a fight with several schools of thought. Instead of letting Marx speak for himself, this author speaks for Marx, through a fastidious reading, and uses this perspective to assail other Marxist readings. For instance, instead of just explaining what Marx's theory of Crisis is, the author opens with the claim that it's simply incorrect, and then discusses some attempts to tinker with it. The same is done for the "transformation problem," which isn't even a problem if one is being introduced to Marx; instead we are exposed to academic fisticuffs. Unsurprisingly the author concludes the transformation problem is unsolved by Marx, and fails to reference the TSSI model as presented by Andrew Kliman, and others, that show internal consistency within Marx's approach, that leads to no actual problem of transformation. This same pattern carries on with the commodity fetish, Marx's theory of money, and Marx's theory of value. Instead of just summarizing what Marx says, the author finds numerous sources of contention, with Marx, with Marxist, with non-Marxist, etc.
Overall this is a good book if you've already read all three volumes, and are looking for intellectual stimulus, some ingenious ideas, interesting interpretations, etc. Or, it's a good book if you've already read Volume I and want to read just the first 100 pages. It is not a good book if you are actually looking for an introduction to all three volumes. David Harvey still has the best introduction to Volume I,* ever published, and there seems to be nothing worthwhile in here regarding volume II nor III. While I wrestled a lot with my own opinions on volume I (only because I've read Harvey's companion, and the actual book twice) and found that particular wrestling educationally worthwhile, I learned nothing about volume II I hadn't already picked up on actually reading it, independent of this authors interpretation. Moreover, Ernest Mandel's introduction in all three volumes of Capital is a far more consistent, and helpful introduction to each volume of Capital, albeit equally aggressive. Thus, don't read this book as introduction, but as food for thought, and a source to challenge your own reading of Marx. It should be retitled "Re-Interpreting Marx's Capital, in the 21st Century."
One final note. Clearly Monthly Review Press had some trouble publishing this book - it came out 2 months later than they indicated on the website - and the Preface to the book is riddled with errors. The first page alone contains approximately 10 grammar, and spelling errors. Don't let this foil the whole experience. Once you pass the preface, the proper editing and translation arises.
*like this author, Harvey also provides his own interpretation of Marx’s Capital for the 21st century, but he at least does this alongside what Marx actually says, instead of presenting the interpretation as Marx’s actual position. So with Harvey you can weigh the ideas, in a proper juxtaposition, whereas with this author you have to have already read Capital – and understood it – to juxtapose properly.
Overall this is a good book if you've already read all three volumes, and are looking for intellectual stimulus, some ingenious ideas, interesting interpretations, etc. Or, it's a good book if you've already read Volume I and want to read just the first 100 pages. It is not a good book if you are actually looking for an introduction to all three volumes. David Harvey still has the best introduction to Volume I,* ever published, and there seems to be nothing worthwhile in here regarding volume II nor III. While I wrestled a lot with my own opinions on volume I (only because I've read Harvey's companion, and the actual book twice) and found that particular wrestling educationally worthwhile, I learned nothing about volume II I hadn't already picked up on actually reading it, independent of this authors interpretation. Moreover, Ernest Mandel's introduction in all three volumes of Capital is a far more consistent, and helpful introduction to each volume of Capital, albeit equally aggressive. Thus, don't read this book as introduction, but as food for thought, and a source to challenge your own reading of Marx. It should be retitled "Re-Interpreting Marx's Capital, in the 21st Century."
One final note. Clearly Monthly Review Press had some trouble publishing this book - it came out 2 months later than they indicated on the website - and the Preface to the book is riddled with errors. The first page alone contains approximately 10 grammar, and spelling errors. Don't let this foil the whole experience. Once you pass the preface, the proper editing and translation arises.
*like this author, Harvey also provides his own interpretation of Marx’s Capital for the 21st century, but he at least does this alongside what Marx actually says, instead of presenting the interpretation as Marx’s actual position. So with Harvey you can weigh the ideas, in a proper juxtaposition, whereas with this author you have to have already read Capital – and understood it – to juxtapose properly.
August 3, 2012
This is truly the best Introduction to Marx's Capital available.
With Monthly Review's publication of this translation, Michael Heinrich's magisterial introduction, which has established itself as the standard reference in Germany in little under a decade, is now finally available to English-speakers.
Unlike most introductions to Capital, Heinrich's does not stop at Volume I, but provides a guide to readers attempting to tackle all three volumes by providing clarification of key terms, in a concise manner without sacrificing depth, and with extensive quotations not only from Marx's published works, but also many of the unpublished manuscripts available in the German MEGA edition (the complete edition of the works of Marx and Engels).
This last point is particularly advantageous, because in clarifying certain potentially controversial points concerning abstract labor and the substance of value, Heinrich is able to buttress his arguments with quotations from Marx's own revision manuscripts for the first volume (some of which were incorporated into the French edition, the last edition supervised by Marx in his lifetime).
Furthermore, Heinrich's own involvement with the MEGA project and general expertise as a Marxologist is an aid in avoiding some of the pitfalls in other available English introductions, such as David Harvey's. Whereas Harvey, for example, is reliant upon the David Fowkes translation of Vol. I, which sometimes leads to egregious errors ("sachlich", which means "objective", is erroneously translated as "material", which causes real mischief for Harvey's exposition), Heinrich actually corrects phrases in English where necessary.
Another advantage, as an advocate of the German "New Reading of Marx", Heinrich emphasizes money and finance as central to Marx's analysis of capitalism, and constitutive for Marx's theory of value, unlike many traditional Marxists who, like the neoclassical mainstream in economics, tend to regard production as "primary" and the spheres of money and finance as merely "superstructures."
Overall, this is an ideal introduction for reading groups, or official college courses, and one hopes it will establish itself as the standard reference for English-speakers as it has in Germany.
October 21, 2012
Heinrich's book is good on a lot of points-- mainly when he is paraphrasing Marx. Albeit, when compared with the dearth of Marxist analysis in America, that isn't too hard to achieve. After reading Heinrich's book, I came across some excellent criticisms of his book which were published by the German Marxist quarterly called Gegenstandpunkt. Those criticisms can be found here, and I recommend giving them a careful read: http://www.ruthlesscriticism.com/hein...
February 18, 2013
On getting Heinrich's book I was immediately struck by how clear
and well written it was, and it could be very useful to people
who come to read Capital for the first time. But at the same
time, the reader has to be aware that Heinrich is presenting a
special and somewhat controversial interpretation of Marx. I soon
saw that many of the issues that have been discussed at length by
Marx scholars on the OPE-L list are addressed here, and that in
addressing these Heinrich very definitely situates himself within
one particular school of interpretation of Marx. One might pass
over this, after all, why bother neophytes with the arcana of
scholars, were it not for the fact that Heinrich himself
emphasises this particular interpretation of Marx as being a
matter of great import.
In a nutshell my objection to Heinrich's interpretation is that
if we follow it, we end up with something which is no longer a
scientific theory of capitalism, whereas a slightly different
interpretation gives a strong and testable scientific theory.
Heinrich claims that from the late 19th century until the 1960s
understanding of Marx was dominated by what he terms a 'world
view' interpretation which he sees as having been an essentially
apologetic adaptation to the needs of political parties. In the
60s
Now a far-reaching discussion of Marx’s critique of political
economy emerged. The writings of Louis Althusser and his
associates were very influential in this regard (Althusser 1965,
Althusser/Balibar 1965)[footnote:
Heinrich, Michael; Locascio, Alex (2012-06-01). An Introduction
to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx's Capital (Kindle Locations
367-368). NYU Press. Kindle Edition.
].
I concur with Heinrich in his assessment of much of the study of
Capital during the first half of the 20th century, and with his
point about the importance of Althusser in starting a more
detailed and critical engagement with Capital. However there is a
big difference between the approach of Althusser and that of
Heinrich. Althusser both in Reading Capital[althusser70] and in
his more recent writings[althusser2006philosophy] was concerned
to perform a critical analysis that distinguished between Marx's
scientific discoveries and the relicts of idealist philosophical
language within which these were at times expressed. Althusser
was willing to interrogate the silences and ambiguities that
occur in parts of Marx's writing, ambiguities and silences that,
he claims, originate in the very real difficulty that Marx
experienced in breaking with pre-existing theoretical systems:
classical political economy, Hegelian and Feuerbachian
philosophy. This means that within Capital there are different
conceptual systems that do not entirely mesh. There are,
Althusser says, concepts expressed that remain idealist and
teleological.
1 Teleology
Heinrich is less critically incisive than Althusser and when he
is faced with texts in Capital, that modern science tells us are
teleological nonsense, Heinrich tends to accept them at face
value. This is particularly clear when we look what Heinrich says
about the role of history in the order of exposition of Capital.
The notion that one must know history in order to understand the
present has a certain justification when applied to the history
of events, but not for the structural history of a society.
Rather, the opposite is the case: to examine the constitution of
a particular social and economic structure, one has to be already
familiar with the completed structure. Only then will one know
what to look for in history. Marx formulated this idea with the
help of a metaphor:
“The anatomy of man is a key to the anatomy of the ape. On the
other hand, indications of higher forms in the lower species of
animals can only be understood when the higher forms themselves
are already known.” (MECW, 28:42)
For this reason, the “historical” passages in Capital come after
the (theoretical) depictions of the corresponding categories and
not before...[footnote:
Heinrich, Michael; Locascio, Alex (2012-06-01). An Introduction
to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx's Capital (Kindle Locations
416-423). NYU Press. Kindle Edition.
]
It staggers me that anyone writing recently so long after
Darwin's great work on human origins[darwin1871descent] could
quote that passage from Marx in such an uncritical way. What on
earth does it mean to say that you can only understand 'lower'
forms of animal if you already understand 'higher' forms?
Biologists now don't accept the idea of higher and lower forms,
the whole notion is part of a mix of anthropocentric and racist
19th century ideas according to which there is a great chain of
being[gould1983bound] going from protozoans at the lowest link to
white men at the highest link. It is inherently teleological
since it only makes sense if you think that the world is imbued
with some divine purpose whose end is to produce humanity. That
Marx, who admired Darwin should have written such teleological
nonsense is, I was going to say inexcusable, but it would be
better to say it is a testament to the enduring strength of an
idealist ideological upbringing. It completely reverses the real
causal relation in evolution. Evolution works by the inheritance
and modification of acquired characteristics. That humans give
birth to live young rather than lay eggs has to be understood in
terms of the split between our ancestors (Theria) and the
ancestors of the Platypus (Prototheria)[macfarland1985vertebrate, Chapter 18.]
. The key to our bearing live young, is this retained character.
The primal therian did not acquire this trait in order to
ultimately give rise to humans but because of unknown selective
pressures in the distant past.
If Marx's aphorism is evolutionary nonsense what is the
justification for Heinrich taking it as a good guide to
understand history?
He is concerned that we shall 'know what to look for in history',
but this is to write history in what Althusser called the future
anterior tense: to read back onto the past a purpose, the
creation of the world as we know it today.
Heinrich quotes with approval Marx's letter to Kugelmann to the
effect that it is not necessary to give a proof of the labour
theory of value. Given the historical context, which Heinrich
points out, one in which the labour theory of value was generally
accepted by political economists, Marx's assumption was probably
justified back then. But for Heinrich's present readers the
situation is very different.
After Marx published Capital, the labour theory of value became a
political hot potato, something that the working class movement
was using to justify its demands for a socialist economy. In the
years that followed there was a radical rewriting of economic
theory which effectively eliminated the labour theory of value
from most economic text books. Among orthodox economists, the
labour theory of value is now regarded as something totally
archaic and discredited, so a contemporary reader of Capital can
not rely on a general and tacit acceptance that values were
regulated by labour time. The question: 'how do we know that
labour is really the source of value' is now much more relevant.
In the light of modern skepticism, how adequate is the argument
advanced in the letter to Kugelmann?
The chatter about the need to prove the concept of value arises
only from complete ignorance both of the subject under discussion
and of the method of science. Every child knows that any nation
that stopped working, not for a year, but let us say, just for a
few weeks, would perish. And every child knows, too, that the
amounts of products corresponding to the differing amounts of
needs demand differing and quantitatively determined amounts of
society’s aggregate labour. It is self-evident that this
necessity of the distribution of social labour in specific
proportions is certainly not abolished by the specific form of
social production; it can only change its form of manifestation.
Natural laws cannot be abolished at all. The only thing that can
change, under historically differing conditions, is the form in
which those laws assert themselves. And the form in which this
proportional distribution of labour asserts itself in a state of
society in which the interconnection of social labour expresses
itself as the private exchange of the individual products of
labour, is precisely the exchange value of these products. (MECW,
43:68)
Now this little passage is very interesting, and later on I will
argue that it casts doubt on Heinrich's own theory of value, but
for now I am going to concentrate on whether this is really an
adequate defense of the labour theory of value.
How do we know that it is labour that regulates exchange value
rather than something else?
Heinrich reproduces Adam Smith's argument that usefulness can not
be the basis of value, but usefulness is not the only candidate.
How can we tell that it is not some other input to the production
process that is key?
If we restrict ourselves, as Heinrich does, to considering prices
in a capitalist economy there are other possible value
substances.
The establishment of capitalist industry went hand in hand with
the development of artificial sources of power: coal then oil. We
also all know that in today's world the owners of oilfields are
fabulously wealthy, so might energy not be the source of value?
This is not an arbitrary selection on my part. The Technocracy
Movement advocated what was essentially an energy theory of
value.
One could go through the passage from Marx above and wherever
there is a reference to labour substitute energy or power and the
essence of the argument would be unchanged. Any society deprived
of energy sources would certainly perish. The available energy
supply must be distributed between different potential uses
whatever the social organisation. The dependence of humanity on
energy is a natural law that can not be altered, etc.
But if that is the case how can we be sure that Marx is right and
the technocracy theorists are wrong?
If one adopts the normal method of science, the answer is simple.
You see what price structure would be predicted by the labour
theory of value, what price structure would be predicted by the
energy theory of value, and see which theory gives the better
predictions. Such tests have been done[cockshott], and they show
that actual prices correspond much more closely to what the
labour theory of value predicts than to what the energy theory
predicts. But as we will see in the next section Heinrich's
approach prohibits this sort of scientific test.
It is common ground to all Marxist economists that Marx held
abstract socially necessary labour to be the source of value. But
what is abstract labour?
Is it the simple expenditure of human physiological energy?
Marx uses this formulation when trying to explain abstract
labour:
Tailoring and weaving, though qualitatively different productive
activities, are each a productive expenditure of human brains,
nerves, and muscles, and in this sense are human labour. They are
but two different modes of expending human labour-power. Of
course, this labour-power, which remains the same under all its
modifications, must have attained a certain pitch of development
before it can be expended in a multiplicity of modes. But the
value of a commodity represents human labour in the abstract, the
expenditure of human labour in general. (Capital Vol 1, page 12
of the Marxist Internet Archive pdf file)
On the one hand all labour is, speaking physiologically, an
expenditure of human labour-power, and in its character of
identical abstract human labour, it creates and forms the value
of commodities. On the other hand, all labour is the expenditure
of human labour-power in a special form and with a definite aim,
and in this, its character of concrete useful labour, it produces
use-values. (Capital Vol 1, page 12 of the Marxist Internet
Archive pdf file)
Heinrich rejects this formulation because :
The reduction of various types of labor to labor in a
physiological sense, however, is a purely mental abstraction, to
which any kind of labor can be subjected, regardless of whether
it produces a commodity. Furthermore, this formulation suggests
that abstract labor has a completely non-social, natural
foundation, and has therefore accordingly provoked “naturalistic”
interpretations of abstract labor.
Well that is begging the question. It is only an objection if you
assume from the start that abstract labour does not exist except
in capitalist society.
But Marx has another explanation for what abstract labour is,
based on the division of labour.
So far as they are values, the coat and the linen are things of a
like substance, objective expressions of essentially identical
labour. But tailoring and weaving are, qualitatively, different
kinds of labour. There are, however, states of society in which
one and the same man does tailoring and weaving alternately, in
which case these two forms of labour are mere modifications of
the labour of the same individual, and no special and fixed
functions of different persons, just as the coat which our tailor
makes one day, and the trousers which he makes another day, imply
only a variation in the labour of one and the same individual.
Moreover, we see at a glance that, in our capitalist society, a
given portion of human labour is, in accordance with the varying
demand, at one time supplied in the form of tailoring, at another
in the form of weaving. This change may possibly not take place
without friction, but take place it must.(Capital Vol 1, page 12
of the Marxist Internet Archive pdf file)
In this formulation - which Heinrich ignores - labour is abstract
as part of the pool of human labour available to society. Workers
can change occupation, either from day to day, or at different
points in their life time. Insofar as they can potentially move
from one activity to another their ability to work is abstract.
This is most obvious with an unemployed person. They have an
abstract ability to work in a variety of different jobs, until
they get a job, this abstract ability to work does not take a
concrete form.
Go back to the quote from Marx's letter to Kugelmann where he
says “It is self-evident that this necessity of the distribution
of social labour in specific proportions is certainly not
abolished by the specific form of social production; it can only
change its form of manifestation.” What is the social labour that
is being distributed?
Clearly it is abstract labour. It is only after social labour has
been distributed into different activities that it takes on a
concrete form.
So abstract labour is the abstract expenditure of human
physiological effort and society has only a certain amount of
this effort available to it which can be expended in different
concrete forms.
This concept is indeed 'naturalistic' and 'a-historical'. It is
naturalistic in that it depends on our adaptability as a species,
our ability to turn our hand to any task. It is a-historical in
that any society with a division of labour has abstract labour.
Back to the letter to Kugelmann : “It is self-evident that this
necessity of the distribution of social labour in specific
proportions is certainly not abolished by the specific form of
social production; it can only change its form of manifestation.
Natural laws cannot be abolished at all. The only thing that can
change, under historically differing conditions, is the form in
which those laws assert themselves.” One can scarcely have a more
explicit assertion of the natural and a-historical basis of
abstract labour than that.
Heinrich however presents a quite different interpretation of
abstract labour one that he founds on his concept of real as
opposed to mental abstractions.
Let us deal with abstract labor in more detail. Abstract labor is
not visible, only a particular concrete labor is visible, just as
the concept of “tree” isn’t visible: I’m only capable of
perceiving a concrete botanical plant. As with the term “tree,”
abstract labor is an abstraction, but a completely different kind
of abstraction. Normally, abstractions are constituted in human
thought. We refer to the commonalities among individual examples
and then establish an abstract category, such as “tree.” But in
the case of abstract labor, we are not dealing with such a
“mental abstraction” but with a “real abstraction,” by which we
mean an abstraction that is carried out in the actual behavior of
humans, regardless of whether they are aware of it[footnote:
Heinrich, Michael; Locascio, Alex (2012-06-01). An Introduction
to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx's Capital (Kindle Locations
730-735). NYU Press. Kindle Edition.
].
Heinrich here shows a rather archaic understanding of abstraction
in biology. Biology is well aware of the difference between
conventional and real abstract categories. Taxonomy attempts to
discover the real abstract categories into which organisms are
organised. Let us consider plant categories. Initially the
gymnosperms and angiosperms were categorised just on the basis of
a common traits in seed morphology. Subsequently after the
development of evolutionary theory and genetics it came to be
realised that these are actually real categories based on common
descent and shared genes.
According to Heinrich abstract labour is a real abstraction. That
is not a problem, if we take the physiological approach to
abstract labour. The expenditure of human physiological energy is
real. We can measure it by monitoring a person's oxygen
consumption whilst they perform different tasks. Nor is the
insistence on real abstraction a problem if we take Marx's other
explanation of abstract labour - that abstract labour is a
property of the division of labour, since real people do move
between concrete jobs. A person's ability to change jobs is not a
mere mental abstraction.
But for Heinrich the 'real abstraction' is what occurs when
commodities are exchanged.
and well written it was, and it could be very useful to people
who come to read Capital for the first time. But at the same
time, the reader has to be aware that Heinrich is presenting a
special and somewhat controversial interpretation of Marx. I soon
saw that many of the issues that have been discussed at length by
Marx scholars on the OPE-L list are addressed here, and that in
addressing these Heinrich very definitely situates himself within
one particular school of interpretation of Marx. One might pass
over this, after all, why bother neophytes with the arcana of
scholars, were it not for the fact that Heinrich himself
emphasises this particular interpretation of Marx as being a
matter of great import.
In a nutshell my objection to Heinrich's interpretation is that
if we follow it, we end up with something which is no longer a
scientific theory of capitalism, whereas a slightly different
interpretation gives a strong and testable scientific theory.
Heinrich claims that from the late 19th century until the 1960s
understanding of Marx was dominated by what he terms a 'world
view' interpretation which he sees as having been an essentially
apologetic adaptation to the needs of political parties. In the
60s
Now a far-reaching discussion of Marx’s critique of political
economy emerged. The writings of Louis Althusser and his
associates were very influential in this regard (Althusser 1965,
Althusser/Balibar 1965)[footnote:
Heinrich, Michael; Locascio, Alex (2012-06-01). An Introduction
to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx's Capital (Kindle Locations
367-368). NYU Press. Kindle Edition.
].
I concur with Heinrich in his assessment of much of the study of
Capital during the first half of the 20th century, and with his
point about the importance of Althusser in starting a more
detailed and critical engagement with Capital. However there is a
big difference between the approach of Althusser and that of
Heinrich. Althusser both in Reading Capital[althusser70] and in
his more recent writings[althusser2006philosophy] was concerned
to perform a critical analysis that distinguished between Marx's
scientific discoveries and the relicts of idealist philosophical
language within which these were at times expressed. Althusser
was willing to interrogate the silences and ambiguities that
occur in parts of Marx's writing, ambiguities and silences that,
he claims, originate in the very real difficulty that Marx
experienced in breaking with pre-existing theoretical systems:
classical political economy, Hegelian and Feuerbachian
philosophy. This means that within Capital there are different
conceptual systems that do not entirely mesh. There are,
Althusser says, concepts expressed that remain idealist and
teleological.
1 Teleology
Heinrich is less critically incisive than Althusser and when he
is faced with texts in Capital, that modern science tells us are
teleological nonsense, Heinrich tends to accept them at face
value. This is particularly clear when we look what Heinrich says
about the role of history in the order of exposition of Capital.
The notion that one must know history in order to understand the
present has a certain justification when applied to the history
of events, but not for the structural history of a society.
Rather, the opposite is the case: to examine the constitution of
a particular social and economic structure, one has to be already
familiar with the completed structure. Only then will one know
what to look for in history. Marx formulated this idea with the
help of a metaphor:
“The anatomy of man is a key to the anatomy of the ape. On the
other hand, indications of higher forms in the lower species of
animals can only be understood when the higher forms themselves
are already known.” (MECW, 28:42)
For this reason, the “historical” passages in Capital come after
the (theoretical) depictions of the corresponding categories and
not before...[footnote:
Heinrich, Michael; Locascio, Alex (2012-06-01). An Introduction
to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx's Capital (Kindle Locations
416-423). NYU Press. Kindle Edition.
]
It staggers me that anyone writing recently so long after
Darwin's great work on human origins[darwin1871descent] could
quote that passage from Marx in such an uncritical way. What on
earth does it mean to say that you can only understand 'lower'
forms of animal if you already understand 'higher' forms?
Biologists now don't accept the idea of higher and lower forms,
the whole notion is part of a mix of anthropocentric and racist
19th century ideas according to which there is a great chain of
being[gould1983bound] going from protozoans at the lowest link to
white men at the highest link. It is inherently teleological
since it only makes sense if you think that the world is imbued
with some divine purpose whose end is to produce humanity. That
Marx, who admired Darwin should have written such teleological
nonsense is, I was going to say inexcusable, but it would be
better to say it is a testament to the enduring strength of an
idealist ideological upbringing. It completely reverses the real
causal relation in evolution. Evolution works by the inheritance
and modification of acquired characteristics. That humans give
birth to live young rather than lay eggs has to be understood in
terms of the split between our ancestors (Theria) and the
ancestors of the Platypus (Prototheria)[macfarland1985vertebrate, Chapter 18.]
. The key to our bearing live young, is this retained character.
The primal therian did not acquire this trait in order to
ultimately give rise to humans but because of unknown selective
pressures in the distant past.
If Marx's aphorism is evolutionary nonsense what is the
justification for Heinrich taking it as a good guide to
understand history?
He is concerned that we shall 'know what to look for in history',
but this is to write history in what Althusser called the future
anterior tense: to read back onto the past a purpose, the
creation of the world as we know it today.
Heinrich quotes with approval Marx's letter to Kugelmann to the
effect that it is not necessary to give a proof of the labour
theory of value. Given the historical context, which Heinrich
points out, one in which the labour theory of value was generally
accepted by political economists, Marx's assumption was probably
justified back then. But for Heinrich's present readers the
situation is very different.
After Marx published Capital, the labour theory of value became a
political hot potato, something that the working class movement
was using to justify its demands for a socialist economy. In the
years that followed there was a radical rewriting of economic
theory which effectively eliminated the labour theory of value
from most economic text books. Among orthodox economists, the
labour theory of value is now regarded as something totally
archaic and discredited, so a contemporary reader of Capital can
not rely on a general and tacit acceptance that values were
regulated by labour time. The question: 'how do we know that
labour is really the source of value' is now much more relevant.
In the light of modern skepticism, how adequate is the argument
advanced in the letter to Kugelmann?
The chatter about the need to prove the concept of value arises
only from complete ignorance both of the subject under discussion
and of the method of science. Every child knows that any nation
that stopped working, not for a year, but let us say, just for a
few weeks, would perish. And every child knows, too, that the
amounts of products corresponding to the differing amounts of
needs demand differing and quantitatively determined amounts of
society’s aggregate labour. It is self-evident that this
necessity of the distribution of social labour in specific
proportions is certainly not abolished by the specific form of
social production; it can only change its form of manifestation.
Natural laws cannot be abolished at all. The only thing that can
change, under historically differing conditions, is the form in
which those laws assert themselves. And the form in which this
proportional distribution of labour asserts itself in a state of
society in which the interconnection of social labour expresses
itself as the private exchange of the individual products of
labour, is precisely the exchange value of these products. (MECW,
43:68)
Now this little passage is very interesting, and later on I will
argue that it casts doubt on Heinrich's own theory of value, but
for now I am going to concentrate on whether this is really an
adequate defense of the labour theory of value.
How do we know that it is labour that regulates exchange value
rather than something else?
Heinrich reproduces Adam Smith's argument that usefulness can not
be the basis of value, but usefulness is not the only candidate.
How can we tell that it is not some other input to the production
process that is key?
If we restrict ourselves, as Heinrich does, to considering prices
in a capitalist economy there are other possible value
substances.
The establishment of capitalist industry went hand in hand with
the development of artificial sources of power: coal then oil. We
also all know that in today's world the owners of oilfields are
fabulously wealthy, so might energy not be the source of value?
This is not an arbitrary selection on my part. The Technocracy
Movement advocated what was essentially an energy theory of
value.
One could go through the passage from Marx above and wherever
there is a reference to labour substitute energy or power and the
essence of the argument would be unchanged. Any society deprived
of energy sources would certainly perish. The available energy
supply must be distributed between different potential uses
whatever the social organisation. The dependence of humanity on
energy is a natural law that can not be altered, etc.
But if that is the case how can we be sure that Marx is right and
the technocracy theorists are wrong?
If one adopts the normal method of science, the answer is simple.
You see what price structure would be predicted by the labour
theory of value, what price structure would be predicted by the
energy theory of value, and see which theory gives the better
predictions. Such tests have been done[cockshott], and they show
that actual prices correspond much more closely to what the
labour theory of value predicts than to what the energy theory
predicts. But as we will see in the next section Heinrich's
approach prohibits this sort of scientific test.
It is common ground to all Marxist economists that Marx held
abstract socially necessary labour to be the source of value. But
what is abstract labour?
Is it the simple expenditure of human physiological energy?
Marx uses this formulation when trying to explain abstract
labour:
Tailoring and weaving, though qualitatively different productive
activities, are each a productive expenditure of human brains,
nerves, and muscles, and in this sense are human labour. They are
but two different modes of expending human labour-power. Of
course, this labour-power, which remains the same under all its
modifications, must have attained a certain pitch of development
before it can be expended in a multiplicity of modes. But the
value of a commodity represents human labour in the abstract, the
expenditure of human labour in general. (Capital Vol 1, page 12
of the Marxist Internet Archive pdf file)
On the one hand all labour is, speaking physiologically, an
expenditure of human labour-power, and in its character of
identical abstract human labour, it creates and forms the value
of commodities. On the other hand, all labour is the expenditure
of human labour-power in a special form and with a definite aim,
and in this, its character of concrete useful labour, it produces
use-values. (Capital Vol 1, page 12 of the Marxist Internet
Archive pdf file)
Heinrich rejects this formulation because :
The reduction of various types of labor to labor in a
physiological sense, however, is a purely mental abstraction, to
which any kind of labor can be subjected, regardless of whether
it produces a commodity. Furthermore, this formulation suggests
that abstract labor has a completely non-social, natural
foundation, and has therefore accordingly provoked “naturalistic”
interpretations of abstract labor.
Well that is begging the question. It is only an objection if you
assume from the start that abstract labour does not exist except
in capitalist society.
But Marx has another explanation for what abstract labour is,
based on the division of labour.
So far as they are values, the coat and the linen are things of a
like substance, objective expressions of essentially identical
labour. But tailoring and weaving are, qualitatively, different
kinds of labour. There are, however, states of society in which
one and the same man does tailoring and weaving alternately, in
which case these two forms of labour are mere modifications of
the labour of the same individual, and no special and fixed
functions of different persons, just as the coat which our tailor
makes one day, and the trousers which he makes another day, imply
only a variation in the labour of one and the same individual.
Moreover, we see at a glance that, in our capitalist society, a
given portion of human labour is, in accordance with the varying
demand, at one time supplied in the form of tailoring, at another
in the form of weaving. This change may possibly not take place
without friction, but take place it must.(Capital Vol 1, page 12
of the Marxist Internet Archive pdf file)
In this formulation - which Heinrich ignores - labour is abstract
as part of the pool of human labour available to society. Workers
can change occupation, either from day to day, or at different
points in their life time. Insofar as they can potentially move
from one activity to another their ability to work is abstract.
This is most obvious with an unemployed person. They have an
abstract ability to work in a variety of different jobs, until
they get a job, this abstract ability to work does not take a
concrete form.
Go back to the quote from Marx's letter to Kugelmann where he
says “It is self-evident that this necessity of the distribution
of social labour in specific proportions is certainly not
abolished by the specific form of social production; it can only
change its form of manifestation.” What is the social labour that
is being distributed?
Clearly it is abstract labour. It is only after social labour has
been distributed into different activities that it takes on a
concrete form.
So abstract labour is the abstract expenditure of human
physiological effort and society has only a certain amount of
this effort available to it which can be expended in different
concrete forms.
This concept is indeed 'naturalistic' and 'a-historical'. It is
naturalistic in that it depends on our adaptability as a species,
our ability to turn our hand to any task. It is a-historical in
that any society with a division of labour has abstract labour.
Back to the letter to Kugelmann : “It is self-evident that this
necessity of the distribution of social labour in specific
proportions is certainly not abolished by the specific form of
social production; it can only change its form of manifestation.
Natural laws cannot be abolished at all. The only thing that can
change, under historically differing conditions, is the form in
which those laws assert themselves.” One can scarcely have a more
explicit assertion of the natural and a-historical basis of
abstract labour than that.
Heinrich however presents a quite different interpretation of
abstract labour one that he founds on his concept of real as
opposed to mental abstractions.
Let us deal with abstract labor in more detail. Abstract labor is
not visible, only a particular concrete labor is visible, just as
the concept of “tree” isn’t visible: I’m only capable of
perceiving a concrete botanical plant. As with the term “tree,”
abstract labor is an abstraction, but a completely different kind
of abstraction. Normally, abstractions are constituted in human
thought. We refer to the commonalities among individual examples
and then establish an abstract category, such as “tree.” But in
the case of abstract labor, we are not dealing with such a
“mental abstraction” but with a “real abstraction,” by which we
mean an abstraction that is carried out in the actual behavior of
humans, regardless of whether they are aware of it[footnote:
Heinrich, Michael; Locascio, Alex (2012-06-01). An Introduction
to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx's Capital (Kindle Locations
730-735). NYU Press. Kindle Edition.
].
Heinrich here shows a rather archaic understanding of abstraction
in biology. Biology is well aware of the difference between
conventional and real abstract categories. Taxonomy attempts to
discover the real abstract categories into which organisms are
organised. Let us consider plant categories. Initially the
gymnosperms and angiosperms were categorised just on the basis of
a common traits in seed morphology. Subsequently after the
development of evolutionary theory and genetics it came to be
realised that these are actually real categories based on common
descent and shared genes.
According to Heinrich abstract labour is a real abstraction. That
is not a problem, if we take the physiological approach to
abstract labour. The expenditure of human physiological energy is
real. We can measure it by monitoring a person's oxygen
consumption whilst they perform different tasks. Nor is the
insistence on real abstraction a problem if we take Marx's other
explanation of abstract labour - that abstract labour is a
property of the division of labour, since real people do move
between concrete jobs. A person's ability to change jobs is not a
mere mental abstraction.
But for Heinrich the 'real abstraction' is what occurs when
commodities are exchanged.
August 12, 2018
This is more than a mere "introduction" to Capital: it is a brief but systematic analysis and critique of Capital, of Marx's views more generally, and of the later development of "Marxism" (with or without scare-quotes). Overall, Heinrich attempts to rein in later misinterpretations (or later misunderstandings) of Capital, to reveal and explain its original purpose - that of being a critique of political economy, where that is to be understood as a critique of the foundations of the study of political economy as practiced at the time. Of course, Marx did not undertake that critique as a mere intellectual exercise. His goal was revolution, but to undertake a revolution requires a sound understanding of society. The three volumes of Capital were intended to be part of a six volume study that would have moved beyond political economy to an analysis of the state and other "superstructural" aspects. So in that sense, Capital was groundwork for the larger enterprise, a sort of bottom-up analysis.
Heinrich treats the three volumes as a unified whole; an approach that allows resolution of ambiguities that arise from Volume 1 taken in isolation. This is very helpful, especially for someone slogging through Marx's generally turbid and long-winded prose. Heinrich is not shy about pointing out mistakes in Marx's work - for example, Marx's belief that money had always to be backed by a "money commodity" (gold, for example). He also elaborates and brings up to date Marx's treatment of finance capital. Above all, though, Heinrich provides summaries of the main components of Marx's concepts and analysis. This, too, is very helpful, since it is easy to get a bit lost when thinking through the question of why the payment of "wages for labor" is an illusion, or why commodities do not sell "at their value."
He dismisses post-19th century ideas about the inevitability of the collapse of capitalism and its replacement by a classless society. Such a view can best be described as wishful thinking, and is not a prediction arising from the analysis in Capital. In this connection he points out a fairly serious error in Marx's idea that there is a "Law of Falling Rates of Profit". If there were such a law, it would lend some plausibility to the idea of inevitable collapse, but there is no such law derivable from Marx's analysis of capitalism and, of course, no empirical or historical evidence suggesting such a law.
Towads the end of the book Heinrich moves on from Capital to ciriticize Lenin's ideas about "Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism". Heinrich has a number of objections to Lenin's ideas. To begin, he explains that Lenin's explanation for the rise of imperialism was based on the idea that capitalism was transforming from "competitive capitalism" to "monopoly capitalism" and that monopolists were (thus?) finding it impossible to find sufficient income to valorize and increase their capital. Therefore they were forced to export capital to other countries. And since the monopolists are so economically powerful they are able to get the state to do their bidding by exerting force against those other countries. And by exporting capital and capitalist modes of production to other, less developed, countries, the monopolist imperialist capitalists are able to "appropriate" the resources of those countries. Heinrich objects to all this on several grounds. First, it is by no means the case that there was any such transition from "competitive" to "monopoly" capitalism. In particular sectors, in particular countries, yes. But not as a fundamental development. Second, in Lenin's conception, the fact of monopoly implied that prices were no longer a function of production prices but were set by the will of the monoplists - a conclusion exactly opposed to the entire argument in Capital. Third, Lenin seems to have treated imperialism with a certain amount of moral distaste, as when he speaks of "appropriation" of resources. But as Heinrich points out, why should that be morally worse than the "appropriation" of surplus value in the capitalist's own country? Finally, the idea of a "highest" stage of capitalism is misguided: as Marx pointed out repeatedly, capitalism is dynamic and adaptable to new technology, science, and external constraints and conditions. To posit a "highest" stage of capitalism is to simply not understand capitalism.
Heinrich also points out that more recent invocations of Lenin's ideas about imperialism are even less coherent. For example, we on the Left (and not just those on the Left) often characterize the United States as an imperialist power - the largest and most dangerous, in fact. But by Lenin's definition the United States cannot be an imperialist power, because it does not export capital, it imports capital. And though Heinrich doesn't say so, this provides an example of the mechanistic, deterministic basis of (some of) Lenin's analyses of capitalism and of history- a determinism that he criticized others for whenever he noticed.
Finally, Heinrich gives a subtle nod to those Marxist tendencies that have rejected the idea of "base and superstructure". He points out that in Capital there is only a single reference to such an idea, and that Marx never advocated for the idea that the economic "base" is the principal or only determinant of the political and social "superstructure" (though Engels did lean in that direction).
In all, this is an essential work of Marxist analysis, and a great remedy to a number of fundamental misconceptions about Capital promulgated by Marxists and anti-Marxists alike.
Heinrich treats the three volumes as a unified whole; an approach that allows resolution of ambiguities that arise from Volume 1 taken in isolation. This is very helpful, especially for someone slogging through Marx's generally turbid and long-winded prose. Heinrich is not shy about pointing out mistakes in Marx's work - for example, Marx's belief that money had always to be backed by a "money commodity" (gold, for example). He also elaborates and brings up to date Marx's treatment of finance capital. Above all, though, Heinrich provides summaries of the main components of Marx's concepts and analysis. This, too, is very helpful, since it is easy to get a bit lost when thinking through the question of why the payment of "wages for labor" is an illusion, or why commodities do not sell "at their value."
He dismisses post-19th century ideas about the inevitability of the collapse of capitalism and its replacement by a classless society. Such a view can best be described as wishful thinking, and is not a prediction arising from the analysis in Capital. In this connection he points out a fairly serious error in Marx's idea that there is a "Law of Falling Rates of Profit". If there were such a law, it would lend some plausibility to the idea of inevitable collapse, but there is no such law derivable from Marx's analysis of capitalism and, of course, no empirical or historical evidence suggesting such a law.
Towads the end of the book Heinrich moves on from Capital to ciriticize Lenin's ideas about "Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism". Heinrich has a number of objections to Lenin's ideas. To begin, he explains that Lenin's explanation for the rise of imperialism was based on the idea that capitalism was transforming from "competitive capitalism" to "monopoly capitalism" and that monopolists were (thus?) finding it impossible to find sufficient income to valorize and increase their capital. Therefore they were forced to export capital to other countries. And since the monopolists are so economically powerful they are able to get the state to do their bidding by exerting force against those other countries. And by exporting capital and capitalist modes of production to other, less developed, countries, the monopolist imperialist capitalists are able to "appropriate" the resources of those countries. Heinrich objects to all this on several grounds. First, it is by no means the case that there was any such transition from "competitive" to "monopoly" capitalism. In particular sectors, in particular countries, yes. But not as a fundamental development. Second, in Lenin's conception, the fact of monopoly implied that prices were no longer a function of production prices but were set by the will of the monoplists - a conclusion exactly opposed to the entire argument in Capital. Third, Lenin seems to have treated imperialism with a certain amount of moral distaste, as when he speaks of "appropriation" of resources. But as Heinrich points out, why should that be morally worse than the "appropriation" of surplus value in the capitalist's own country? Finally, the idea of a "highest" stage of capitalism is misguided: as Marx pointed out repeatedly, capitalism is dynamic and adaptable to new technology, science, and external constraints and conditions. To posit a "highest" stage of capitalism is to simply not understand capitalism.
Heinrich also points out that more recent invocations of Lenin's ideas about imperialism are even less coherent. For example, we on the Left (and not just those on the Left) often characterize the United States as an imperialist power - the largest and most dangerous, in fact. But by Lenin's definition the United States cannot be an imperialist power, because it does not export capital, it imports capital. And though Heinrich doesn't say so, this provides an example of the mechanistic, deterministic basis of (some of) Lenin's analyses of capitalism and of history- a determinism that he criticized others for whenever he noticed.
Finally, Heinrich gives a subtle nod to those Marxist tendencies that have rejected the idea of "base and superstructure". He points out that in Capital there is only a single reference to such an idea, and that Marx never advocated for the idea that the economic "base" is the principal or only determinant of the political and social "superstructure" (though Engels did lean in that direction).
In all, this is an essential work of Marxist analysis, and a great remedy to a number of fundamental misconceptions about Capital promulgated by Marxists and anti-Marxists alike.
December 2, 2022
I've found David Harvey's book-length critical introductions or companions to Capital to be the most helpful of the crop I'm familiar with. Harvey, despite his shortcomings (shoddy grasp on imperialism, rambling anecdotes) is at least interested in providing an account of what Marx is saying in straightforward terms and can speak usefully both to the historical context of nineteenth century England and even at times link contemporary 'financialisation' to material in Volume II. Harvey also wrote a study of postmodernism that is in every way equal to Jameson's, and might even be said to supersede it at points, by reading the Reality Collapse Event relative to concrete economic and state activity; as a literary scholar this is important to me.
I found Althusser to be not very interested in telling me what Marx is saying. He goes in for a lot of axe-grinding for a particular, needlessly narrow interpretation of Marx; against the Hegelian, the dialectical, the historical and the moral, in favour of what he refers to as the scientific. While I understand the importance of honing in on later writings (Heinrich's comparison of Marx's writings which are most extensively discussed in the literature versus what he actually sought to publish in his lifetime is quite sobering) there's plenty of history, moral indignation and dialectics in Capital too and I don't see the sense in isolating only one dimension as more real or vital than any other.
Heinrich seems to me to be a kind of combination of the two, he too goes in for non-specific axe-grinding against un-named assailants, as well as the strawman monolith of Orthodox or 'worldview' Marxism, plays down the idea that Capital is an historical, economic or dialectical work, but there is also a fair bit of: 'this is what he is saying here' pulled off with far more economy than Harvey manages. On this basis I'd say Heinrich's companion is the best one, but also that a lot of the rhetorical flourishes and polemic disappear after page 120 of the Monthly Review edition. Volumes two and three are dealt with from this point on, over the course of just forty pages. I think this is the best move. Two and three are really gruelling works and something that just makes sense of them in the sparsest manner possible is far more sensible than advancing a new reading of mercantilism or the like.
Thereafter Heinrich attempts to formulate an authentically Marxian perspective of the state, law, imperialism and revolutionary strategy, again against non-specified 'worldview Marxists', including Lenin. Heinrich's views on these are exactly the views you'd expect a German Marxologist to have, i.e. to the right of late Kautsky.
I found Althusser to be not very interested in telling me what Marx is saying. He goes in for a lot of axe-grinding for a particular, needlessly narrow interpretation of Marx; against the Hegelian, the dialectical, the historical and the moral, in favour of what he refers to as the scientific. While I understand the importance of honing in on later writings (Heinrich's comparison of Marx's writings which are most extensively discussed in the literature versus what he actually sought to publish in his lifetime is quite sobering) there's plenty of history, moral indignation and dialectics in Capital too and I don't see the sense in isolating only one dimension as more real or vital than any other.
Heinrich seems to me to be a kind of combination of the two, he too goes in for non-specific axe-grinding against un-named assailants, as well as the strawman monolith of Orthodox or 'worldview' Marxism, plays down the idea that Capital is an historical, economic or dialectical work, but there is also a fair bit of: 'this is what he is saying here' pulled off with far more economy than Harvey manages. On this basis I'd say Heinrich's companion is the best one, but also that a lot of the rhetorical flourishes and polemic disappear after page 120 of the Monthly Review edition. Volumes two and three are dealt with from this point on, over the course of just forty pages. I think this is the best move. Two and three are really gruelling works and something that just makes sense of them in the sparsest manner possible is far more sensible than advancing a new reading of mercantilism or the like.
Thereafter Heinrich attempts to formulate an authentically Marxian perspective of the state, law, imperialism and revolutionary strategy, again against non-specified 'worldview Marxists', including Lenin. Heinrich's views on these are exactly the views you'd expect a German Marxologist to have, i.e. to the right of late Kautsky.
January 3, 2021
In my view, this is the must-read intro to Capital. Extremely clear and crisply explains the main concepts from all three volumes. The reading of Capital presented here is opinionated, but it's the correct opinion. I found it helpful to read Heinrich a few chapters ahead of Marx. But since it’s not a chapter-by-chapter guide, I recommend supplementing with another guide such as Brewer.
March 27, 2021
I didn't agree with some of his interpretations, and I agree with the other reviewers that it doesn't cover volume two very thoroughly at all (though he admits this himself), but this is some of the clearest, coherent, and lucid writing on Capital I've seen in a long while. A very worthwhile introduction whether or not the ideas are totally new or you are revisiting them.
didn-t-finish
May 13, 2019I found this as dense and difficult as the original text, but without any of the fun jokes and hyperbole Marx throws in.
I mentioned this to someone, and he said, "You read Marx for the jokes?" And I thought: maybe I should give up trying to understand economics.
I mentioned this to someone, and he said, "You read Marx for the jokes?" And I thought: maybe I should give up trying to understand economics.
April 12, 2019
Med undantag av en kritisk och välunderstöd läsning av kapitalets tre Band och samtliga tillägg och utkast som finns i MEGA tror jag Heinrich introduktion till Marx kapital är det bästa man kan läsa när det kommer till kritiken av den politiska ekonomin. Här gör han upp med "världsåskådningsmarxismen", "arbetsvärdeläran (till fördel för Marx monetära värdeteori)", "ideologikritik (till fördel för en förståelse av kapitalets fetisch er)", "kristeori" och "demokratin". Arbetet är tekniskt men ändå tillgängligt, med analytisk skärpa men också humor och ironi.
October 22, 2024
The reason you would pick up this book is because you have not yet read Marx’s Capital and you would like an introduction. Presumably you hope to read only one such preparatory work before embarking on this journey, and so you are wondering if Heinrich’s offering suits your needs.
Heinrich checks a lot of boxes; at only 240 pages, this book is approachable yet quite comprehensive and precise in its overview of Marx’s three volumes. Despite these qualities, I wouldn’t recommend it as an introductory volume, because I think it fails to adequately present the discourse surrounding Marx’s work. Heinrich’s Introduction pushes the reader along a western chauvinist and nihilistic path that might take more than 240 pages (perhaps as many as 363 pages) to correct.
Heinrich intervenes in both the academic discourse as well as the practical Marxist discourse surrounding interpretations of Capital. However, he rarely names his opponents and even less frequently quotes them at length. Heinrich’s unnamed foes seem to be the weakest representatives of their various tendencies, resulting in strawmanned arguments. Heinrich declares easy defeats, positioning himself as the one true understander of Marx. At the level of academic discourse, the worst of these sins is his comparison of value form theory versus what he calls “substantialism” — always in scare quotes, and not (always?) a term his opponents would use to describe their own interpretation of the labour theory of value. His situation of Capital in practical applications of Marxism is even worse (particularly Chapters 11-12). During the twentieth century, revolutions guided by Marxism produced socialist states across the globe. This wave swept under-developed and colonized nations, not the industrialized nations early Marxists expected to see lead worker's revolutions. Heinrich has a sneering disdain for these efforts:
It is not sufficient for the transition to a communist society to conquer and defend state power during a weak phase of bourgeois rule, like Russia in 1917. Without the corresponding social and economic preconditions, a socialist revolution might be successful as a project to maintain the power of a political party, but not as a project of social emancipation.Heinrich’s solution is, implicitly, that these workers not attempt to liberate themselves, and instead suffer under colonialism while they wait for the lazy western movements to figure things out first. The futility and illegitimacy of their movements being clear, Heinrich barely engages with Marxist economists and philosophers hailing from the USSR, China or the Global South. To the extent he gives a nod to non-Western interpretations of Marx, he continues his practice of battling unnamed foes, referring to them obliquely as, for example, “worldview Marxists.” To be safe, Heinrich also dismisses dialectics (an important philosophical foundation for Soviet and Eastern socialism) as useless at best and sophistry at worst.
Heinrich’s vision of a post-capitalist society (which he emphasizes is not at all inevitable) is one of full democracy, zero scarcity, and abolition of the value form. But what does the transition to this state look like? Heinrich has no answer.
Heinrich’s dismissal of Marx’s (non-Western) successors is mirrored by the absence of his precursors; Adam Smith, Ricardo, etc, feature little in Heinrich’s overview. As a result, Marx’s brilliant critique (understood properly only by Heinrich, of course) springs from nowhere.
So here we see the seeds of the misconceptions readers introduced to Marxism via Heinrich may be imparted with: a smug sense of western superiority, a depressed sense that nothing can be done to bring about a better world, an elevated sense of Marx’s genius severed from his intellectual context, and a certainty that all other interpretations of Marxism (by critics left unnamed) are patently absurd.
For readers who want less of an introduction and more of an interpretation, Heinrich’s book has some valuable insights. For example, I appreciated his reframing of the debates on the tendency of the rate of profit to fall (TRPF) as questioning if it even matters if it falls. (Heinrich says no, see above regarding the non-inevitability of the fall of capitalism. I agree no, there are many other reasons to end capitalism.) Heinrich also emphasizes that not only workers but capitalists too are subject to domination by capital, a crucial point frequently elided by leftist anti-capitalists. Chapter 8 (“Interest, Credit, and ‘Fictitious Capital’”) and Chapter 10 (“The Fetishism of Social Relations in Bourgeois Society”) were clear treatments of complex subjects.
But for those looking for a preparatory read, where to turn? My experience was Marx’s Inferno by W.C. Roberts, which presents Volume 1 in the fiery discourse of its time, and also emphasizes the impersonal domination of capital (following Heinrich), while refraining from smug strawmanned arguments. However, Roberts’s text is academic, and assumes familiarity with basic Marxist concepts. Perhaps instead start with Wage Labour and Capital, a pamphlet written by Marx with the intent of introducing his work to a popular audience.
December 6, 2017
Probably the best short introduction to Capital. Has its irritating tics - the non-specification of the author's own political (left-communist) and scholastic (NDL) loyalties throughout is one, and the tendency to emphasise internal theoretical consistency over empirical and historical issues is another - but in terms of an intellectually rigorous and textually accurate paraphrasing of Marx it's second to none.
Could be viewed as an epistemological and ontological complement to the empirical and historical work of the Political Marxists: at times this connection is explicitly made, at other points in the book there is more of an implicit underlying affinity in terms of the arguments about "economic/social form determination".
Could be viewed as an epistemological and ontological complement to the empirical and historical work of the Political Marxists: at times this connection is explicitly made, at other points in the book there is more of an implicit underlying affinity in terms of the arguments about "economic/social form determination".
November 23, 2018
Ne znam za bolji uvod u Marxov ''Kapital'' od Heinrichovog
Read
June 29, 2023can't help but imagine how much less stupid I would have been if I had read this when I was fifteen rather than semi-blindly attempting (and, quickly, failing) to struggle through vol 1/anti-duhring/the german ideology on my own—then again, there are many things I could have done differently when I was fifteen, and yet, etc, etc.
November 4, 2013
Heinrich doesn't get the point that socially necessary labour time (snlt) is embodied in ALL commodities, including the individual worker's skills being sold to an employer. Thus, he does not take into account the fact that an electrical engineer's skills sell for a higher price than a worker who has no skills and only a high school education because the engineer's skills have more socially necessary labour time embodied them than the unskilled high school graduate does. This error leads to many, many errors in his introduction to CAPITAL.
"The owner of labour-power is mortal. If then his appearance in the market is to be continuous, and the continuous conversion of money into capital assumes this, the seller of labour-power must perpetuate himself, “in the way that every living individual perpetuates himself, by procreation.” [8] The labour-power withdrawn from the market by wear and tear and death, must be continually replaced by, at the very least, an equal amount of fresh labour-power. Hence the sum of the means of subsistence necessary for the production of labour-power must include the means necessary for the labourer’s substitutes, i.e., his children, in order that this race of peculiar commodity-owners may perpetuate its appearance in the market. [9]
"In order to modify the human organism, so that it may acquire skill and handiness in a given branch of industry, and become labour-power of a special kind, a special education or training is requisite, and this, on its part, costs an equivalent in commodities of a greater or less amount. This amount varies according to the more or less complicated character of the labour-power. The expenses of this education (excessively small in the case of ordinary labour-power), enter pro tanto into the total value spent in its production."
"The value of labour-power resolves itself into the value of a definite quantity of the means of subsistence. It therefore varies with the value of these means or with the quantity of labour requisite for their production. Karl Marx http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/...
Heinrich claims Marx intends the first chapter of the first volume of CAPITAL as purely theoretical and can't be placed in historical context. Wrong. SNLT can be seen in traded commodities during earlier modes of production and exchange C-M-C. Generalised commodity production under the rule of Capital M-C-M' is generalised wage labour and this combined with money obscures the source of value in the modern age.
Much I like in Heinrich's general take on Marx, he often irritates me. For instance, he faults Engels as having a lack of understanding of Marx which led to faults of Marxism. He's just plain wrong about this as Marx would have had discussions with Engels over the supposed theoretical shortcomings in Engels' work, prior to Marx's death. Heinrich, like so many Marxists after the death of Engels, tries to replace Engels as the better interpreter of Marx with himself.
Heinrich is also wrong about socially necessary labour time not being materially embedded in commodities. The finished commodity is the crytallisation of applied snlt.
"In general, the greater the productiveness of labour, the less is the labour time required for the production of an article, the less is the amount of labour crystallised in that article, and the less is its value; and vice versâ, the less the productiveness of labour, the greater is the labour time required for the production of an article, and the greater is its value. The value of a commodity, therefore, varies directly as the quantity, and inversely as the productiveness, of the labour incorporated in it." http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/....
For my more complete review of this important book go to: http://wobblytimes.blogspot.com.au/20...
"The owner of labour-power is mortal. If then his appearance in the market is to be continuous, and the continuous conversion of money into capital assumes this, the seller of labour-power must perpetuate himself, “in the way that every living individual perpetuates himself, by procreation.” [8] The labour-power withdrawn from the market by wear and tear and death, must be continually replaced by, at the very least, an equal amount of fresh labour-power. Hence the sum of the means of subsistence necessary for the production of labour-power must include the means necessary for the labourer’s substitutes, i.e., his children, in order that this race of peculiar commodity-owners may perpetuate its appearance in the market. [9]
"In order to modify the human organism, so that it may acquire skill and handiness in a given branch of industry, and become labour-power of a special kind, a special education or training is requisite, and this, on its part, costs an equivalent in commodities of a greater or less amount. This amount varies according to the more or less complicated character of the labour-power. The expenses of this education (excessively small in the case of ordinary labour-power), enter pro tanto into the total value spent in its production."
"The value of labour-power resolves itself into the value of a definite quantity of the means of subsistence. It therefore varies with the value of these means or with the quantity of labour requisite for their production. Karl Marx http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/...
Heinrich claims Marx intends the first chapter of the first volume of CAPITAL as purely theoretical and can't be placed in historical context. Wrong. SNLT can be seen in traded commodities during earlier modes of production and exchange C-M-C. Generalised commodity production under the rule of Capital M-C-M' is generalised wage labour and this combined with money obscures the source of value in the modern age.
Much I like in Heinrich's general take on Marx, he often irritates me. For instance, he faults Engels as having a lack of understanding of Marx which led to faults of Marxism. He's just plain wrong about this as Marx would have had discussions with Engels over the supposed theoretical shortcomings in Engels' work, prior to Marx's death. Heinrich, like so many Marxists after the death of Engels, tries to replace Engels as the better interpreter of Marx with himself.
Heinrich is also wrong about socially necessary labour time not being materially embedded in commodities. The finished commodity is the crytallisation of applied snlt.
"In general, the greater the productiveness of labour, the less is the labour time required for the production of an article, the less is the amount of labour crystallised in that article, and the less is its value; and vice versâ, the less the productiveness of labour, the greater is the labour time required for the production of an article, and the greater is its value. The value of a commodity, therefore, varies directly as the quantity, and inversely as the productiveness, of the labour incorporated in it." http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/....
For my more complete review of this important book go to: http://wobblytimes.blogspot.com.au/20...
July 1, 2020
Heinrich’s interpretation of Marx is too novel and wrong to be a good introduction. I have multiple problems with value form theory. First, I don’t see any reason to adopt Heinrich’s interpretation of abstract labour if it’s not more expedient theoretically or politically. I don’t think he successfully argues for the former, and Heinrich clearly does not care about politics or class struggle at all. If anything, reading abstract labour as an ontologically unique, central feature of capitalism renders time accounting and any form of lower stage socialism impossible, while regulating class struggle to the background.
Second, even if you agree with Heinrich about value there is very little place for primitive accumulation, the role of colonialism and slavery, or the production of difference more generally in value form accounts of Marx. Marx was certainly Eurocentric, but he recognized the importance of racism and slavery in the word market. This is a periphery in value form theory, leading to an outdated, Eurocentric theoretical framework which doesn’t touch on these pressing issues.
Third, I think the VFT interpretation of “traditional Marxism” is out to lunch. The fact that economic categories referenced historically specific social practices was recognized by early Marxist like Hilferding in his reply to Bohem-Bawerk. It’s true that traditional Marxist accepted that “labour” was a transhistorical category (and I don’t think any value form theorist has shown otherwise), but in pushing his reading of Marx Heinrich oversells it’s novelty.
That being said, it’s not all bad. Heinrich does an adequate job of explaining the meaning of the different categories analyzed in Capital. However, Isaac Rubin does this just as well without the aforementioned issues, or at least having an alibi for them occurring. Heinrich is chiefly concerned with showing you his reading of Marx, so even when he explains something adequately, it’s bound up with replies to both Marxist and critics of Marx.
If you’re a young guy like me, reading in order to guide your political practice, you can do much better than Heinrich (Ernest Mandel’s introductions to the Penguin editions of each volume are more pedagogical and entertaining). Murray, Heinrich and Postone are all caricatures of the ivory tower Marxist theoretician.
Second, even if you agree with Heinrich about value there is very little place for primitive accumulation, the role of colonialism and slavery, or the production of difference more generally in value form accounts of Marx. Marx was certainly Eurocentric, but he recognized the importance of racism and slavery in the word market. This is a periphery in value form theory, leading to an outdated, Eurocentric theoretical framework which doesn’t touch on these pressing issues.
Third, I think the VFT interpretation of “traditional Marxism” is out to lunch. The fact that economic categories referenced historically specific social practices was recognized by early Marxist like Hilferding in his reply to Bohem-Bawerk. It’s true that traditional Marxist accepted that “labour” was a transhistorical category (and I don’t think any value form theorist has shown otherwise), but in pushing his reading of Marx Heinrich oversells it’s novelty.
That being said, it’s not all bad. Heinrich does an adequate job of explaining the meaning of the different categories analyzed in Capital. However, Isaac Rubin does this just as well without the aforementioned issues, or at least having an alibi for them occurring. Heinrich is chiefly concerned with showing you his reading of Marx, so even when he explains something adequately, it’s bound up with replies to both Marxist and critics of Marx.
If you’re a young guy like me, reading in order to guide your political practice, you can do much better than Heinrich (Ernest Mandel’s introductions to the Penguin editions of each volume are more pedagogical and entertaining). Murray, Heinrich and Postone are all caricatures of the ivory tower Marxist theoretician.
February 20, 2022
This is a superb summary of the key points made by Marx across the three volumes of Capital. Heinrich is clear from the start that he seeks to avoid the simplifications of the one-time 'orthodox' Marxism-Leninism of the defunct Soviet Union. The analysis is sharp, succinct, and up to date.
This is not a companion to the book itself, in the way that David Harvey's two volume "Companion" is. What Harvey provides is a walkthrough, a genuine companion on the road as you work through each chapter. His goal is to encourage you to read Marx as a work of literature and on his own terms.
By contrast Heinrich takes you away from the book itself to summarise and draw out the principle conclusions. He looks beyond the debates of the past within organised communism to assess Marx's analysis from a modern dispassionate perspective. His section on the development of value within capitalism as a social relation I found especially insightful. Heinrich also does an excellent job of drawing together the three volumes to explain what Marx is attempting in each, while showing how they join to create a overarching analysis.
The focus throughout is on the categories and structures of Marx's economics rather than his philosophical approach. Heinrich specifically attacks the use of the word 'dialectics' in simple Marxism-Leninism as a way of saying 'this is complex'. Bertell Ollman's "Dance of the Dialectic" would make a useful companion work, covering as it does Marx's method rather than the specifics of his economic analysis.
In brief, a superb short outline of Marx's economic analysis as laid out in the three volumes of Capital.
6 February 2022 update: second reading, after re-reading Capital volume 1. Not much to, Heinrich provides a superb analysis of Marx's economic thought.
This review is also on my blog here: https://marxadventure.wordpress.com/2... along with some notes from the book here: https://marxadventure.wordpress.com/2...
This is not a companion to the book itself, in the way that David Harvey's two volume "Companion" is. What Harvey provides is a walkthrough, a genuine companion on the road as you work through each chapter. His goal is to encourage you to read Marx as a work of literature and on his own terms.
By contrast Heinrich takes you away from the book itself to summarise and draw out the principle conclusions. He looks beyond the debates of the past within organised communism to assess Marx's analysis from a modern dispassionate perspective. His section on the development of value within capitalism as a social relation I found especially insightful. Heinrich also does an excellent job of drawing together the three volumes to explain what Marx is attempting in each, while showing how they join to create a overarching analysis.
The focus throughout is on the categories and structures of Marx's economics rather than his philosophical approach. Heinrich specifically attacks the use of the word 'dialectics' in simple Marxism-Leninism as a way of saying 'this is complex'. Bertell Ollman's "Dance of the Dialectic" would make a useful companion work, covering as it does Marx's method rather than the specifics of his economic analysis.
In brief, a superb short outline of Marx's economic analysis as laid out in the three volumes of Capital.
6 February 2022 update: second reading, after re-reading Capital volume 1. Not much to, Heinrich provides a superb analysis of Marx's economic thought.
This review is also on my blog here: https://marxadventure.wordpress.com/2... along with some notes from the book here: https://marxadventure.wordpress.com/2...
October 31, 2012
One of the effects of the global economic crisis that began
in 2008 is a surge in sales of Karl Marx's Capital, a work
often regarded as outmoded and flawed, especially in English
speaking countries. So a new translation out of German of
Michael Heinrich's analysis and interpretation of Marx's work
is most welcome now for those in need of a deeper understanding of Capital. Most reviewers have described the Heinrich text as an excellent introduction and summary, so I need not say more. It has been used a standard aid for Marxist studies and widely read in German universities. And it's emphasis on the monetary aspects of Marx's ideas instead of explicating the labor theory of value makes it particularly relevant for understanding today's events in the world economy. The last two chapters on the 'State and Capital' and 'Communism' might seem out of place to some since they highlight areas of interest to Marx who did not cover them in detail in the text of his Capital. Generally, I thought this was a most concise and readable book, but as a translation it relied on phraseology of the original, which also reflected Marxist and actually Hegelian terminology that might still seem foreign to readers in English. Still many thanks to Alexander Locascio the translator.
in 2008 is a surge in sales of Karl Marx's Capital, a work
often regarded as outmoded and flawed, especially in English
speaking countries. So a new translation out of German of
Michael Heinrich's analysis and interpretation of Marx's work
is most welcome now for those in need of a deeper understanding of Capital. Most reviewers have described the Heinrich text as an excellent introduction and summary, so I need not say more. It has been used a standard aid for Marxist studies and widely read in German universities. And it's emphasis on the monetary aspects of Marx's ideas instead of explicating the labor theory of value makes it particularly relevant for understanding today's events in the world economy. The last two chapters on the 'State and Capital' and 'Communism' might seem out of place to some since they highlight areas of interest to Marx who did not cover them in detail in the text of his Capital. Generally, I thought this was a most concise and readable book, but as a translation it relied on phraseology of the original, which also reflected Marxist and actually Hegelian terminology that might still seem foreign to readers in English. Still many thanks to Alexander Locascio the translator.
August 8, 2012
I have read quite a few of these introductions to Marx's Capital and I have also read Volume 1 and 2. Of all of the Capital introductions I have read, this has easily been my favorite. Not only did I feel like I understood Marx better after reading it, I also started reading Volume 1 again. I plan on finally reading Volume 3 after that. I particularly liked his discussion of commodity fetishism, I felt he explained it better than other authors have(including Marx). An issue I had was his discussion of the transformation problem, he was very brief(might be better that way) and my impression is that he leans toward the New Interpretation(which I don't think I support). I would like to see some of Heinrich's work on value theory but don't know if its available in English. Capital is a tremendously difficult book and I think Heinrich's introduction could aid people who are new to Marx but also those who have already read Capital and other works.
September 16, 2012
Far and away the best introduction to Capital.
May 16, 2024
This is the introduction to Marx's critique of the capitalist mode of production; clear, concise, and guiding the reader to properly formulate the problems of capitalism as a mode of production (as a system for discipling human beings into becoming the "doubly free" sellers of their capacities abstracted and commodified as labour-power; and the exploitation of said labour-power to set abstract value (realized in the commodity) in motion as capital). Rather than antiquated reading of Marx as a critic of capitalism's misuse of the categories of labour-power, abstract value, the commodity-form, the state and the factory, Heinrich succinctly explains how Marx undermines them, exposing capitalism as a historically situated system: the "flaws" are inherent to its logic.
This is of course also the (intentional) limit of this book, it is the mode of production that is at the centre - not the atrocities, racism, sexism, war and abuse that is intertwined with it. Michael Heinrich does makes a clear case for why liming our critique of capitalism to these phenomenal or arguably "external" problems of capitalism is insufficient to properly combat them (notably, the mistake of entrusting our hopes to parliamentarism and state institutions). However, the question of connecting the militarization of borders, the surge in anti-LGBTQ rethoric and legislation, etc to the logic of capitalism (as exploitation of labour-power and value in motion; rather than mistaken but intuitive ideas as 'parasitic bourgeois' or simple profit-seeking) is a work left to the reader.
Indeed it should be noted that other reviews here criticize Heinrich not on the grounds that this isn't Marx's actual critique of capitalism; but rather admonish him for casting doubt on the state socialist projects of the 20th century. A fear that this realization would undermine the mass party, the indefinite 'transitional state', or the mistaken identification of capitalism as one particular state or group. Hate to break it to you, that's the point, welcome the desert - now start treading new paths.
It should be noted that Michael Heinrich goes fast, you will have to flip back and forth to be reminded of the terminology; if you have friends and comrades who are interested I believe this is an excellent book to work through in a study circle - to give a breather and help digest the text.
This is of course also the (intentional) limit of this book, it is the mode of production that is at the centre - not the atrocities, racism, sexism, war and abuse that is intertwined with it. Michael Heinrich does makes a clear case for why liming our critique of capitalism to these phenomenal or arguably "external" problems of capitalism is insufficient to properly combat them (notably, the mistake of entrusting our hopes to parliamentarism and state institutions). However, the question of connecting the militarization of borders, the surge in anti-LGBTQ rethoric and legislation, etc to the logic of capitalism (as exploitation of labour-power and value in motion; rather than mistaken but intuitive ideas as 'parasitic bourgeois' or simple profit-seeking) is a work left to the reader.
Indeed it should be noted that other reviews here criticize Heinrich not on the grounds that this isn't Marx's actual critique of capitalism; but rather admonish him for casting doubt on the state socialist projects of the 20th century. A fear that this realization would undermine the mass party, the indefinite 'transitional state', or the mistaken identification of capitalism as one particular state or group. Hate to break it to you, that's the point, welcome the desert - now start treading new paths.
It should be noted that Michael Heinrich goes fast, you will have to flip back and forth to be reminded of the terminology; if you have friends and comrades who are interested I believe this is an excellent book to work through in a study circle - to give a breather and help digest the text.
Read
September 29, 2025درآمدی بر سه جلد سرمایهی مارکس/ مایکل هاینریش/ ترجمهی خسرو کلانتری/ نشر چشمه
.
1. سرمایهداری و مارکسیسم
2. موضوع نقد در نقد اقتصاد سیاسی
3. ارزش، کار، پول
4. سرمایه، ارزش اضافی، استثمار
5. فرایند تولید سرمایهداری
6. گردش سرمایه
7. سود، سود میانگین، قانون گرایش نزولی نرخ سود
8. بهره، اعتبار، سرمایهی مجازی
9. بحران
10. بتواره پرستی روابط اجتماعی در جامعهی بورژوایی
11. دولت و سرمایه
12. کمونیسم، جامعهای فراسوی کالا، پول و دولت
.
سرمایه-سود/بهره، دارایی ملکی-اجاره، کار-مُزد: مارکس این «تثلیث» را که تجلی رابطهای ظاهری بین ارزش و منشاهای آن است فرمول تثلیث میخواند که به عقیدهی او:
«رازگونهسازی شیوهی تولید سرمایهداری، شیوارگی مناسبات اجتماعی و بههمپیوستگی بیواسطهی مناسبات مادی تولید را با ویژگی تاریخی و اجتماعیاش کامل میکند: جهان افسونشده، وارونه و بر سر ایستادهای که در آن مسیو لو کاپیتال (سرمایه) و مادام لا تِر (زمین)، همچون دو بازیگر اجتماعی و همهنگام و بیمیانجی، همچون اشیائی صرف، به جادو و جمبل خویش سرگرماند.»
سرمایه و زمین در جامعهی سرمایهداری قابلیتهایی جادویی نظیر بتوارههای چوبی و پارچهای در جوامع به اصطلاح بدوی کسب میکنند. از اینرو افراد در جامعهی بورژوایی در جهانی افسونزده زندگی میکنند که در آن تشخص اشیا صورت میگیرد: سوژههای فرایند اجتماعی نه افراد بلکه کالا و پول و سرمایهاند. این صرفاً آگاهی کاذب نیست، بلکه پراتیک اجتماعی جامعهی سرمایهداری است که به طور مرتب فرایندی را به نمایش میگذارد که به موجب آن عوامل تولید، حیات خود را در پیش میگیرند و انسجام اجتماعی به مثابهی ضرورتی عینی شکل میگیرد که افراد تنها به قیمت تباهی میتوانند از آن بگریزند. در این سطح، اشیای تشخصیافته کاملاً دارای قدرت مادیاند.
تمام اعضای جامعهی بورژوایی زیر سلطهی بتوارهپرستی روابط اجتماعیاند. این بتوارهپرستی به منزلهی شکل عینی اندیشه که ادراک تمامی اعضای جامعه را میسازد، پا میگیرد. نه سرمایهداران و نه کارگران در جایگاه ویژهای نیستند که گریز از این بتوارهپرستی را برایشان ممکن سازد.
با اینهمه این بتوارهپرستی بافتار فریبآمیز جهانگستر سراسر بسته نیز نیست که گریزی از آن نباشد. بلکه پسزمینهای ساختاری میسازد که با وجود اینکه همواره حاضر است، بر افراد مختلف به میزان متفاوتی تاثیر میگذارد و میتوان بر مبنای تجربه و اندیشه در آن رخنه کرد. (200-201)
.
1. سرمایهداری و مارکسیسم
2. موضوع نقد در نقد اقتصاد سیاسی
3. ارزش، کار، پول
4. سرمایه، ارزش اضافی، استثمار
5. فرایند تولید سرمایهداری
6. گردش سرمایه
7. سود، سود میانگین، قانون گرایش نزولی نرخ سود
8. بهره، اعتبار، سرمایهی مجازی
9. بحران
10. بتواره پرستی روابط اجتماعی در جامعهی بورژوایی
11. دولت و سرمایه
12. کمونیسم، جامعهای فراسوی کالا، پول و دولت
.
سرمایه-سود/بهره، دارایی ملکی-اجاره، کار-مُزد: مارکس این «تثلیث» را که تجلی رابطهای ظاهری بین ارزش و منشاهای آن است فرمول تثلیث میخواند که به عقیدهی او:
«رازگونهسازی شیوهی تولید سرمایهداری، شیوارگی مناسبات اجتماعی و بههمپیوستگی بیواسطهی مناسبات مادی تولید را با ویژگی تاریخی و اجتماعیاش کامل میکند: جهان افسونشده، وارونه و بر سر ایستادهای که در آن مسیو لو کاپیتال (سرمایه) و مادام لا تِر (زمین)، همچون دو بازیگر اجتماعی و همهنگام و بیمیانجی، همچون اشیائی صرف، به جادو و جمبل خویش سرگرماند.»
سرمایه و زمین در جامعهی سرمایهداری قابلیتهایی جادویی نظیر بتوارههای چوبی و پارچهای در جوامع به اصطلاح بدوی کسب میکنند. از اینرو افراد در جامعهی بورژوایی در جهانی افسونزده زندگی میکنند که در آن تشخص اشیا صورت میگیرد: سوژههای فرایند اجتماعی نه افراد بلکه کالا و پول و سرمایهاند. این صرفاً آگاهی کاذب نیست، بلکه پراتیک اجتماعی جامعهی سرمایهداری است که به طور مرتب فرایندی را به نمایش میگذارد که به موجب آن عوامل تولید، حیات خود را در پیش میگیرند و انسجام اجتماعی به مثابهی ضرورتی عینی شکل میگیرد که افراد تنها به قیمت تباهی میتوانند از آن بگریزند. در این سطح، اشیای تشخصیافته کاملاً دارای قدرت مادیاند.
تمام اعضای جامعهی بورژوایی زیر سلطهی بتوارهپرستی روابط اجتماعیاند. این بتوارهپرستی به منزلهی شکل عینی اندیشه که ادراک تمامی اعضای جامعه را میسازد، پا میگیرد. نه سرمایهداران و نه کارگران در جایگاه ویژهای نیستند که گریز از این بتوارهپرستی را برایشان ممکن سازد.
با اینهمه این بتوارهپرستی بافتار فریبآمیز جهانگستر سراسر بسته نیز نیست که گریزی از آن نباشد. بلکه پسزمینهای ساختاری میسازد که با وجود اینکه همواره حاضر است، بر افراد مختلف به میزان متفاوتی تاثیر میگذارد و میتوان بر مبنای تجربه و اندیشه در آن رخنه کرد. (200-201)
June 15, 2024
No estaré d'acord amb algunes coses, però és el millor resum que he llegit dels tres tres llibres del capital. Massa poc contingut sobre el llibre segon pel meu gust. Però, sigui com sigui, és jna bona lectura per fer-se una idea general del projecte de la Crítica a l'economia política.
September 9, 2021
Capital is a hallucination!
August 18, 2022
Muy recomendable para quienes quieran conocer (ojalá fuésemos todxs) cómo funciona nuestro sistema económico político; el autor describe y resume los aspectos más importantes de los tres libros de El Capital, comparando con el marxismo ideológico y exponiendo lo que verdaderamente dice Marx haciendo enlaces con otras publicaciones. En mi opinión hay capítulos de difícil lectura para lxs no economistas como yo, pero sin duda merece la pena llegar hasta el final.
June 22, 2014
A basically sound reading of Marx with a controversial view of Marx's version of Smith's theory of falling rate of profit (on which see: http://notesfrommylibrary.wordpress.c...).
January 29, 2021
As I sort of wade through all these differing readings of Marx, I feel like Heinrich's is possibly the most thorough and accurate
July 5, 2021
gute einführung, aber zu viel wertkritik und (in meinen augen) unberechtigte kritik am "arbeiterbewegungsmarxismus"
February 20, 2025
Very good, if necessarily difficult at points.
Heinrich presents an opinionated overview of what Marx lays out in the three extant volumes of Capital, supplemented by his other writings both private and public. I say opinionated because he writes against some of the earlier, widespread interpretations of Marx that (in his view) came from partial misunderstandings—or even earlier views that Marx abandoned by the time of Capital. He certainly comes across as very fair, and largely unwilling to go beyond what Marx directly laid out.
The writing is wonderfully direct and plain, albeit complicated at some points when he’s presenting complicated ideas. This is even more impressive given Heinrich’s book is translated from German (by the able Alexander Locascio). My one annoyance is the bibliography chooses accuracy over usefulness by citing the German translations of English language works, like Keynes’ General Theory. I get that Heinrich was technically engaging through those translations, but claims should hold true for the source too!
Heinrich presents an opinionated overview of what Marx lays out in the three extant volumes of Capital, supplemented by his other writings both private and public. I say opinionated because he writes against some of the earlier, widespread interpretations of Marx that (in his view) came from partial misunderstandings—or even earlier views that Marx abandoned by the time of Capital. He certainly comes across as very fair, and largely unwilling to go beyond what Marx directly laid out.
The writing is wonderfully direct and plain, albeit complicated at some points when he’s presenting complicated ideas. This is even more impressive given Heinrich’s book is translated from German (by the able Alexander Locascio). My one annoyance is the bibliography chooses accuracy over usefulness by citing the German translations of English language works, like Keynes’ General Theory. I get that Heinrich was technically engaging through those translations, but claims should hold true for the source too!
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