'There is no royal road to science,' wrote Karl Marx in his preface to the French edition of his masterwork Capital. These exchanges between the WSWS and readers on Marxist Political Economy aim to clarify fundamental questions about the capitalist system, its contradictions, and the struggle of the working class for socialism.
While it is not possible to determine in advance the forms of organisation that will emerge in the course of a series of economic and political struggles, there is no question that, given the vast changes in the economy over the past decades, they will involve the broad mass of the population.
In this exchange, Beams replies to a reader who asks: “ What is the mechanism by which capitalism takes the surplus value extracted in one department of production (more labour intensive) and transports it to the profit and loss statement of another department of production (more capital intensive)?”
The increasing social productivity of labour is expressed in the tendency of the rate of profit to fall because in any given quantum of capital, there will tend to be smaller proportion of living labour (the sole source of surplus value).
Keynes opposed the fundamental Marxist conception that the economic crises which wracked the capitalist system were the outcome of structural contradictions arising from private ownership and production for profit.
The trip underlined two things in particular: the aggressiveness with which Germany is resorting once again to militarism and war 85 years after the start of the Second World War, and the central role played in this by the formerly pacifist Greens.
“The concepts presented in the Communist Manifesto, that ‘The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles,’ showed me a new direction.”—Hiruni
The so-called Sraffa-based critique of Marxism, associated most immediately with Ian Steedman and his book Marx After Sraffa, is not an attempt to provide a solution to problems Marx left unsolved or to provide a correction to his supposed errors.
While it is not possible to determine in advance the forms of organisation that will emerge in the course of a series of economic and political struggles, there is no question that, given the vast changes in the economy over the past decades, they will involve the broad mass of the population.
The development of capitalist economic relations shaped the content and structure of law in many ways but the most fundamental concern the core concepts of private property and contract.
The increasing social productivity of labour is expressed in the tendency of the rate of profit to fall because in any given quantum of capital, there will tend to be smaller proportion of living labour (the sole source of surplus value).
Emphasising the objectivity of his method in one of his last writings, Marx explained that what he began with was not “concepts” and hence not the “concept of value”. These had to be derived from an examination of objective social processes.
While an initial reading of Marx may well lead to the conclusion that so far as he was concerned services did not constitute commodity production, further examination makes clear that his definition of a commodity extended beyond the production of material things.
In this exchange, Nick Beams replies to questions from a reader about his analysis of the deepening contradictions in the US economy at the beginning of the 2000s.
In this exchange, Beams replies to a WSWS reader who writes, in critique of Marxist economics: “If capitalists extract too much profit, they destroy the ability of employees to buy.”
In this exchange, Beams replies to a reader who asks: “ What is the mechanism by which capitalism takes the surplus value extracted in one department of production (more labour intensive) and transports it to the profit and loss statement of another department of production (more capital intensive)?”
A reader asks: “Is it true that exploitation of workers leads to surplus, and that the increased surplus constitutes a lessening of demand? Would this be the fundamental contradiction?”
In this exchange, Beams replies to a reader who asks how the conflict between the growth of the productive forces and the nation-state system has expressed itself throughout history.
Keynes opposed the fundamental Marxist conception that the economic crises which wracked the capitalist system were the outcome of structural contradictions arising from private ownership and production for profit.