On the criticism of the political economy – Wikipedia

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With the writing On the criticism of the political economy Karl Marx first published a elaborated form of his theory of capitalist mode of production in 1859, which he and Engels in the 3 volumes The capital , published in 1867, 1885 and 1894, later presented in detail.

The text written from August 1858 to January 1859 was published by Franz Duncker in Berlin. Already in August 1857 Marx had one Introduction [first] designed, which he did not use.

He justifies this in the foreword with considerations about the correct method of presentation because “Any anticipation of results only seems disturbing, and the reader who wants to follow me at all must decide to rise from the individual to the general.” , as Marx writes in the foreword of January 1859. [2] From September 1857 to August 1858, Marx had done a large part of the preparatory work, which was first published in 1939-1941 Ground cracks of the criticism of political economy (raw draft) , which together with the introduction published in 1904 as the floor plan of criticism of political economy [3] are designated.
In his main work published in 1867 The capital MARX has changed and differentiated the approach and representation of the theory and supplemented further historical examples.

The focus is on the value of the goods in its double representation of the use value and exchange value, the concrete and abstract work, working hours as a quantitative level of work, the money, the precious metals, circulation, accumulation, base and superstructure, production and trade crises .

Marx also describes the wrong view of economic conditions within bourgeois society and among the bourgeois economists:

“That a social production relationship is a object of existing objects and the certain relationships that they enter into in the production process of their social life, as specific characteristics of a thing, this traffic and not imagined, but proudly real mystification characterizes all social forms of the Replacement work. In the money she only appears more faster than in the goods. ” [4]

In the Capital he will shape the concept of the “goods fetish” for this.

Meaning for the interpretation of the criticism of political economy [ Edit | Edit the source text ]

A review of Marx’s work published in August 1859 and the afterword to the third volume of the Capital , both of which come from Friedrich Engels are the starting point of a so -called “historical” reading of the criticism of political economy. This interprets the so -called “simple value form” of the goods as a historical model of a isolated exchange, taking into account the capitalist provision, while capitalism will only historically use money into capital later. In contrast, the “logical” reading assumes that in the publications of 1859 and 1867 by means of the categories of the value, the goods and money, an already developed capitalist society has only shown on various levels of conceptual abstraction (dialectical representation method).
This interpretation was first represented in the 1920s by Isaak Iljitsch Rubin and again by representatives of the new Marx reading in the 1970s. [5]

  • On the criticism of political economy. First issue . Franz Duncker (W. better’s publishing house), Berlin 1859 Digitized
  • Marx-Engels-Werke (Mew) Bd. 13, S. 7–160, Dietz, Berlin 1971
  • On the criticism of political economy (original text) . In: Marx-Engels-Virgin edition. Department II. Volume 2. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1980, pp. 17–94.
  • On the criticism of political economy. First issue . In: Marx-Engels-Virgin edition . Department II. Volume 2. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1980, pp. 95–245.
  • Inge Schlieben, Ludmilla Kalinina: Reviews of the Marxian work “On the criticism of political economy” from 1859 . In: Contributions to Marx-Engels research . Heft 1, Berlin 1977, S. 103–123. Digitized
  • Hannes Skambraks: Introduction in Marx ‘Scripture “On the criticism of political economy” . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1982.
  1. ↑ MEW Bd. 13, S. 615
  2. ↑ On the criticism of the political economy , Foreword, Mew Vol. 13, page 7
  3. ↑ MEW Bd. 42, S. 19–875
  4. ↑ On the criticism of the political economy , MEW Bd. 13, S. 34–35
  5. ↑ Ingo Stützle (2004): The question of the constitutive relevance of the money goods in Marx ‘criticism of political economy , Section 2.3 (PDF; 112 KB), Marx Society