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Marx’s Capital: Hegelian Sources is the second volume in Andy Blunden’s series on how Marx used Hegel’s Logic in his Capital.
Following the companion volume, The Capital/Logic Debate, Blunden presents a systematic presentation of the Hegelian structure of the three volumes of Capital. It is shown that Capital contains three distinct layers of structure, originating from Marx’s reading of Hegel’s Logic and his Philosophy of Right. Capital reflects Marx’s critique of the Political Economists, his unique appropriation of economic history and an application of the method outlined by Hegel in his Logic and applied to his Encyclopaedia. These insights into Capital are presented here for the first time.
“The book is written in an expressively engaging and dialogical style [...] an excellent companion for undergraduate and graduate students having a year course on all three volumes of Capital. It is an honest and unbiased reproduction of the material. The labyrinth of the three volumes is complex enough to deserve such a companion.”
—Kaveh Boveiri, author of Marxian Totality: Inverting Hegel to Explain Worldly Matters
Andy Blunden is an independent scholar. His fields of research include social philosophy, psychology, Activity Theory, Marxism, Hegel and Cultural Historical Activity Theory. Andy is administrator of the Marx-Engels and Hegel Archives on marxists.org. He began publishing in 2003, and was for some time an Editor of Mind, Culture and Activity. He has published seven books and numerous journal articles.
Contents
Preface xi
1 Marx’s Sources 1
1 Hegel’s Theory of Science 1
1.1 The Idea of the True 4
1.2 Hegel’s Social Theory 10
1.3 Right 10
1.4 Morality 11
1.5 The State and Ethical Life 11
2 Marx’s Use of History 12
2.1 Categorical Genealogy 16
3 Marx’s Critique of Ricardo 18
3.1 The Three Sources and Component Parts of Capital 22
2 Capital 23
1 Marx’s Capital Volume One: the Process of Production of Capital 23
1.1 Part I. Commodities and Money 23
1.1.1 Chapter 1 §1, the Two Factors of a Commodity:
Use-Value and Value 23
1.1.2 Summary of Capital, Volume One, Chapter 1 28
1.1.3 Chapter 2. Exchange 29
1.1.4 Chapter 3. Money 30
1.1.5 Summary of Part I 30
1.2 Part II. The Transformation of Money into Capital 31
1.2.1 Chapter 4. The General Formula for Capital 31
1.2.2 Chapter 5. Contradictions in the General Formula
of Capital 33
1.2.3 Chapter 6. The Buying and Selling of Labour-Power 34
1.2.4 Summary of Part II 37
1.3 Part III. The Production of Absolute Surplus-Value 38
1.3.1 Chapter 7. The Labour-Process & Process of Producing
Surplus-Value 38
1.3.2 §2. The Production of Surplus Value 39
1.3.3 Conclusion from Chapter 7 40
1.3.4 Chapter 8. Constant Capital and Variable Capital 41
1.3.5 Chapter 9. The Rate of Surplus-Value 42
1.3.6 Chapter 10. The Working Day 43
1.3.7 Chapter 11. The Rate and Mass of Surplus-Value 43
1.3.8 Summary of Part III 45
1.4 Part IV. The Production of Relative Surplus-Value 47
1.4.1 Chapter 12. The Concept of Relative Surplus-Value 47
1.4.2 Chapter 13. Co-operation 49
1.4.3 Chapter 14. Division of Labour and Manufacture 50
1.4.4 Chapter 15. Machinery and Modern Industry 50
1.5 Part V. The Production of Absolute and of Relative
Surplus-Value 50
1.5.1 Chapter 16. Absolute and Relative Surplus Value 50
1.6 Part VI. Wages 52
1.6.1 The Remaining Parts of Volume One of Capital 52
1.7 Capital Volume One, Conclusion 54
2 Marx’s Capital Volume Two: the Process of Circulation of Capital 59
2.1 Part I. The Metamorphoses of Capital and Their Circuits 60
2.1.1 Chapter 1. The Circuit of Money Capital 60
2.1.2 Chapter 2. The Circuit of Productive Capital 62
2.1.3 Chapter 3. The Circuit of Commodity-Capital 63
2.1.4 Summary of Part I 64
2.2 Part II. The Turnover of Capital 65
2.2.1 Chapter 7. The Turnover Time and Number of
Turnovers 65
2.2.2 Chapter 8. Fixed Capital and Circulating Capital 65
2.3 Part III. The Reproduction and Circulation of Aggregate
Social Capital 66
2.4 Summary of Volume Two 68
3 Marx’s Capital Volume Three: the Process of Capitalist Production
as a Whole 70
3.1 Part I. The Conversion of Surplus-Value into Profit and of the Rate
of Surplus-Value into the Rate of Profit 71
3.1.1 Chapter 1. Cost-Price and Profit 73
3.1.2 Chapter 2. The Rate of Profit 74
3.1.3 Chapter 3. The Relation of Rate of Profit to Rate
of Surplus-Value 74
3.1.4 Chapter 4. The Effect of the Turnover on the Rate
of Profit 74
3.1.5 Chapter 5. Economy in the Employment of Constant
Capital 74
3.1.6 Chapter 6. The Effect of Price Fluctuations 75
3.1.7 Chapter 7. Supplementary Remarks 75
3.2 Part II. Conversion of Profit into Average Profit 75
3.2.1 Chapter 8. Different Compositions of Capitals in
Different Branches of Production and Resulting
Differences in Rates of Profit 75
3.2.2 Chapter 9. Formation of a General Rate of Profit
(Average Rate of Profit) and Transformation of the
Values of Commodities into Prices of Production 76
3.2.3 Chapter 10. Equalisation of the General Rate of Profit
through Competition. Market-Prices and Market-Values.
Surplus-Profit 79
3.2.4 Chapter 11. Effects of General Wage Fluctuations on
Prices of Production 81
3.2.5 Chapter 12. Supplementary Remarks 81
3.3 Part III. The Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall 83
3.3.1 Chapter 13. The Law as Such 84
3.3.2 Chapter 14. Counteracting Influences 84
3.3.3 Chapter 15. Exposition of the Internal Contradictions of
the Law 85
3.4 Part IV. Conversion of Commodity-Capital and Money-Capital
into Commercial Capital and Money-Dealing Capital
(Merchant’s Capital) 86
3.4.1 Chapter 16. Commercial Capital 86
3.4.2 Chapter 17. Commercial Profit 88
3.4.3 Chapter 18. The Turnover of Merchant’s Capital.
Prices 89
3.4.4 Chapter 19. Money-Dealing Capital 89
3.5 Part V. Division of Profit into Interest and Profit of Enterprise:
Interest-Bearing Capital 90
3.5.1 Chapter 21. Interest-Bearing Capital 90
3.5.2 Chapter 22. Division of Profit. Rate of Interest. Natural
Rate of Interest 93
3.5.3 Chapter 23. Interest and Profit of Enterprise 93
3.5.4 Chapter 24. Externalisation of the Relations of Capital
in the Form of Interest-Bearing Capital 95
3.5.5 Chapter 25. Credit and Fictitious Capital 95
3.5.6 Chapter 27. The Role of Credit in Capitalist
Production 95
3.5.7 Chapter 30–35. Money-Capital and Real Capital 97
3.5.8 Chapter 36. Pre-capitalist Relationships 98
3.6 Part VI. Transformation of Surplus-Profit into Ground-Rent 98
3.6.1 Chapter 37. Introduction 98
3.6.2 Chapter 38–44. Differential Rent 99
3.6.3 Chapter 45. Absolute Ground-Rent 99
3.6.4 Chapter 46. Building Site Rent. Rent in Mining. Price
of Land 100
3.6.5 Summary of Parts V and VI 100
3 Overview and Reflections 102
1 Marx’s Capital: Overview 102
1.1 The Division of the Material by Forms of Ethical Life 102
1.1.1 Bourgeois Society 102
1.1.2 Productive Capitalism 102
1.1.3 Finance Capital 103
1.2 The Logical Division of the Subject Matter 103
1.2.1 The Immediate Production of Capital 103
1.2.2 The Circulation of Capital 104
1.2.3 The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole 105
1.3 Analysis by Units 106
1.3.1 The Commodity (v.1 Part I) 106
1.3.2 The Embryo Capitalist, Moneybags (v.1 Part II) 107
1.3.3 Unpaid Labour Time (v.1 Part III) 107
1.3.4 The Necessary Labour Time (v.1 Part IV) 107
1.3.5 Productive Labour (v.1 Part V) 108
1.3.6 The Day’s Wage (v.1 Part VI) 108
1.3.7 The Circuit of Capital (v.2 Part I) 108
1.3.8 The Turnover Time of Capital (v.2 Part II) 108
1.3.9 The Unity of Circulation and Production
(v.2 Part III) 108
1.3.10 Cost-price and Price of Production (v.3 Part I) 109
1.3.11 The Average Rate of Profit (v.3 Part II) 109
1.3.12 Accumulated Constant Capital (v.3 Part III) 109
1.3.13 The Commercial Capitalist (v.3 Part IV) 109
1.3.14 The Finance Capitalist (v.3 Part V) 109
1.3.15 The Landowner (v.3 Part VI) 110
2 Marx’s Capital: Outstanding Issues 110
2.1 Commodities 111
2.2 Precarity and Gig Work 113
2.3 The Advertising Industry 114
2.4 State Intervention 115
2.5 Summary 116
3 Reflection 116
3.1 The Capital/Logic Debate 116
3.2 My Journey to Capital 117
4 Conclusion 120
References 123
Index 124