The Theory of Capitalist Development

The Theory of Capitalist Development
by Paul M. Sweezy

Since its first publication in 1942, this book has become the classic analytical study of Marxist economics. Written by an economist who was a master of modern academic theory as well as Marxist literature, it has been recognized as the ideal textbook in its subject. Comprehensive, lucid, authoritative, it has not been challenged or even approached by any later study.

Capital

Capital: A Critique of Political Economy
by Karl Marx
edited by Frederick Engels

In Capital: Critique of Political Economy (1867), Karl Marx proposes that the motivating force of capitalism is in the exploitation of labour, whose unpaid work is the ultimate source of profit and surplus value. The employer can claim right to the profits (new output value), because he or she owns the productive capital assets (means of production), which are legally protected by the State through property rights. In producing capital (money) rather than commodities (goods and services), the workers continually reproduce the economic conditions by which they labour. Capital proposes an explanation of the “laws of motion” of the capitalist economic system, from its origins to its future, by describing the dynamics of the accumulation of capital, the growth of wage labour, the transformation of the workplace, the concentration of capital, commercial competition, the banking system, the decline of the profit rate, land-rents, et cetera.

The critique of the political economy of capitalism proposes that The commodity is the foundational “cell-form” (trade unit) of a capitalist society, which has commercial value for the owner of the means of production. Moreover, because commerce, as a human activity, implied no morality beyond that required to buy and sell goods and services, the growth of the market system made discrete entities of the economic, the moral, and the legal spheres of human activity in society; hence, subjective moral value is separate from objective economic value. Subsequently, political economy — the just distribution of wealth and “political arithmetick” about taxes — became three discrete fields of human activity: Economics, Law, and Ethics, politics and economics divorced.

“The economic formation of society [is] a process of natural history", thus it is possible for a political econmist to objectively study the scientific laws of capitalism, given that its expansion of the market system of commerce had objectified human economic relations; the use of money (cash nexus) voided religious and political illusions about its economic value, and replaced them with commodity fetishism, the belief that an object (commodity) has inherent economic value. Because societal economic formation is an historical process, no one person could control or direct it, thereby creating a global complex of social connections among capitalists; thus, the economic formation (individual commerce) of a society precedes the human administration of an economy (organised commerce).

The structural contradictions of a capitalist economy, the gegensätzliche Bewegung, describe the contradictory movement originating from the two-fold character of labour; not the class struggle between labour and capital, the wage labourer and the owner of the means of production. These capitalist economy contradictions operate “behind the backs” of the capitalists and the workers, as a result of their activities, and yet remain beyond their perceptions as men and women and as social classes.

The economic crises (recession, depression, etc.) that are rooted in the contradictory character of the economic value of the commodity (cell-unit) of a capitalist society, are the conditions that propitiate proletarian revolution; which the Communist Manifesto (1848) collectively identified as a weapon, forged by the capitalists, which the working class “turned against the bourgeoisie, itself”.

In a capitalist economy, technological improvement and its consequent increased production augment the amount of material wealth (use value) in society, whilst simultaneously diminishing the economic value of the same wealth, thereby diminishing the rate of profit — a paradox characteristic of economic crisis in a capitalist economy; “poverty in the midst of plenty” consequent to over-production and under-consumption.

Marxist Economics for Socialists

Marxist Economics for Socialists: A Critique of Reformism
by John Harrison

Marx's ideas on capitalism and its crisis are sometimes obscure. Here, John Harrison introduces the basic concepts of Marx's economics in simple language - as political ideas, part of a constant battle against reformism: fro Proudhon in France of the 1840s, through Bernstein in Germany of the 1890s, to Crosland and Holland in Britain of the 1950s and 70s.

"The Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism"

"The Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism"
by Robert Brenner
from The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Preindustrial Europe

"In what follows, I will take up each of the foregoing objections in
the course of presenting a more fully developed interpretation of
the problems of European feudal evolution and of the transition to
capitalism. In Section I, I will attempt, once again, to lay bare what
I believe to be the faulty foundations upon which the demographic
interpretation has been constructed. In Section II, I will try to
sketch a general approach to long-term feudal socio-economic evolution,
and then to demonstrate that this approach can better grasp
the actual course of medieval economic development, income distribution
and feudal crisis in the different European regions than
can either the demographic interpretation or Bois's "falling rate of
feudal levy" approach. Finally, in Section III, I will, in direct
response to the criticisms that have been raised, lay out what I take
to be the origins of the different property systems which emerged in different regions of Europe during the early modern period, and
explain why these property systems were in fact central in determining
the subsequent paths of economic development."

from Introduction

"The Decline of Feudalism and the Growth of Towns"

"The Decline of Feudalism and the Growth of Towns"
by Maurice Dobb
from Studies in the Development of Capitalism

Maurice Herbert Dobb (July 24, 1900 - August 17, 1976), was a British Marxist economist, and a lecturer 1924-1959 and Reader 1959-1976 at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge 1948-1976.

Dobb was an economist who was primarily involved in the interpretation of neoclassical economic theory from a Marxist point of view. His involvement in the original economic calculation problem debate consisted of critiques of capitalist, centrally planned socialist, or market socialist models that were based upon the neoclassical framework of static equilibrium. Dobb charged the market socialist model of Oskar Lange and the contributions of "neo-classical" socialists of an illegitimate "narrowing of the focus of study to problems of exchange-relations." (Economists and the Economics of Socialism, 1939.)

Many of his works have been published into different languages. His short publication Introduction to Economics was translated to Spanish by Mexican intellectual Antonio Castro Leal for the leading Mexican publishing house Fondo de Cultura Economica, which has gone through more than ten editions since 1938.

For Dobb, the central economic challenges for socialism are related to production and investment in their dynamic aspects. He identified three major advantages of planned economies: antecedent coordination, external effects and variables in planning.

"Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-industrial Europe"

"Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-industrial Europe"
by Robert Brenner
from The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Preindustrial Europe


Robert P. Brenner is a professor of history and director of the Center for Social Theory and Comparative History at UCLA, editor of the socialist journal Against the Current, and editorial committee member of New Left Review. His research interests are Early Modern European History; economic, social and religious history; agrarian history; social theory/Marxism; and Tudor-Stuart England.

He has been one of the contributors in a major Marxist debate, "Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism". In this debate he has sided on the importance of the transformation of agricultural production in Europe, especially in the English countryside, as opposed to the rise of international trade as the main cause of the transition. His influential 1976 article on "Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-industrial Europe" set forth the controversial "Brenner thesis." He argued that smallholding peasants had strong property rights and had little incentive to give up traditional technology or go beyond local markets, and thus no incentive toward capitalism

The Communist Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto
by Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels

"The greatest charter of our movement."
---Rosa Luxemburg

"An integral and systematic exposition of [Marx's] doctrine . . . the best to this day."
---Lenin

"Laid the foundation for modern socialism."
---Karl Kautsky

"[A] model philosophy of history . . . cannot be corrected."
---Arturo Labriola

Over 150 years after its publication, Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto continues to inspire and provoke students, activists and citizens.

The principles embodied within in it lie at the heart of thousands of academic and literary works. It is the starting point for millions of people who refuse to accept that capitalism represents the final and optimum stage of human development. After reading this book, it is impossible to remain convinced that There Is no alternative to unrestrained neoliberalism and difficult to claim that there is anything more crucial than finding one.