Karl Marx: A Contribution To The Critique Of Political Economy

Name: Vinit Sanghvi

Course: M.Sc. – Finance

Subject: Economics

Roll No: 14-MF-22

REVIEW OF ‘A CONTRIBUTION TO THE CRITIQUE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY’

Author: Karl Marx

First Published: 1859

Translated: S. W. Ryazanskaya

INTRODUCTION

Although studying law, Karl Marx was fascinated by philosophy and philosophical ideologies of G. W. F. Hegel had a huge impact on him. Marx turned his attention towards economic questions while he was an editor of Rheinische Zeitung during 1842-43 thereafter writing extensively on communist ideology and critiquing the political economy. Marx wrote the title ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy’ during 1859 analyzing the political economy. Many of the ideas presented in this book forms the basis of a

The working class provided the necessary labor for the production of commodity while the middle class held the assets and had access to industrial production. Marx analyzed the bourgeois economy into 3 major aspects: the Commodity, Money or simple circulation, and Capital.

The book analyzes only the first 2 aspects in greater detail. I would also like to take into account certain economic aspects such as Gold Standard, Arbitrage for my interpretation which are not part of the discussion of the book.

THE COMMODITY

According to English Economists, commodity is “anything necessary, useful or pleasant in life”1 and the objective of bourgeois society is to maximize commodity accumulation thereby termed as Capitalists according to Marxist Philosophy. However, for any product to be termed as commodity, it must possess two intrinsic properties: use-value and exchange-value1.

1 Chapter I: The Commodity, “A Contribution to the Critique of Political

A few grains of grass, growing wild in the woods, and unfit for any human purpose.”

Thus, universal equivalents imbibes universal labor time equivalents in them. The discrepancy in the labor time involved in the production of the commodity may lead to the process of arbitrage where an individual indulges into buying and selling at the same time at different rate and maximizing the earnings. As the use value of a loaf of bread do not change, the change in the labor time affects the local exchange value which can be different from the universal exchange value leading to the event of arbitrage.

The exchange of one commodity for another ensues the concept of Barter. In such cases, a commodity may not have exchange value as it is not demanded for any other universal equivalent. Thus a commodity which in nominal terms is having an exchange value is not having an exchange value in real sense owing to lack of demand of that commodity. This shows that exchange values of the commodities conform to the supply-demand equilibrium. Thus, to avoid this discrepancy, the exchange value of all the commodities is equated with an exclusive commodity called