Foundations of Marxism
Marxism 101 is intended to provide students with a grasp of the basic premises of Marxist political economy, philosophy and political theory. These fields are understood as an integral whole constituted by the methodology of dialectical materialism and as an instrument for the formulation and application of political line within the practice of the class struggle.
Course One: Review of the Basics of Marxist Political Economy
Schedule:
Often people begin to approach Marxist thought through the device of the “Capital reading group”. This can result in misconceptions where Capital is seen as a work of “critical theory” similar to the scholastic Marxological literature it has inspired or even as a literary work not as a political intervention in the class struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat. Here we take a different approach with an introductory segment beginning with a brief overview of the fundamental categories of Marxist political economy (Course One) and dialectical materialist worldview (Course Two) before proceeding to the application of these categories in the concrete strategic analysis of the class struggle, then returning to their deeper abstract-conceptual elaboration in later segments.
For the brief introductory overview of Marxist political economy we rely on Otto Ruhle’s abridgment of Capital with Trotsky’s 1939 Introduction.
Session One: Marxism in Our Times – Trotsky on the Continued Validity of Capital’s Categories in 1939 and Today?
Here we review Trotsky’s summary of the historical ground and basic categories of Marx’s analysis of capitalist society. We further interrogate to what extent his description of the world defined by these categories in 1939 still rings true in 2023 and to what extent it does not. Therefore we begin the program by asking the question we will continue to ask throughout: how can we apply the categories of Marxist methodology to grasp and transform contemporary reality?
Readings: Marxism in Our Time
Session Two: The Commodity, Money and Capital
In this session we examine the characteristics of the commodity, of the exchange relation it embodies, of money as the general equivalent which constitutes this relation and last but not least the transformation of this general equivalent into capital and its encounter with the special commodity labor power. We also briefly consider the question of to what extent this logical progression of concepts reflects the historical progression of social practices.
Readings: Part 1: Commodities and Money and Part 2: The Transformation of Money into Capital of Karl Marx’s Capital: An Abridgment
Session Three: Absolute and Relative Surplus Value
In this session we explore surplus value in its absolute and relative forms and ask ourselves which form constitutes the defining dynamic of capitalism and which is to some extent in continuity with exploitation in prior modes of production? We further inquire as to the historically determined meaning of productivity and of technological development in capitalist society.
Readings: Part 3: The Production of Absolute Surplus-Value, Part 4: Production of Relative Surplus-Value and Part 5: The Production of Absolute and of Relative Surplus-Value in Karl Marx’s Capital: An Abridgment.
Session Four: Wages and Accumulation
In this session we examine the wage relation and its various forms such as the piece wage and the time wage and briefly discuss national differences in the wage. We further consider the accumulation and concentration of capital from its original beginnings in the gruesome historical phenomena of primitive accumulation and ask why no capitalism in Spain?
Readings: Part 6: Wages, Part 7: The Accumulation of Capital and Part 8: So-called Primitive Accumulation in Karl Marx’s Capital: An Abridgment.
Further Reading for Course One
Marx: A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
Marx: Capital: Volume I-III
Marx: Theories of Surplus Value: Volume I-III
Marx: Grundrisse
Luxemburg: Introduction to Political Economy
Day and Gaido: Responses to Marx’s Capital
Rubin: Essays on Marx’s Theory of Value
Rubin: A History of Economic Thought
Rosdolsky: The Making of Marx’s Capital: Volume I-II
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