Rev Left Radio - The Fundamentals of Marxism: Intro to Political Economy

Episode Date: February 3, 2021

In this episode of Red Menace, Alyson and Breht introduce the core concepts of Marxist political economy by an analysis of the history of political economy, core economic concepts within Marxism, and much more! Make sure to subscribe to Red Menace on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a positive review!    Outline for this episode with timestamps   Political Economy:   [5:00] Definition: Political economy as the study of economics as played out in reality. Economics in relation to society, production, culture, politics, etc. [12:28] History: Adam Smith’s development of economics in the wealth of nations, alongside Mill’s principles of political economy. [20:05] So what does Marxism have to do with political economy? [33:31] Critique of capitalist economics today The Details and Concepts   1) [35:30] the Means of Production and Productive Forces 2) [43:20] Class as a relation to Production 3) [47:00] Value, Use, and Exchange 4) [58:05] Surplus Value and Wages 5) [61:09] Money, Capital, and the M-C-M Cycle 6) [68:35] Commodity Fetishism Closing Questions   Questions: [74:43] Why does this matter? If Marxism is about revolution, what's the deal with all this abstract economic analysis?  [78:13] Marxian economics vs Marxism: what's the difference, is there an issue with the former?   ------- Support Red Menace and get access to bonus monthly content on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/TheRedMenace Learn more about the show here: www.RevolutionaryLeftRadio.com

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Red Menace. So we've done a lot of current event episodes last while because there's been a lot of current events happening. But now we're sort of getting back to our roots and we're doing a more classic Red Menace theory text episode. But instead of focusing on a singular text, we're doing what we've promised for a few months now, which is to do another intro to Marxism episode, this time focusing on political economy. Our last intro to Marxism was very well received, and we've got a lot of positive feedback on that. But it was really centered around historical materialism, dialectics, etc. We touched a little bit on political economy, but with no real

depth. So afterwards, we both agreed we needed to go in that direction. And that's what we're here to do today. Thank you, as always, to all of our Patreon supporters. If you have a little bit of extra money laying around and you want to get access to bonus content that Allison and I do, you know, feel free to join our Patreon. If not, money's tight for everybody. We understand something as easy as sharing this episode with a friend or leaving a positive review on Apple podcasts does a lot. And it really is something we deeply appreciate. But with that Without further ado, let's get into this big sort of topic. It was challenging in some ways, but hopefully, you know, we'll provide a solid introduction to this element of Marxism, which

can sometimes be overlooked or under-emphasized. So with all of that in mind, Alison, what do we want to do? What do we want to accomplish with this episode overall? Yeah. So again, this is kind of, you can think of it maybe as a compliment to the Marxism 101 episode that we did. So we did that introductory episode, and like Brett got at, we were really focused on dialectics and historical materialism, which kind of have some of the more kind of clear philosophical content in Marx. And looking back, you know, we realized that even outside that episode in the broader trend of Red Venice, we haven't done a lot of attention to political economy. We did an episode on Marx's economic manuscripts of 1844 that got into it a little bit, but for the most part,

it hasn't been our focus. And we've kind of generally tended to read Marx from a philosophic, perspective. Both Brett and I have a background in philosophy, so that's definitely what I think is most comfortable for us and what we're able to default to doing a little bit better when approaching a text, is reading it through that lens. So we're kind of trying to challenge ourselves a little bit today by looking at things from the explicitly economic angle to understand maybe aspects of Marxism that we have undercovered a little bit. So if you haven't already listened to the Marxism 101 episode, I would say you should definitely listen to that. this is going to go along with it. It's going to kind of work to, you know, buff up some of what

is explained there, and they should really be understood in relation to each other. One thing that is really, really hard when you're studying Marxism is that it draws on a lot of different fields, right? Karl Marx studied philosophy, law, economics, history, studied a whole range of fields, and to try to catch up with that is really difficult. So we're going to do our best here to kind of expand out into that political economic side, both by looking at the history of political economy, what it is, and where Marx fits into it, and then breaking down some sort of key terms and ideas within Marxist political economy. Yeah, absolutely. And just to say my last thing before we move on, you know, it's really important to us to not advance the idea implicitly

or otherwise that there is a strict division here between Marxist political economy and Marxist political philosophy and theory. These aspects of Marxism are inexorably intertwined and they must be understood together. Thus far, our work on Red Menace has tended toward the philosophic aspects of Marxism, not least, as Allison said, because both of us come out of a philosophy background, and that's where we feel most at home. But having covered so much of that, we really did want to turn our attention toward the economic aspects of Marxism, because they really form the basis of the Marxist critique of capitalism, and thus undergird the political theory action that Marxism advocates for. So with that in mind, we turn our spotlight of attention now

toward the economic, with the hope that this episode can help others gain a better understanding of it. Since this is an introduction of these concepts, we won't be able, as with our last episode, you know, to flesh out every single nuance or complexity within these ideas, but we hope it acts as a solid introduction and foundation from which our listeners can launch into, you know, deeper dives themselves. And the best way to start this episode as All Good Philofer will no doubt agree, is to put some definitions on the table. So with all of that said, Alison, let's get into the second segment of this episode and let's talk about what political economy is. So getting into the political side of Marx requires us to wrestle with this idea of

political economy. We're going to make the case that Marx himself was, you know, engaging in political economic work while criticizing political economists. And we need to understand exactly what political economy is in order to kind of unpack what all this means and to provide some of the important historical context for understanding these issues within Marx. So political economy is an interesting term in as much as it's not really used today. You know you can find political scientists and you'd find economists at any given university, but not many refer to themselves as political economists. Rather than bumble my way through explaining this myself, I believe that political economist Alex Drazen has a definition in his book political economics in macroeconomy

that is very solid. So Drazen writes, quote, how does politics affect economic outcomes? This question has been asked probably as long as people have been interested in economics itself. From Adam Smith's wealth of nations in 1776, or perhaps the physiocrats, even earlier, until at least John Stuart Mills' principles of political economy in 1848, what we now call economics was in fact generally referred to as political economy. This terminology in large part reflected the belief that economy was not really separable from politics. This was more than an administrative classification of disciplines. It arose from the right-spread view that political factors are crucial in determining economic outcomes. Hence, a discipline of economics

historically viewed political forces not only as influencing economic outcomes, but also as a determining influence, end quote. So there's a few things I think to pick out from this quotation that can help us understand what political economy is. So first, according to this definition, political economy is a historical, disciplinary term that predates our current understanding of economics. And so in this sense, much of what we consider economics and political science today would have been called political economy in the 18th and 19th centuries. And the second thing you note here is that Drazen, he insists that the term was more than just a way of classifying different disciplines within the university, right? So it's not purely about how we classify that. Instead,

he argues that the term political economy denoted, you know, certain assumptions about the world, namely that economics and politics are inextricable. So if you've listened to any of our pacifists of Marx, you can probably see how thoroughly this fits with this definition and share sort of its core assumptions, right? Marx is, um, is interested in economics in the context of politics and political struggle in very, very many ways. So you can kind of begin to see the connections there. So over time, this core assumption would kind of begin to lose favor, leading to the modern distinction between economics and political science. And this is somewhat of an oversimplification. But for our sakes, you know, those who studied and practiced economics

kind of sought to come up with a more rational or rigorous science. And as a result, they discarded some of the political factors that they had been looking at that were a little more slippery and were seen as less scientific in nature. So that helps us understand how the term political economy differs from the modern discipline of economics, but we still need to get a bit into the history of political economy to actually contextualize Marx's work. So political economy has to be understood as developing in very specific conditions. So some of the most important political economists, such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and John Stuart Mill, wrote during a period of really significant global change. All three wrote during a revolutionary

period of capitalist development. The 18th and 19th centuries saw both the industrial revolution and the intensification of capitalist development, as well as the events of the American and French revolutions. So a lot going on in this time period. So given this historical context, sociologist Vincent Moscow states that the early task of political economy was, quote, understanding social change and historical transformation, end quote. So as this rapidly changing world, you know, began to settle into certain things. economic and political patterns, political economists sought to systematically study the economic and political developments they saw around them. The work that these theorists produced was

focused on describing what they were seeing in terms of these changes, as well as to intervene into economic debates. So for example, while much of Adam Smith's work is focused on giving a descriptive account of the emergence of capitalism, he also was an advocate. He intervened into debates about mercantiless state policies, suggesting a more hands-off approach to economic development was best. So there's both a descriptive aspect of political economy as well as a more prescriptive aspect, wherein those theorizing it are also advocating for certain things. So again, we should be able to start to see how Marx fits into this tradition. So Marx also wrote during a period of intense revolutionary change,

witnessing not only the intensification of capitalist relations, but also during a period of socialist organizing and revolution, right? Marx was able to see the Paris Commune happen. He was able to see these early struggles against capitalism. And like the political economists who came before him, Marx is really focused on understanding social change, but his emphasis in particular is on the question of sort of broader social development. How do societies develop and what forces drive them? And additionally, Marx, you know, he fused a descriptive of prescriptive analysis of political economics in his own work, right? While Marx provides a very thorough analysis of the historical conditions from which capitalism arose, as well as the laws and contradictions which would govern capitalist society, he doesn't just stop with providing a description of these processes, right? And this is like a very important part of Marx.

Marx, in addition to analyzing economic development, also organized towards revolution. He advocated explicit political and social changes and focused on a theory of capitalist development that can be used to change the world, not just interpret it in that famous quote of his. So in this sense, Marx clearly falls within a similar paradigm to what the political economists are doing in their projects. And, you know, furthermore, we could say that Marx has a method, which is thoroughly grounded in political economy. The political economists shared a conviction that understanding economics required understanding society through multiple fields of studies, employing the tools of various disciplines to do so. For political economists, the economic, political, social, and scientific aspects of society

were not just like separate domains, but they were part of a greater whole, a social totality, if you will. So Marx's own method of analysis shares this assumption, as he draws on the works of anthropological, philosophers, economists, scientists, and many others. And more than that, Marx also understands capitalism as a totality that has an abstract logic that can be studied scientifically. In order to do that, we need law, we need philosophy, we need history, we need economics, we need all of these tools to get that broader view. So hopefully this gives you a bit of an understanding of exactly what political economy is, and maybe more importantly, why it's important to understand it in order to understand Marxism, right? Like, there's a very clear relationship between the two.

Now that we have a solid understanding of what political economy is, it's time to dive a little bit into the history of it. I think understanding the history of bourgeois political economy is a necessary sort of first step to understanding Marxist political economy. So to fully understand the development of political economy, one is always brought back to the doorstep of the grandfather of liberal economics, Adam Smith. Although largely remembered today as an economist, Smith was first and foremost a moral philosopher. His two major works were the theory of moral sentiments in 1759 and the wealth of nations in 1776. He was in many ways the philosophical thinker of the emergence of industrial capitalism out of mercantialism and feudalism

and with the founder of free market economic theory. Cornerstone economic concepts like the division of labor, the invisible hand of the market, growth via competition, and the self-interested rational agent can all be traced back to Adam Smith's work. In a very real sense, Adam Smith articulated the laws and principles of free market capitalism for the first time in human history. Smith is often co-opted by the libertarian right as a dogmatic laissez-faire thinker, but in reality, given his roots in moral philosophy, Adam Smith was not dogmatic at all. He thought deeply about the social effects of this emerging economic system, made way for government regulation and progressive taxation, warned about the parasitism of landlords, and was suspicious of colonialism and empire.

He was neither a direct ancestor of hard-right libertarianism nor robust social democracy, but a classical liberal whose economic theory was always tied in his mind to the greater good of society at large, though one could and many do cherry-pick his ideas to fit further right and even further left ideals, sometimes fairly, sometimes not. In any case, one must understand the impact of Adam Smith if one is to understand all later developments in political economy, ranging from Marx to neoliberalism and everything in between. One aspect of Smith's work that I would like to highlight

is his belief that free markets would benefit all of society, without said benefit being the goal of any engaged in market competition. Adam Smith thought that market capitalism would benefit all people, and increase overall prosperity, not through moral appeals, but through the logic and momentum of the market itself. In fact, he argued that on the individual level, the benefit of others need not come into it at all, arguing, quote, it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of their own

necessities, but of their advantages. End quote. Out of this arises two aspects of capitalism that we can still see today, one good and one bad. The good is that Smith was correct that capitalism, driven by self-interest on the individual level, does lead to extraordinary increases in economic growth and overall prosperity. This fact cannot be denied, and in fact Marx himself accepts it as true. However, the underside of this is that the very self-interest, which drives economic growth, also works to undermine the social good that Adam Smith thought would flow from his system.

Self-interest drives those same capitalists to bust unions, bribe politicians, takeover governments, monopolize and corner markets, collude to fix prices, dismiss environmental collapse as externalities, etc. While Adam Smith did grasp some of these possibilities and even warned against them, they come part and parcel with the very self-interest. interest that undergirds the entire market system. It's pure speculation on my part, but I would argue that if Adam Smith could come back today and see how capitalism has evolved, he would be as horrified as he would be fascinated. In the final analysis, staring down mass extinction and climate

chaos, his economic system has brought the human species simultaneously to new heights, as well as to the absolute brink. This underbelly of free market capitalism, this suffering and miserable, this suffering and misery that it so naturally causes is precisely where the Marxist critique of it begins. Another important figure in the history of political economy is John Stuart Mill, who wrote his principles of political economy in 1848. In many ways, Mill can be seen as an intellectual descendant of Adam Smith, carrying forward many of his ideas in this new century. Like Adam Smith, he was a liberal economic thinker rooted in moral philosophy. In Mill's case, he was a proponent of utilitarianism, a consequentialist moral theory that advocated ethical behavior aimed toward the

maximization of happiness and well-being for all affected individuals. He viewed his economic theories as, in some sense, outgrowths of this underlying moral theory. As such, Mill expanded on some of the seeds of humanism found in Smith. He believed, for example, in true equality of opportunity, and thus a strong inheritance tax, seeing the unearned inheritance of wealth as a cause of unfair inequality. On utilitarian grounds, he supported government-funded public education, private charity, and even worker cooperatives. In his earlier work, he was more hard-lined toward the center right on economics, but over time he developed a real sympathy for elements of socialism, at least in its utopian iterations. But throughout his work, he maintained a strong

defense of individual property, free markets, and flat taxes, not wanting to punish the thrifty through progressive taxation. Competition was also big for Mill, arguing that he couldn't accept the socialist critique of it and thought it was absolutely essential to economic functioning, an argument we still often hear today. Two major elements of his work stand out to me, however, as a Marxist. One, his assertion that the ultimate tendency in a free market economy

is for the rate of profit to decline over time, and two, his concern that the unlimited growth implied by free market capitalism would eventually cause the destruction of the natural world. These two ideas would, of course, be taken up and expanded on by Marx, and still to this day are foundational concepts within Marxist political economy. Overall, Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill were foundational thinkers of political economy, offering new articulations and robust defenses of private property and free market capitalism, while at the same time advancing moral and economic concerns that have only been proven increasingly

correct with the passage of time. All of this, along with many other thinkers, of course, were grist for the mill of Marxist political economy, and were indispensable to Marx as he set out to write Das Capital. Libertarians and neoliberals, many of whom view Smith and Mill as their intellectual forefathers, all too often deform their legacies by over-emphasizing the free market competition and private property aspects of their work, while de-emphasizing or eliminating altogether, their moral critiques, and even outright socialist's sympathies, such as Adam Smith's dislike of landlords, or John Stewart's Mills' belief in worker cooperatives. Of course, so much more could be said about these thinkers and their histories, and many

debates could easily pop up around elements of my presentation here, but given the limitations of this episode, I will leave it at that for now. Allison? So, you know, we might then have to wrestle a little bit with the relationship between Marx and political economy in more detail. So in our definition of political economy, we made our case for understanding Marx as a political economist, you know, operating in this tradition. And now that we've gotten some more depth on the early political economists, we can get into some details of Marxist political economy and sort of the concepts and assumptions that it imports from thinkers, such as

Smith, Ricardo, and Mill, because there are some really interesting points of overlap, actually, that need to be wrestled with. So one of the most obvious ways that Marx builds on the work Smith is through his development of the labor theory of value. Although Marx is often credited with developing this concept, a version of the theory is found in Smith's work. In, you know, the famous wealth of nations, Smith writes, quote, the labor of a manufacturer adds generally to the value of the material which he works upon, that of his own maintenance and of his master's profit, end quote. So while Smith and Marx don't have identical theories of value, and we'll get more into detail as the episode goes on, both agreed that value was produced at least partially through the labor

of workers. As Brett already mentioned, Marx also expanded on Mills' work for the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. So, you know, in terms of economic theory, it's clear that Marx was quite liberally taking concepts from earlier political economists and reworking them and clarifying them in various ways while developing his own ideas. And Marx also arguably inherited some basic insights regarding class struggle from the work of Smith. You know, Smith is someone who capitalists and libertarians love to quote without ever having read him. And when you get into Smith, there's some interesting things that I think would push against their sort of general framework. So once again in the wealth of nations, we get this really fascinating quote. That's

a little bit longer, so bear with me. Smith writes, quote, what are the common wages of labor depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between those two parties, workers and capitalists, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desires to get as much, the master to give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise the latter in order to lower the wages of labor. It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily, and the law,

Besides, authorizes, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of Parliament against combining to lower the price of work, but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes, the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant, though they did not employ single workmen, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks that they've already acquired. Many workmen cannot subsist a week. Few could subsist a month and scarce any a year without employment. In the long run, the working man may be as necessary to his master as his master as to him, but the necessity is not so immediate, end quote. So what's going on in this, you know, rather

interesting quote? So we see a few ideas that actually really become important in Marx's work and arguably also in Lennon's work to certain extent. So first we see a notion of class struggle, which recognizes that there's a fundamental divergence of interest between the workers and the capitalists. Smith doesn't argue that these two forces exist in a harmonious relationship that leads to their mutual enrichment. And on the contrary, Smith, you know, he argues that their interests are to a certain extent irreconcilable. So this is a theory of class struggle that recognizes class enmity to a certain degree, and it's not what many people would find or expect to find in Adam Smith's work. So second, Smith actually also provides an analysis of the relationship between the state and the conflict between classes, noting that the state, you know, it's not disinterested third party, which can just sort of mediate disputes between these two classes.

And on the contrary, in fact, Smith notes that the state intervenes on behalf of and through the organization of the capitalist class in order to secure their interests above and against the interests of the workers. So contrary to the liberal idea that the state is sort of the mediator which can allow all the classes of society to get along for the public good, Smith sees the way the state is a tool of class domination. This is something quite interesting. And finally, Smith notes that the working class is uniquely positioned to be in a constant state of dependence on wage. While other classes might survive the loss of a job and the cutting off of wage, workers are doomed by the possibility, instead relying on selling their labor. in order to get by. And so this view fits remarkably well with Marx's theory of the proletariat as a population that has nothing to sell by their labor. Marks really emphasizes the way that the proletariat faces this kind of dependency on wage that we see prefigured in Smith. So to be clear, though,

we can't just say that Marx full-heartedly agrees with everything Smith says. Despite these similarities and despite Marx clearly borrowing heavily from the ideas of political economists who came before him, he also really broke distinctively from these theorists and was in fact very, very critical of their underlying assumptions. While Smith helped develop the tools that Marx used to argue for the emancipation of the working class, Smith was himself also an advocate of capitalist development who championed the transformative power of capital. So we can already kind of see where him and Marx aren't going to get along in that regard. So Marx was critical of Smith and the political economists on several fronts that we'll get into. If you want more

details on this, you can go back and listen to our episode on the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, because a lot of the critique of political economy is found in that text, and it is well worth your read, and we have an episode that can hopefully be of assistance. But for now, we're going to focus on a few things. So one important point that Marx critiques, you know, when he's sort of addressing the political economists, regards their theory of humanity and what humanity is. So Smith, along with other political economists, argued for a very particular view of humanity and human behavior. Now, there's some inconsistency in how Smith looks at this, but the standard read is that Smith sees humanity as very self-interested and individualistic.

So in the wealth of nations, Smith sort of advocates for this view of a fundamentally self-interested being, writing that, quote, It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard for their own interest, end quote. The implication there being right, social solidarity is not the basis by which we get by, but people pursuing their own self-interest in a way that leads to an economy that can benefit us all. But the benefiting us all is sort of an after-the-fact thought. So, John Stuart Mill also presented a very similar view of humanity, noting that political economy is concerned with humanity as an economic species and, quote, as a being who desires to possess wealth and who is capable of judging the comparative efficacy of means for attaining that end.

So this view of humanity, you know, we're seeing here, is very self-interested, an economic creature engaged in economic maximization for themselves and no one else. And, you know, some economists have mockingly referred to this concept of homo-economicus, right? The idea that humans are an economic species governed by individualist self-interest, and, you know, that is something that Marx is going to want to problematize. Mark strongly disagrees with this view of humanity for several reasons. While he understands humanity through an economic lens, right, Marx isn't going to push back there, he doesn't, he does not suggest that humanity is governed merely through individualist desires,

and a drive to accumulate wealth. And in fact, Marx suggests that the human drive towards labor does not result merely from the fact that labor is a means of acquiring wealth, right? We're not just doing it to get rich individually, but rather from the fact that human beings are laboring beings. Marks even suggest that if it wasn't for alienation imposed by class society, humans might not resent labor, but rather be able to find joy and expression through it.

So Marx, therefore, argues that the theory of humanity that's proposed by the political economist is not only incorrect, but what they're seeing and describing as like universal human nature is actually just a description of the kind of deformed beings that capitalism turns us into. So humanity for Marx, right, is a species which is social. It objectifies the surrounding world around it through labor because we're just the kind of beings that labor, both for the good of individuals and for the collective. And this self-centered and wealth-obsessed individual that Smith and Mill sees as kind of the default state of humanity, you know, that is in fact a product of capitalism, which conditions humans to behave in that way. So already, you know,

we can see somewhat the impossibility of disentangling the political economic aspects of Marxism from the philosophical aspects. So a question like what sort of beings are humans is really a philosophical question in a lot of ways. And yet, you know, this question is also at the core of the political economic debates that Marx wants to have, and we can see how difficult it gets to disentangle these things. And further complicating things is the fact that Marx's answer to the question isn't just grounded in economic or historical analysis, but also it's deeply rooted in Hegel's views of humanity and objectification in shaping human consciousness. He's drawing on a whole host of sources to sort of make this critique and present his own position. So that's a lot,

I know, and we're going to try to step back for a little bit and summarize where we are at so far. So first, we can really clearly see that Marx is engaging thoroughly within the field of political economy. Contrary to the claims of many modern fans of Adam Smith, we've seen that Marx and Smith actually shared some similar ideas in common, and we can really conclude that Marx definitely borrowed ideas from Smith and further developed them in his own directions. Second, we also have seen that Marx didn't just uncritically draw on the political economists who came before him. Instead, Marx was critical of several assumptions that underlined the works of political economy. And his efforts to argue against these assumptions, Marx began to develop

his own distinct approach to political economy. So before we move on to sort of breaking down the individual ideas and terminology within Marx's political economy, we should take a second to kind of summarize some of the broader features of Marxist political economy for us. So first, Marxist political economy seeks to understand capitalist modes of production through the lens of class struggle. And we'll get into detail about what all this means, but let's just get the big picture together so we can kind of fill things in. So Marx understands the struggle between various classes to be central to historical development and change. And Marx seeks to wrestle with change as much as the early political economist before him. And his explanation of change is grounded in the conflict between social classes.

In particular, Marx is concerned with the two classes who are at the core. of capitalist production, the capitalist class, and the proletarian class. And the capitalists, they own the means of production, again, we'll define that in a bit, while the proletariat sells their labor in exchange for a wage paid by the capitalists. So that's kind of the first feature we want to focus on in Marx's political economy. Second, the economic conditions of capitalist society are characterized by the development of the proletariat as a group of free laborers. So unlike the serf class under feudalism, the proletariat is free to sell its labor as it pleases. You know, workers can move to new towns if there are better job prospects there. They are free to choose

their employer to the extent that an employer wants them. So at the same time, the proletariat does not own any productive property themselves. And so they're instead forced to work for capitalists who do own private property. And the profit of the capital's class, therefore, comes directly as a result of the work being done by the working class. Workers are paid the minimal amount needed to stay alive and continue working, while capitalist profit from the additional value produced by the workers. There is therefore kind of a tendency towards accumulation of capital in the hands of the capitalist class that's at odds with the interest of the proletarian.

Finally, as a result of this relation, the interests of the capitalists and the proletarian are at odds with each other. This means that at, you know, the core of capital's economic relations is a tension produced by these diverging interests. And as a result, capital society is marked by instability and crisis resulting from these contradictions, such as the contradiction, you know, contradiction between class interests at the core of capitalist production. So for Marxist political economy, these contradictions, they can be isolated, they can be studied, and the instability created by these contradictions are a, present factor within all class societies. So this explanation, you know, scratches the surface of Marxist political economy and hopefully gives you, you know, something to latch on to in order to understand things a little bit better. But this is where we're seeing some of the Marxist views

develop from. One quick digression before we move into the details of Marxist political economy, and that is centered around modern economics, the stuff that we're taught in high school and college. I want to remind people that if you take a course in economics in college today, as many of us might have, it will become immediately obvious how disconnected from politics economic departments have become. Long gone are the days of considering the moral and social implications of these ideas. Today, economics is largely presented as an almost mechanical science, disconnected from the passions of politics, and thoroughly enmeshed in capitalist assumptions. In fact, you can get a bachelor's degree in economics in many universities and never even hear the word capitalism at all. That is because

economics in the neoliberal era is not an open exploration of different economic paradigms or an intellectual endeavor that takes itself as an object of criticism, but rather it is the ideology of capitalism masquerading as a science. It acts like priests did in the times of feudalism largely as a naturalizer of the current paradigm and status quo. It takes on board the assumptions that capitalism is correct and that it is here to stay, and then operates from those assumptions. Assumptions, mind you, that are rarely, if ever, questioned in the field itself. Anyone who has come into contact with an economics major can immediately understand what I am saying. Their comprehension of the world is so one-sighted and deformed, it's almost laughable.

Unless they've also taken rigorous humanities courses or otherwise have interests that transcends the narrow halls of their chosen field, they will likely be not much much more. more than a mascot for the status quo, if not a full-on reactionary. This is no mistake. The fact that these same people will scoff at the mere idea that Marxism could possibly be a science adds an extra juicy layer of irony to the whole ordeal. On Rev Left Radio, we did an episode on the Great Recession, and in that episode we discussed how economists leading up to that crash got virtually everything

wrong, how they were often funded by nefarious right-wing sources, and how they actually act first and foremost to legitimize the capitalist system and pay no price for repeatedly getting it wrong afterwards. If you're interested in this stuff, definitely check that episode out. But without further ado, let's jump into the details of Marxist political economy. I'll start this section off with the discussion of the means of production and the productive forces. So if you have been on the left for any reasonable amount of time, you've almost certainly come across the term means of production. It's a core concept of Marxist political economy, it's the center of gravity around which our understanding of class revolves, and it's been the focal point of countless leftist memes for many years. Most of you probably even have a solid grasp of what it means, but it never hurts to revisit such subjects and refresh and deepen our understanding of them in the process.

So what are the means of production? In the simplest of terms, the means of production are the means by which goods and services are, This includes raw materials, which are essential inputs used in production, from trees in the logging industry to coal bolt in the construction of cell phones. The means of production also include the buildings, machines, and other tools used in the production of goods and services, and of course the land upon which all of this happens. If you are a worker in a car factory, for instance, the means of production include the building in which you enter to clock in, the assembly line that you manned during your shift, the gear you have to wear to do it safety, etc. Under capitalism, none of those things are owned by the worker. Instead, they are owned by the capitalist, who then rents out the body and time of workers via a wage and slots them into certain roles in the productive process, also known as the Division of Labor. The means of production

can be broken down into instruments and subjects. The instruments are the tools, machines, and infrastructure used to produce goods and services. And the subjects of labor are the natural, natural resources and raw materials that are acted upon to produce goods and services. Together, they form the means of production. If you are a fast food worker, the means of production are all the things you use and act upon while at work to produce the food for customers. Friars, stoves, cashier registers, the building you're in and the land it sits on, the infrastructure of the drive-thru, etc. In Marxism, the means of production and who owns them gives rise to a set of social relations. Your boss owns the factory you work in, and you are their wage worker.

The landlord owns the land you live on, and you are their tenant. In both cases, the owner depends on the worker tenant to create value for them and carves out any surplus value the worker tenant creates as profit for their individual enrichment. Profit literally couldn't exist if, for example, the workers got paid the full value of what they create. So under capitalism, you have social production, i.e. where, many people come together to create a good or service, and you have individual appropriation, i.e. where the owner rakes in the surplus value created by said workers. Moreover, the means of production are foundational to the Marxist conception of historical

materialism, since it's the technological improvements in the means of production and the new social relations that they necessitate, which is the driving force behind socio-historical evolution. If you want to learn more about that, check out our introduction to historical and dialectical materialism from a few episodes back. Additionally, the means of production form the basis of the Marxist understanding of class, because what class you are in is dictated not by your income or status, but by your relation to the means of production. If you own the means of production and thus employ others to create value for you, you are

a member of the bourgeoisie. If you do not own the means of production and instead are forced to rent out your body in time in the form of labor to a capitalist, you are a member of the proletariat. In this way, a multimillion dollar NBA athlete, for example, can still be a member of the proletariat, and a small business owner raking an 80k a year as real income can be a member of the bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie, to be exact. In any case, this relationship to the means of production forms the foundation of the Marxist conception of classes, and thus class conflict and ultimately revolution.

revolution. Now, let's move on to the productive forces. What are the productive forces? For Marxism, the productive forces are the combination of the means of production, as outlined above, and the human labor power that is its engine. Interestingly, this concept is almost certainly derived by Marx and angles from the work of Adam Smith, showing once again the historical development of these ideas. In any case, the forces of production extend beyond the means of production to include living, breathing human labor itself. Without this key element of human labor power, the means of production themselves would be meaningless. A capitalist can own a huge factory with cutting-edge machinery fused with the newest technology, but it's all utterly

meaningless without the workers to put these things to use. As a side note, it's worth pointing out that the reverse does not hold. Workers could easily collectively own the means of production and operate them successfully without the existence of the capitalist, as every worker cooperative in the world proves. This human element is also what makes the strike such a powerful weapon. It shows, with extreme clarity, the absolute necessity of the workers. This is why the capitalists, often working hand in hand with the state, do everything they can to break strikes and destroy the unions that often make them possible.

But I digress. in addition to the means of production and the living human labor power that propels it, capital itself is also included in the forces of production. More on that later. But it's important to note that the scope of the productive forces doesn't necessarily end here, and there is open debate about what to include in the definition of productive forces, even among Marxists themselves. Generally speaking, we can say the productive forces are composed of everything

that contributes to the productive activity of human beings, including science, human knowledge, and the natural world itself. One definition of productive forces from Marxist.org puts it this way. Quote, unless we are mistaken, neither Marx nor angles ever formulated a precise definition of productive forces. This is undoubtedly not an accident, since they were diletticians and not metaphysicists. They were more concerned with the relation between things and their transformation, than with their inclusion in a static and fixed formula,

which would inevitably reduce one's comprehension of them. The notion of productive forces covers a reality with a great diversity of factors and elements, including the division of labor and even certain elements of nature, including population growth. We should thus consider that the productive forces are composed of all the factors which contribute to the productive activity of human beings. Tools and machines are productive forces,

as are factories, means of transportation and communications, technology, and science. The productive forces also include the concentration of production in large factories and the social division of labor, which allows for the more intensive use of machines. I think that is a fair and properly open-ended way to think about the productive forces. Allison. So when we are talking about what class is, this is a really important question for us to think through. We have already taken, you know, I think, a fairly extensive look at class and class struggle in this episode. But this is meant to be an introductory episode.

So we need to spend a little more time, I think, on like, what defines class according to Marx, especially because there's some common misconceptions around this. So to start, we need to push back against a sort of common colloquial understanding of class that many people are familiar with. In the United States, especially, we are prone to talk about lower class, middle class, and the upper class. And in the most common use of these terms, really the qualifier for entry into one of these classes is largely what your income is. So, in fact, we even usually divide the middle class into lower and upper middle class on the basis of income. The class position in the U.S., as broadly understood, is thus largely thought of as a matter of your wealth and lifestyle, which follows forth from that wealth. And this is very different than the technical meaning of class that Marxism employs.

So while the common understanding of class is somewhat akin to a system of ranking based on income and wealth, a Marxist theory of class is defined by a relationship to the means of production, as well as a relationship to other classes. So classes are understood as collectives with collective interests which result from these relations. As we've explained above, the two main classes of interest under capitalism are the capitalist class and the proletarian class. Each is defined by a relation to the means of production. The capital's class owns the means of production, proletarian class does not own, but rather works the means of production.

Additionally, each class is defined in relation to the other. To be proletarian is not only to have no ownership of the means of production, it's also to sell one's labor to the class, which does own the means of production. Conversely, to be a capitalist does not mean merely to own private property, but rather to also pay for the labors of workers to produce value through their labor with your private property. A person who owns some part of the means of production but does nothing with it and lives in isolation would be no more capitalist than a person who does not own the means of production but who lives alone in a cave would be understood as a worker.

Classes thus exist in relation to material conditions as well as in relation to each other, and classes themselves are part of a broader relationship of production under Marxism. It's important to note that the proletarian and capitalist classes are not the only classes in Marxist political economy. This is a misunderstanding a lot of people have when they first start to research Marxism. In fact, Marx often, in his own writing, included the land-owning class as one of the other main three classes during capitalism in 19th century Europe. Marx also notes the existence of the Lumpin proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie, though, you know, to be very fair, his writing on these subjects are beyond the scope of what

we're doing here, and a little difficult to unpack in some ways. The important thing to note is that while there are more than two classes under capitalism, Marxism is focused on two classes in particular, right, the working class and the capitalist class. That's where the analysis really focuses in on. So finally, although Marx talks about the interests of these two classes, the Marxist view does not maintain that there's a perfect unity within these classes. Various factions within the Capitals class, you know, all the time they'll vie for power against other factions. And divisions within the proletariat also arise and complicate things. So while Marks talks broadly about class interests, this is for the sake of explaining, you know, broader historical patterns and trends, rather than for the sake of essentializing these classes and pretending there's no contradictions or divisions internal to them.

Okay. So before I get into value more broadly, let's quickly discern between use value and exchange value. This distinction is fairly easy to grasp. Use value is defined by how a given commodity meets or satiates a need. need. The use value of food is that it stops hunger, nourishes the body, and is necessary for human life. The use value of a home is that it provides shelter and is a place for humans to sleep, eat, wash, etc. The use value of a car is that it provides transportation. Exchange value, on the other hand, represents the value of one thing in relation to the value of another thing. For example, I have a vintage, hardcover copy of Das Capital, and you have an eighth of marijuana you're willing to trade for the book. In this scenario, one copy of Marx's masterpiece

is worth 3.5 grams of marijuana. That is the exchange value of each object. In a market society, all exchange value is measured by money, a sort of meta-commodity through which all other commodities express their exchange value. A gallon of milk is $4, an iPhone is $900, a new car is $20,000, and so on. When a company produces a commodity, they produce it in order to get rid of it because what they are interested in is the exchange value of that particular commodity, i.e., what it brings them in the market. A pencil company doesn't produce pencils for the use value of the pencils.

After all, they are not interested in using the pencils themselves. They produce pencils for their exchange value, the money they can make by selling said pencils on the market. The consumer buys the pencil. pencil for its use value, giving the company money in exchange for the commodity because they seek to use that pencil, perhaps to write a screed against free markets. Who knows? Okay, so that's easy enough, right? Nothing too complicated there. What gets much more complicated is trying to nail down the Marxist theory of value. As a lowly podcaster and all-around dumb dumb, I am not

properly equipped to dive down this particular rabbit hole with the nuance and firm grasp of capital that it requires. However, I can say some basic things about the Marxist theory of value, as well as highlight some common misunderstanding surrounding it. So let's settle for that. Let's begin with the history of the question. When most people think of the Marxist theory of value, they will think immediately of the labor theory of value, which states generally that labor is the source of all value, or put another way, that the value of a commodity is dictated by the amount of socially necessary labor that went into producing it. However, the labor theory of value was not the invention of Marx. In fact, it was the theory put forward and defended by the famous bourgeois economist Adam

Smith and David Ricardo. Hell, even Benjamin Franklin wrote, quote, the value of all things is justly measured by labor, end quote. In the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the labor theory of value was weaponized by the emerging bourgeoisie. At that time, a force of progress against the feudal landowning class. Once dominant, however, bourgeois economists began to back away from the theory, not least because of the subversive and revolutionary connotations inherent in it for the proletariat. In any case, Marx took the labor theory of value from these earlier economists, re-articulated it, complicated it, and put it in service of his broader examination of capitalism, starting from the viewpoint of society as a whole, instead of the

viewpoint of the individual. Today, the labor theory of value is often caricaturized, oversimplified, straw-manned, and mocked by neoclassical economists and anyone wishing to defend the status quo, often betraying their own deep ignorance of Marx and his theory of value in the process. In other instances, the critiques against it are quite strong and demand to be reckoned with. To complicate the matter even more, many Marxist economists and thinkers do defend the labor theory of value, while others, like David Harvey, reject it, more or less, as reflecting Marx's actual theory of value.

Quoting Harvey, he says, quote, it is widely believed that Marx adapted the labor theory of value from Ricardo as a founding concept for his studies of capital accumulation. Since the labor theory of value has been generally discredited, it is then often authoritatively stated that Marx's theories are therefore worthless. But nowhere, in fact, did Marx,

his allegiance to the labor theory of value. That theory belonged to Ricardo, who recognized that it was deeply problematic even as he insisted that the question of value was critical to the study of political economy. On the few occasions where Marx comments directly on this matter, he refers to value theory and not to the labor theory of value. Later, Harvey says, quote, Marx's value form, I conclude, is not a still and stable. fulcrum in capital's churning world, but a constantly changing and unstable metric being pushed hither and tither by the anarchy of market exchange, by revolutionary transformations in technology and organizational forms, by unfolding practices of social reproduction, and massive

transformations in the wants, needs, and desires of whole populations expressed through the cultures of everyday life. This is far beyond what Ricardo had in mind and equally far away from that conception of value usually attributed to Marx, end quote. On the other hand, someone like the economist Richard Wolfe does offer a defense of the labor theory of value. Instead of quoting him at length, I'm going to play about a four-minute clip of him answering a question from an audience member about this exact question. If you read Marx, you'll know that he makes a distinction. between values and prices. He talks about prices and what causes them.

He talks about values, which for him or something else. Nor is he the only major economist who did that. Smith and Ricardo also did that. So he tried to use his analysis of value to say, whatever else a commodity is, a thing produced in capitalism, it has in it a congealed amount of labor. Every society has to make a decision, whether it's conscious of it or not, how much labor will we allocate to making food,

how much will we make to clothing, because you only have a certain amount of labor, and you have a set of desires, and so every society allocates labor one way or another. For Marx, the value of a commodity simply meant the amount of the total labor a society had that was allocated to the production of that good. that's a definitional logic, which he then used to explain why prices are what they are. But there was no equation of price to value. Let me go back to the first part of your question. Has there been lots of criticism of the labor theory of value?

Absolutely. There's been lots of criticism about virtually everything Marx ever wrote because of what happened in the years since. But that's true of every theory of value. For example, the mainstream one that is taught in the United States has a different name. I don't know if you've heard of it. It's called the utility theory of value. Things are valuable because of the amount of utility they provide to the consumer. Try, please, to measure that.

Please, come on. You're all smart, folks. You think that's an easier concept to nail down the U.S. utility theory of value? Exactly how much joy does that ice cream provide for you? How much money are you willing to part with? Will that vary with the temperature outside? Will it vary with the amount of calories you're counting? What? Every economic theory begins with a set of basic hypotheses upon which it builds its system. Mark started with labor because for him that was the key variable to focus on. Neoclassical economics, which developed in the 1870s, for those of you who know, was itself a reaction against Marx.

They hated the labor theory of value because it was associated with Marx. They forgot, so let me make sure you all know, that Marx did not invent the labor theory of value. Marx took the labor theory of value. This may come as a shock to some of you, but just do the work. You'll learn. Adam Smith and David Ricardo Champions of capitalism That's where the labor theory of value comes from Marx thanked them profusely for it And then uses it to do things they never wanted to see done This happens often in science

The people who develop a concept Then get very upset with where their students take it Marx was a student of Smith and Ricardo took the labor theory of value In a way that was critical of capitalism they had used it to celebrate capitalism. But if you see a lot of criticisms of the labor theory of value, be careful what these are criticisms of because Marx's labor theory of value is not the same as Ricardo's and not the

same as Smiths and has more to do with this notion of how labor is allocated in a society. And if Marx was not, let me put another way. When I teach in the American university system, begin by assuming all students want to understand the great mystery of economics, which is why is the price of something what it is? Why is the price of a hamburger, $5 and the price of a Mercedes, much more than that? And we begin. That's very nice. Perfectly good to make an economics built on that question. I'm going to now exaggerate, but to make my point, Marx wasn't interested in that. And I'm not either. I got many more interesting things I want to understand

about this economy, then why the prices of things are what they are. I understand if you're a capitalist, you're very concerned about prices. But if you're somebody else, you might have all, you might be interested, but you might have much higher priority subjects that you would, Marx is coming at it with a different agenda. And so he starts in a different place and takes it in a different way. Where you ultimately come down on this debate is up to you. And I myself have much more learning to do before I can definitively take a side. But at the very least, I hope what I've said serves its intended function, to act as an introduction to these ideas, and to inspire some of you to investigate the matter more in depth for yourself. Allison? So two other concepts that

we need to understand that are central to Marxist political economy are how wage functions and the concept of surplus value, and how both of these work in relation to capitalism as a broader system. So this is another concept that we've sort of referenced already, though not quite by name, and it deserves its own thorough explanation. So scholar Dino Faluga concisely defines surplus value as, quote, the surplus produced over and above what is required to survive, which is translated to profit in capitalism. Since the capitalist pays a labor for his or her labor, the capitalist claims to own the means of production, the workers' labor power, and even the product that is thus produced. The capitalist thus buys a product, labor power, which is turned into commodities,

which she then sells at a profit on the market. Rather than exchange a commodity for money in order to buy another commodity of use to the consumer selling in order to buy, the capitalist buys something in order to sell at a profit margin. The capitalist is thus driven by profit making in and of itself without regard to the use value of the suffering of the labor. End quote. So there's several things in mind here. Not all of it is related to the definition of surplus value, but that definition gives a sense of what surplus value is and a sense of how wage functions. So remember, workers do not have anything to sell besides their labor, this kind of central

idea. So when a worker agrees to work for a boss, they are agreeing to perform a certain amount of and time of labor in exchange for money, and that is wage. It is in the best interest of the boss to pay the workers as low of a wage as possible while ensuring that it's still enough that the workers, you know, are able to stay alive. So as such, bosses are incentivized to pay workers enough to eat, maintain a baseline level of health, while not paying enough to allow much more. The labor of the workers produces commodities, which belong fully to the capitalist who the workers sell their labor to. And these commodities are then sold by the capitalist for money. Some of this money is then given back to the labor again in the form of wage.

Thus, some of the value produced by the laborers is returned to them, right? They get some of their value back. That remaining value, which isn't returned to them, is what we refer to as the surplus value, and this remains in the hands of the capitalists. So the notion of surplus value demonstrates the way that capitalist profits are a direct result of the labor of the workers themselves. It's why often, you know, communists will say workers are entitled to all the value. that they produce. So in this instance, they're not getting all of the value. They only get some

of the value back as a wage while the surplus gets turned to profit for the capitalists. And this shows us that profit for the capital's classes comes directly from exploitation. It's inextricable from the exploitation of the proletariat. And it shows us again ways in which the interests of these two classes are very much at odds with each other. So now we move on to a discussion of money, capital, and the MCM formula that Marx made famous. We've already discussed money as being a measurement of exchange value, or as I said earlier, quote, a sort of meta-commodity through which all other commodities express their exchange value. So the question arises, what is the difference between money and capital? Simply put, money becomes capital only when it is used to purchase goods or

labor, which ends up in making a profit. If a shepherd sells wool for money to buy bread to eat, he wasn't using this money as capital. However, when a merchant uses his money to buy wool in order to sell the wool at a higher price, this money is capital. That's simple enough to understand. So with that in mind, let's talk about the MCM cycle or the money commodity money cycle. To best explain this, I'm actually going to quote at length from understanding Marx's capital a reader's guide, as it explains this in a succinct way while quoting Marx to help illustrate their explanation. So here's this long quote extracted from that reader's guide. Prior to capitalism, capital was accumulated mainly through commerce, not simply the trade and goods, but plunder,

exploitation, conquest, and piracy. Marx emphasizes the importance of this historical development, in particular, the development of commodity production and exchange. This is Marx. Quote, The circulation of commodities is the starting point of capital. The production of commodities and their circulation in its developed form, namely trade, forms the historic presupposition under which capital arises. World trade and the world market date from the 16th century, and from then on the modern history of capital starts to unfold, end quote.

The generalization of commodity production and exchange, the development of a universal equivalent in the form of money, the division of labor and society, private ownership, the establishment of a world market, all of these form, therefore, the prerequisites to the emergence of capital and of capitalism. Marx explains the emergence of capital in more detail, quote, this is Marx.

The first distinction between money as money and money as capital is nothing more than a difference in their form of circulation. The direct form of the circulation of commodities is CMC, the transformation of commodities into money and the reconversion of money into commodities, in short, selling in order to buy. But alongside this form, we find another form, which is quite distinct from the first, MCM, the transformation of money into commodities and the reconversion of commodities into money. in short buying in order to sell money which describes the latter course in its movement is transformed into capital becomes capital and from the point of view of its function already is capital end quote with more simple forms of commodity circulation the overall aim of the producer is the fulfillment of their own needs not to increase their wealth each individual produces in order that they sell in turn they sell in order that they may buy the things that they need. These use values are consumed once they are bought. The circuit CMC is ended with selling in order to buy and consume. Consumption, the satisfaction of needs, in short, use value,

is therefore its final goal. As explained, however, this money is not capital, as it does not seek a profit. The leap from money to capital sees a qualitative change. No longer are commodities and consumption the starting and ending point of the cycle. Instead, we see a cycle that begins and ends with money. In other words, we have the circuit MCM, buying in order to sell. The aim of this exchange is not obtaining use values, but only money or exchange value. The buyer lays out money in order that, as a seller, he may recover money. The money, therefore, is not spent. It is merely advanced. With the development of capitalism and the generalization of commodity production and exchange and the resultant development of money, production is no longer conducted for the

purpose of fulfilling individual needs. Instead, the reason for existence of production and trade is profit, the creation of money from money. The path MCM proceeds from the extreme of money and finally returns to that same extreme. It's driving and motivating force, its determining purpose, is therefore exchange value. The capitalist does not care for the actual needs in society. In as much as they care about fulfilling needs, it is only in order to sell their produce and realize their profits. The motor force for production, therefore, becomes the endless drive for profit.

This is Mark speaking, quote, As the conscious bearer of this movement, the possessor of money becomes a capitalist. His person, or rather his pocket, is the point from which money starts and to which it returns. The objective content of the circulation we have been discussing, the valorization of value, is his subjective purpose, and it is only insofar as the appropriation of ever more wealth in the abstract is the sole driving force behind his operations that he functions as a capitalist, i.e. as capital personified and endowed with consciousness and a will, use values must therefore never be treated as the immediate aim of the capitalist, nor must the profit on any single

transaction. His aim is rather the unceasing movement of profit making, end quote. Thus, the purpose of simple commodity production is the realization of use values, that is, the satisfaction of wants. In contrast, the purpose of the circulation of capital is the realization of exchange value. Of course, in this money-making process, if the capitalist ends up with the same money as he started with, the whole exercise would have been pointless. It would therefore be more accurate to say that the circulation of capital is the expansion of exchange value and the creation of surplus value. This is what Marx means by the valorization of capital, namely the increase in the value of capital assets through the application and production of value-forming

labor. Capital then is distinguished by its nature as self-reproducing wealth, money that begets money, value that creates more value. Therefore, as soon as money is directed at an activity that yields or promises to yield profit, that money becomes capital. That's the end of that long quotation. And with that, we have a solid conception of money, capital, the MCM formula, as well as what Marx meant by the valorization of capital. I'd like to once again give a shout out to Marxist.com where I found this helpful guide, and I'll link to it in the show notes as well for those who are interested. So another key concept from Marx's economic works is the notion of commodity fetishism.

This is a very frequently misunderstood concept, which is presented in capital. And in capital, Marx writes that, quote, a commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious and trivial thing, but its analysis brings out that is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and technical niceties, end quote. And so this is kind of how Marx introduces fetishism in relation to the commodity. So what are these subtleties? What is commodity fetishism? In order to understand this concept, we really need to first understand the sense in which Marx uses the word fetishism. So in contemporary usage, a fetish has a rather more sexual or explicit meaning, but Marx is

invoking a meaning of the term that is derived from anthropology. So, you know, when we think of fetish normally, we are thinking about something related to a parapheria. That's not at all what Marx is addressing here. So in anthropology, the term fetish refers to an object that is believed to have some sort of supernatural power contained within it. So what's important to understand here is that a fetish in the anthropological sense is something that is assumed to have these powers inherent within it. To put that maybe in a way that might be easier understand, these powers aren't seen as having been given to the object or instilled into the object that is the fetish. Rather, they are understood to exist as sort of innate aspects of

the fetish. In a sense, a fetish is seen to have an inherent supernatural value to it. So understanding the spiritual meaning of this term can give us some clues right to why Marx is talking about the theological niceties of the commodity. So this is the definition of fetish that we're working with. So what the hell does this have to do with commodities? So, you know, we can start trying to wrestle with what these theological niceties are that make the commodity go from something that's very easy to understand to something rather mysterious. So again, I'm going to turn to a quote from Dino Faluga's work, which is really, really helpful on this. He explains things fairly straightforwardly, writing, as Marx explains, the commodity

remains simple, as long as it is tied to its use value. When a piece of wood is turned into a table through human labor, its use value is clear. As a product, the table remains tied to its material use. However, as soon as the table emerges as a commodity, it changes into a thing which transcends sensuousness. So the connection of the actual hands of the laborer is severed as soon as the table is connected to money and becomes a thing of exchange, as the universal equivalent for exchange. So let's kind of try to break down that explanation with a little bit more detail. When I make a table for myself, I'm, you know, very profoundly aware of how much labor went into its production, right? Every time I use that table, I'm still going to understand it as a product of human labor, because after all, it was my own labor that produced it, right?

The use that it gives me is a constant reminder of the amount of labor that it took to make. At the same time, if I go to say IKEA to buy a table, I don't see the tables for sale as the products of human labor. I see their prices and I see them as commodities I can purchase with money, but the relationship between their value and the labor which produced them isn't immediately present to me. So, you know, just think about it, right? When you go into a store and you see commodities, you're not thinking like, oh, here's all the work that went into it to make them and give them the value that is reflected in the price that I'm going to pay for them. You totally kind of lose sight of all of those relations. So under capitalism, people generally view commodities this way. We tend to see value as something as inherent in commodities, and this tendency is made all the more extreme as a result of kind of a consumerist culture in which the commodities we consume are understood as science of social status rather than as products of labor.

So this tendency to see value as inherent in the commodity, rather than as a result of human labor, is what Marx means when he uses the term commodity fetishism. So the commodity becomes a fetish, and rather than having a supernatural value to it, it has value in the essence. economic sense. So commodities ought to be understood instead, right, as products of human relation, but instead we come to understand them in relation to money and exchange for other commodities. Marks writes that our interactions with commodities are therefore, quote, through the relations which the act of exchange establishes between the products, end quote. So unfortunately, like this view of commodities that develops out of commodity fetishism sees commodities through the lens of, you know, exchange, and it also warps our understanding of

sort of human relations and how we fit into them. Because money and exchange obscure or cover up the human labor involved in the production of commodities, we become incapable of seeing the social processes that brought commodities to us and which are necessary for exchange to occur at all. So Marx therefore writes that, quote, men are henceforth related to each other in their social process of production in a purely atomistic way. They become alienated because their own relations of production assume a material shape, which is independent of their control and their conscious individual action, end quote. So again, you may have heard with the concept of commodity fetishism. It gets read in a lot of different ways, the more common understanding, which is sort of

an incorrect reading of marks, and more based on that colloquial definition, is like an obsession with commodities. But it's not quite that. It's not. that we become obsessed or fetishized commodities in that sense. It is that we see commodities as having this innate value to them that obscures the actual relations which produce them, because we're seeing them through sort of this lens of exchange. So as commodity fetishism, hopefully that is a concept that can be a little helpful for you as well. All right, so now that we have kind of, you know, given you a bunch of terminology about political economy and some of the history. We usually end with a few questions and kind of discussions to try to open it up a little bit,

maybe making a less formulaic approach to things. So with that in mind, the first question that I have for you, Brett, is, you know, sort of broadly widens this matter, right? So a thing that we talk about a lot is about how Marxism is about revolution, right? So if Marxism is about revolution, then what does all this abstract economic analysis have to do with that project? Yeah. So, you know, to understand Marxist political economy is to understand the foundations of Marxist political theory, philosophy, and ultimately struggle. In Das Capital, Marx put forward the first and best analysis and critique of capitalism in human history, demystifying for the first time the laws and processes that led to its historical rise and domination of the globe. This foundational critique gave rise to

scientific socialism, separating socialist ideas from their utopian and moralizing beginnings, and giving all subsequent anti-capitalist struggles a firm scientific footing. And even those on the left who reject Marxism as a science use the Marxist comprehension and critique of capitalism as their starting point. Up until Marx, all capitalist political economy operated sort of within the logic of capitalism itself, articulating its dynamics, defending it as a system, arguing over different forms of taxation, etc. What Marx and Engels were able to do was to take a meta-perspecting, on capitalism, and analyze it from a historical perspective, detailing how it arose out of

slavery and feudalism, how it functioned to dominate and exploit the working class, and pointing toward its inevitable historical downfall, and in the process annihilating all attempts to naturalize capitalism as synonymous with human nature or as the end-all be-all of economic systems. In order to cure a disease, one must have a proper diagnosis of the problem. If you subscribe to the miasma theory of illness instead of the germ theory, you will have no idea how to understand or cure viral infections. In a similar way, if we lack a proper diagnosis of capitalism, we simply won't be able to formulate a proper cure, successful proletarian revolution. This is why all world historical proletarian revolutions that were actually able to challenge capitalism and imperialism on a global stage were rooted in a Marxist understanding of what capitalism was and how it function. Even today, if one wishes to understand the world around them, the resurgent fascism, the incompetencies of the bourgeois state, the cyclical recessions and depressions, the massive inequality, the poverty wages, the homelessness and health care crisis, the neoliberal era as a whole, the mass extinction events and climate chaos, one is led back to the source of all of this misery, capitalism itself.

This is why intelligent liberals, many of whom reject socialism and Marxism explicitly, are increasingly being forced to identify capitalism as the primary problem, even against their own ingrained commitment to liberalism. You can only deny that the sky is blue for so long. Eventually the truth of it imposes itself upon you, whether you want to see it or not. Marx's analysis of capitalist political economy only increases in importance with time, and, beyond a shadow of a doubt, will continue until humanity has transcended capitalism altogether. As much of the rulers of this dying world want to mock, suppress, or reject the truth that Marx unveiled,

the new world still wants to be born, and Marx gives us the tools to be its midwife. All right. Allison, I have a question for you. We often hear this distinction, right? We'll talk about Marxism or Marxian economics, somebody like Professor Richard Wolf, who does good work and who is referenced, I referenced earlier in this episode, is often called a Marxian economist, right? So what's the difference there? And is there an issue with the form?

Or how would you parse those two terms? Sure, yeah. So especially when you dive into the political economy ends of things, you start to see this distinction a lot, right? You start to see a lot of people who call themselves Marxian economists rather than Marxists. So Wolf, I think, is like the example that most people will be familiar with. So there's a couple of things to sort of think about. in terms of where this distinction comes from and whether or not it's semantic or refers to some

actual content distinction. So on some level, right, what the people who go by Marxian are trying to do is position themselves within the academy in a certain sense. Most of the people who are using this are academics, they are scholars, rather than full-time professional organizers. So that is sort of one place that we could see it developing. So why would people in the academy be interested in using this term Marxian versus Marxist? Well, you know, there's several reasons for that. So Marxism, obviously, while right now kind of is gaining popularity as a concept, as Brett was talking about, even liberals are starting to have to wrestle with it a little bit as we move into areas of crisis. There were also periods in U.S. history with much more extreme

repression where identifying as a Marxist would get you in a bit more trouble. And so Marxian sort of began to gain some popularity among economists in the academy in particular as a way of saying, I look at the world through Marxist view of capitalism as laid out in his political economy, but I'm not necessarily involved in advocating for or organizing a Marxist revolution, right? So part of it was perhaps a claim to legitimacy. Part of it was a perhaps sort of defense mechanism against repression within the academy. And on some level, we can understand why that would happen, right? You know, academics are interested in producing knowledge, producing their own works,

and those works can be very helpful to the movement, but they often are not extremely involved in the on-the-ground revolutionary struggle. And so differentiating themselves from that a little bit could make sense as a preservation technique. So to some extent, you know, there is kind of a semantic difference where it is a way of reframing things in a more acceptable way. But I also, you know, worry, and I think one thing we should push back against, is that there is a concern with the content of the distinction as well. So to pretend that you can separate Marx's analysis sort of of economics from his revolutionary theory is to kind of sell short a lot of his economics, right? This kind of ties back to what you were just saying about the relationship

between revolution and economics, but the Marxist theory of revolution can't be disentangled from the Marxist view of political economy, right? Why is it that the proletariat is the revolutionary class? It's because of a political analysis that Marx has made of the two core classes of capitalism and the way that the proletarian is uniquely situated to fight back against capitalism because of insights that come from political economy. So the conclusion of Marxist political economy is essentially a revolutionary conclusion. And so this is where things get tricky, right? If people

want to use Marxian as a term to kind of separate themselves off from Marxism as an ideology and as a revolutionary struggle, I think that they sell Marxism a little bit short. And it's not quite that easy. It's hard to look at the world through a Marxian lens and not conclude in a revolutionary direction. In fact, if you take Marx's political economy seriously, you are forced to confront the fact that capitalism is in a constant state of crisis and constantly on the verge of partial collapse and only is able to resolve that through forms of brutality from the state as well as from private interests. And it's a little bit difficult to look

at those insights from political economy and be like, and I don't think capitalism should be overthrown or gotten rid of, right? That is a difficult position to put yourself in to a certain extent. So when thinking about the Marxian versus Marxist divide, I think it's important to push back against the idea that the economics is separable from the rest of it. The conclusions regarding revolution within Marxism are informed by the economics. And the economics is also informed by a historical materialist lens. Some of what we've gotten into in this episode is the way that political economy at its core is about grappling with changes in society and historical developments. And if that's what we're really wrestling with, we can't separate Marx's more concrete economic ideas such as the

tendency of the rate of profit to fall, the value form, or commodity fetishism from broader questions like historical materialism. Because all of them are wrestling with the same fundamental thing, which is change in society and change in economic conditions. And in order to do that, you need both the economic, the political, and the philosophical, all simultaneously with each other. So to the extent that, you know, Marxian versus Marxist, has a difference, I think we should push back against the Marxian framing. And we should insist that Marxism is comprehensive and that you can't just take part of it

and ignore the politically inconvenient conclusions, because those conclusions are inseparable from the economic analysis. Yeah, absolutely. Incredibly well said. And with that, it marks the end of this introduction to Marxist political economy. Next month, instead of going back to current events, since we've done a lot of that lately, we're going to go back to text. We're going to do political theory. And Allison, would you like to inform our listeners of what the next text will be, and then take us out? Yeah. So the next text is going to be philosophical trends in the feminist movement by honor Rada Gandhi, whose sort of name within the cadre was Avanti, she was a member of the Communist Party

of India Maoist and was a part of the Naxalite rebellion, and published this text that's a really interesting overview of kind of different sorts of feminism, recognizing both their strengths and their weaknesses in criticizing sort of bourgeois approaches to feminism. It's generally understood to be kind of a core text of proletarian feminism and of a Maoist perspective on feminism. So we're going to cover that because that is sort of a direction that has also been undercovered, I think, on our show so far. And we're going to try to dive into that a little bit. So if you want, you can find that work online. Just a quick Google.

We'll bring up multiple versions of it. There's a PDF available of it on Marxist.org, of course. And you can absolutely go ahead and start reading along. It's a little over 100 pages. It's a pretty easy to tackle text, I think, if you take the time with it. So go ahead and get going on that if you're interested in reading along for our next episode. As always, we are super thankful for all of your support. Like we said, we've kind of gotten off of our formula of alternating between current events

and theory because of the fact that the world has just been such a wild place recently, and we've had to try to deal with that. And we appreciate that even as things get so crazy, that you all are, you know, interest in what we have to say in supporting us, and it means a lot to us. So like Brett said, if you want, you can find us on Patreon where we have additional bonus episodes that usually are additional content or Q&As where we clarify things and go into more depth beyond the main episode. Either way, you can also find us on Twitter, and if you would be willing to share the episode, pass it around, help it get out as an educational resource to people, that would mean a lot to us.

Because we put time into this, and what matters to us is that that time is going to building a stronger movement and educating people in Marxism so that they can go out and fight to change the world. And that is our goal. So we thank you all so much for your support, and we will see you next month. when we finally get back to an actual breakdown of a theoretical text. You know, I'm going to be able to be, you know,

I'm going to We're going to be able to be.