An Introduction To Marx’s Capital—Part-1 (This is based on “Marx’s Capital” written by Ben Fine and Alfredo Saad-Filho)

(In view of the ongoing slow growth or no growth of the economies of the advanced capitalist countries like USA and European countries and the warning of the IMF that the world economy is likely to face crisis in 2012, a realisation is slowly creeping that this slowdown and crisis is not the creation of the wrong economic policies of the Governments, but the capitalist system’s structure itself is the cause of the crisis and the alternative is to build a new social order. This context is raising the questions-what is capitalism, why there are crises in capitalism, what are the possibilities for an alternative to capitalism?

For those  wanting to find answers to these questions, the best thing is to read and understand the book “Capital” written by Karl Marx. But it is in 3 volumes, altogether about 1800 pages and it takes special effort to read and understand it. Most of the people who are Marxists ideologically (including me) have not read these 3 volumes of Marx, but understood it to what ever possible extent, by reading small books introducing what Marx said in his book “Capital”. Recently I found  a good book introducing Marx’s “Capital”. It is “Marx’s Capital” written by two professors of economics-Ben Fine and Alfredo Saad-Filho. From today onwards I am reading this book and what I understood by reading this book, I am presenting in this series of blog entries starting from today. -----P. Asokababu)

Before reading this book ‘Marx’s Capital”, let us know the life history of Karl Marx briefly.

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was born on 5-5-1818 in the city of Trier in Germany. His father was a lawyer, a Jew, who in 1824 adopted Protestantism (a branch of Christianity). The family was well to do, but not revolutionary. Marx was educated in the best universities in Germany at that time-Bonn and Berlin. He studied law, history and philosophy and obtained doctorate in philosophy. At that time he was inspired by the great German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich  Hegel(1770-1831) and his philosophical view was idealism (means idea is the cause and mover of the world). Later he turned to materialism (means the world and the society is the cause and mover of the idea), inspired by another German philosopher Feurbach. Marx became radical in ideology. In 1842 he became editor-in-chief of a journal “Rheinische Zeitung” and because of the radical views of the journal, the Government suppressed it. While working as thee editor of this journal, he found that he was not sufficiently equipped with an understanding on economics (political economy) and decided to study it. In 1843 he  married Jenny Von Westphalen, belonging to a Prussian noble family. She was his childhood friend with whom he was engaged while still a student.

In the same year 1843 marx shifted to Paris(France) in order to publish a radical journal from there. Only one issue of this journal was published and it was stopped due to the difficulties in distributing it secretly in Germany. His article in this journal showed that he was already a revolutionary. In 1844, Frederick Engels, a German,  came to Paris and became close friend of Marx. They both took active part in the revolutionary groups in Paris at that time. At the insistence of the German Government, he was banished from Paris in 1845. He went to Brussels(Belgium). On the outbreak of the revolution in February 1848, Marx was banished from Belgium. He returned to Paris, and then to Germany. But he was banished by the German Government. Then he went to paris. From there also he was banished. Then he went to London, where he lived until his death.  In London he dedicated his life for studying the capitalist system and organizing the working class internationally.

Marx’s book ‘Capital” was in 3 volumes. The first volume was published in 1867 when Marx was alive. But the second and third volumes were published in 1885 and in 1894respectively. Both the volume_II and volume-III were prepared by Engels, based on the notes left by Marx.

Marx’s  wife died on 2^nd December 1881 and he died on 14^th march 1883. He lies buried next to his wife at the Highgate Cemetery in London. Of Marx’s children some died in London due to absolute poverty. Three daughters were married to English and French socialists.

Marx thus lead a hard and difficult life in exile, for the sake of a cause. His wife  Jenny, who came from a noble family, encouraged him in his struggle and faced all the difficulties.

Marx was a genius who continued and enriched the three main ideological currents of the 19^th century, represented by the three most advanced countries of thee world at that time—classical German philosophy, classical English political economy and classical French Socialism combined wih French revolutionary doctrines in general. (This life sketch of Marx was based on Lenin’s book “Karl Marx”)

Tomorrow, We will start to read and understand the book “Marx’s Capital” written by Ben Fine and Alfredo Saad-Filho.