The Real Movement

Part two

In part one of this series I emphasized the highly irregular, even dishonest, methods David Harvey employs in his introduction to Marx’s Capital, A Companion to Marx’s Capital. In particular, I called attention to Harvey’s use of the terms “a priori” and “cryptic” to characterize how Marx handles the fundamental categories of political economy, the critique of which is the project Marx undertook by writing Capital.

Since Capital is a critique of the theories of Marx’s contemporaries, it is not surprising that he begins with the categories already in place at the time he wrote his book. Harvey is essentially criticizing Marx for subjecting the categories of political economists like Ricardo, Malthus, Barbon, Mills and others to critical analysis, when this is precisely the project Marx had in mind when he began writing Capital.

When, for instance, Harvey criticizes Marx for making the ‘a priori’ assertion that the labor time required to produce commodities lay behind their exchange values, Harvey knows, or should know, that Marx is actually dismissing the argument of one school of political economists who claimed the values of commodities were expressions of their utility, i.e., of their capacity to satisfy human needs.

It is rather puzzling Harvey would call Marx’s argument that labor, not utility, gives commodities their values an  “a priori leap by way of assertion” unless he has another candidate for the job. In this part I will show that this is just Harvey’s motivation. Harvey does not think either labor or utility gives commodities their values; rather, Harvey is of the school that believes value itself is impossible until money has already emerged.

In Marx’s argument, money is just another commodity, while the value-form school believes value arises from exchange, not production. Thus exchange is necessary to reduce concrete particular use values into commodities. Knowingly or not, Harvey’s “Companion to Marx’s Capital” is a polemic against Marx’s Capital on behalf of the value-form school.

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Part One

People often ask me what current books I recommend to help them understand Marx’s Capital. My answer to this is almost always the same. There is to my understanding no book out there written by anyone I know that accurately presents Marx’s argument except his own book, Capital.

How is it that almost 150 years after the publication of Capital is there not a simple and accurate popularization of his fundamental ideas that I can point to? This can’t be because of the complexity of his ideas. Einstein’s theory is no less complex than Marx’s, but you can find many good and accurate popularizations of his fundamental theories. I don’t know anyone who has ever read Darwin’s Origin of Species, yet there are many good and accurate popularizations of Darwin’s ideas. The same can be said of Freud.

Most of the great scientific discoveries of the 19th century are now widely understood by everyone in society. What is it about Marx’s ideas that make them so resistant to accurate and simple popularization? My answer to this is that I really do not know.

My hesitation in recommending books that might help folks understand Marx’s argument in Capital is probably best exemplified by a close reading of a section of one of the most popular books and lecture series in circulation today: David Harvey’s Companion to Marx’s Capital. As I will show, this “companion” is anything but faithful to Marx’s argument.

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