Full Description
This book is focused on production and its relations. It argues for the primacy of economic over extra-economic processes, and of production and production relations over other aspects of the economic realm. It explores how production relations of capitalism and imperialism fetter the development of the productive forces of nature and wage-labour and hinder state's ability to solve the problems produced by capitalism. It covers a wide range of political-economic issues including commodity production, class differentiation, fundamental traits of capitalist production (including its uneven and combined development), capitalist state, and the impoverishment of common people and their struggle against the capitalist mode of production.
Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Figures and Tables
1 Introduction
1 The Political Context
2 The Theoretical Context
3 Overview
2 Marx and Engels' The Communist Manifesto: Class Relations, Global Capitalism, Workers' Conditions and Revolutionary Politics
1 Class Relations and the State across Class Societies
2 Capitalist Economic System and World Market
3 Capitalism, Culture and the State
4 Workers' Experience of Exploitation and Its Effects
5 Workers' Struggle within and against Capitalism
6 Conclusion
3 Marx's Introduction to Grundrisse: Primacy of Production over Distribution, Exchange and Consumption
1 Production as a Moment of the Economic Realm
2 Distribution, Exchange and Consumption as Moments of the Economic Realm
3 Production's Primacy over Other Moments of the Economic Realm
4 Implications of the Primacy of Production for Contemporary Debates in Political Economy
5 Conclusion
4 Marx's Introduction to Grundrisse: the Relation of the Economic Realm to the Political and the Cultural Realms
1 Conception of the Producing Individual in Relation to Society
2 The Relation of the Economic to the Political
3 The Relation of the Economic to the Cultural
4 Conclusion
5 Marx's 1859 Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
Fettering of Productive Forces by Social Relations, and Questions of Labour and Nature
1 Marx (and Engels) on Fettering of Productive Forces by Production Relations
2 Existing Interpretations of Marx's Concept of Fettering
3 A Partial Critique of Existing Interpretations of Marx's Concept of Fettering
4 Towards an Integrative Perspective on Fettering for Today's World
5 Conclusion
6 Marx's Capital Volume 1: Relations of Property, Commodity and Value, and the State
1 Property Relations of Class Society, and the State
2 Property Relations of Capitalist Class Society, and the State
3 Capitalist Commodity and Value Relations, and the State
4 Conclusion
7 Marx's Capital Volume 1: Capital Circuit, Capitalist Accumulation, and the State
1 The M-C (MP + LP) and the C'-M' Phases of the Capital Circuit, and the State
2 The 'P' Phase of Capital Circuit, and the State
3 The Crisis-Ridden Capitalist Accumulation and the State
4 Conclusion
8 Marx's Capital Volume 1: Labour Circuit, Class Struggle, Economic Reforms, and the State
1 The Labour Circuit (C-M-C'-R-C) and the State's Pro-worker Interventions
2 Driving Forces behind the State's Pro-worker Measures
3 Limits to State's Pro-worker Interventions, and Why?
4 Conclusion
9 Lenin's Development of Capitalism in Russia and Other Economic Writings: Commodity Production, Class Differentiation, Capitalism, and Imperialism
1 What Is Political Economy, and How to Study It?
2 Commodity Production and Class Differentiation
3 Capitalism as the Highest Form of Commodity Production, and Its Social and Spatial Forms and Effects
4 Capitalism as a Transient Progressive Social Form Production
5 Capitalist (Super-)Exploitation, Economic Inequality, and Impoverishment
6 Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism, and National Exploitation
7 Workers' Struggle for Improvements within Capitalism, and for Socialism
8 Conclusion
10 Theoretical and Practical Implications of Marxist Political Economy
1 A General Map of Marx's and Lenin's Political Economy as a Field of Study
2 Political Economy of the Relation between the Economic and the Extra Economic
3 Political Economy of Class Society
4 Political Economy of Capitalist Class Society
5 Political Economy of Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism
6 Political Economy of the Progressive and Dark Sides of Capitalism/Imperialism
7 Political Economy of the Capitalist State
8 Political Economy of the Conditions of Workers and Petty Producers
9 Political Economy as a Guide to People's Struggle against Capitalism
Bibliography
Index
