From 1850 Marx focuses his research on political economy and the operating structures of the capitalist system: a hard work will lead eventually to Capital, whose first book was published in 1867. Marx sets this research as a "critique of political economy, is willing to depart from the classics, such as Smith and Ricardo (who also reworks some of the fundamental as the theory of labor value), and above all the bourgeois economy of his time . The latter describes with abstract categories - such as trading, profit, capital - phenomena whose existence can accept as a given. On the contrary - according to Marx - the task of the survey hernias - aching, is to go beyond "the appearance" of things, going 'phenomenal forms' in order to understand "the inner essence." Marx notes that "all science would be superfluous if the essence of things and their phenomenal form directly coincided." Capturing the essence of phenomena, that is, understand, means discovering the "internal connection" in this sense can be said that Marx's political economy is "the anatomy of society." But knowledge of this organism is not dissection may be a number of parties unrelated, but focusing on the dialectical relationships between the different categories in the whole-the whole.
Aaltra feature of Marx's method is to study capitalism's distinguishing of funds and without regard to secondary, in order to highlight the two structural characteristics and development trends, and then formulate, on it, some " predictions. "Given the" trend "of the laws found (you know that each counterweight ¬ trend can ask a counter-trend braking), they should not be confused with the" prophecies. "Tut ¬ ever, the lack of rigorous linguistic and conceptual Marx, who in this regard is now talk of "tendencies effettuantisi working with bronze and necessity "(" Preface "to the book I 1 Capital), or the fact that 'capitalist production itself creates its own negation with the inevitability that the phenomena of nature" means that the capital sem ¬ States as "a book of predictions about the future fate of modern capitalism ¬" and as such has been read by the workers' movement or by following Marx's critics, who have easily taken to "a text of prophecies wrong" . Note, finally, that capital is not just a book on economics. In fact, as Marx sees in the economic sphere, the key explanation of society as a whole the work is not intends to pursue the study of a segment of real life, isolated others, but as a photography critic of capitalist civilization understood as the overall structure.
goods, workers and capital gains
The specific feature of the capitalist mode of production, compared to that of the predecessor companies, according to Marx is to be widespread production of goods. Con ¬ sequence, the first part of Capital is devoted to analyzing the phenomenon of "goods." First, a commodity must have a "use value" in that it needs to serve some purpose, or be-useful, because no one buys something that does not meet certain ¬ born his needs, whether those needs "come from the stomach or by the imagination. " Second, a commodity, to be truly such, must have an exchange value, which ensures the ability to be exchanged for other goods. But what lies in the exchange value of goods? Mar, in the wake of the classical economists and the equation "value = work", he replies that it derives from the amount of labor socially necessary to produce the goods in question: more work is needed to produce it, the more it is worth. Note that the term 'socially necessary', the philosopher refers to the average social productivity of a given historical period: x is a commodity today, tomorrow it could be worth y, just by virtue of a change in the social media productivity. According to Marx, however, the value of a commodity not to be identified with the whole-of-its at. On the latter, in fact, affect other factors with quotas, such as the abundance or scarcity of the goods, which means that the price of a single commodity may exceed its actual value or be below it, although Marx is convinced that under normal conditions the sum total of the prices of goods existing in certain company is equivalent to the total amount of labor content in them, ie their value. Consequently, although the report of the market value does not ever feel pure, but always as the price, this is not the value, but has the value to their base. The belief that the root of all this are the work leads Marx to challenge the so-called "commodity fetishism", which is to consider the goods as the TY ¬ bodies having value in itself, forgetting that they are the result of ' human activity and certain social relations. According to Marx, the distinguishing feature of capitalism is the fact that it is not designed to produce consumption, but the accumulation of money. Consequently, the cycle of capitalism is not "simple"> prevalent in the pre ¬ bourgeois society can be described with the schematic formula (MDM-money-commodity goods). This formula, in fact, alludes double process by which a certain quantity of goods are transformed into ¬ between money and a certain amount of money is transformed back into a commodity (as in the case of a farmer who sells wheat to buy a dress), but the cycle eco ¬ nomic peculiar of capitalism is quite describable with the formula DMD '(dena ¬ ro-commodity-more money), as in bourgeois society we have a subject (¬ understood list), which invests money in a commodity to obtain in the end, more money than it has invested. But how can someone buy a product that gives him more money, and then - being the money equivalent of the value - more value? Where does this "more money, this "surplus"? At first glance the process of generating the surplus is a sort of "mystery." In fact, the surplus value (D ') can not come no money itself, which is simply a medium of exchange, or by the exchange because, in terms of social statistics, trade always occurs between equivalent values, so that the capitalist ¬ is acquired as a seller of goods should already have lost as buyer. For this reason, Marx is convinced that the source of surplus value should not be sought the level of the exchange of goods, but the level of capitalist production-the same. In bourgeois society, in fact, the capitalist has the opportunity to "buy" and "use" a particular market, which has the characteristic of producing the m-value: it is the "human merchandise", that is, metaphorically, of the worker. The heads ¬ talista buys his labor power as a paying any goods or second ¬ do the value corresponding to the amount of labor socially necessary to produce it: this value if the worker is equal to the resources that are necessary to live, work and create, or the so-called "salary". However, the worker - and this is the source of surplus value - has the ability to produce their work with a value far greater than what is paid with wages. The added value derives from the surplus labor of the worker and thus is identified with the overall value, he freely offered to the capitalist. With this theory, Marx is to provide a "scientific" explanation of capitalist exploitation, which he identifies with the possibility for the entrepreneur to use the force re ¬ work of others to their advantage. This is because the capitalist has the means of production, while the employee only has its own energy ¬ already working and is forced to live, to "sell" on the market in exchange for wages. Derives from the surplus value; steep. Surplus value and profit, for Marx, however, are not the same thing, as is sometimes improperly says, because the profit, even if the pre ¬ surplus does not coincide completely with it. To understand the rea ¬ I of this thesis is essential to bear in mind the distinction between Marxist 'variable capital (so named because it coincides with mobile capital invested in wages) and "constant capital" (which coincides with the capital invested in machinery and in all what the factory needs to function). Since the surplus arises only in respect to wages, ie the variable capital (because the higher the surplus labor, the greater the surplus value), the rate (or rate) of surplus value lies in the ratio, expressed as a percentage of surplus value and variable capital . But the capitalist, in order to manage the factory, is obliged to invest not only in wages (variable capital), but also in plants (constant capital). Therefore the rate of rent is not pro ¬ coincides with the rate of surplus value, but comes from the ratio, expressed as a percentage of the profit on the one hand and the sum of variable capital and constant capital, on the other.
Consequently, the rate of profit is always less than the rate of surplus value (as is evident by the vast size of the denominator) and expressed more precisely the gain of the capitalist.
Trends and contradictions of capitalism because capitalism is based on the DMD cycle ', the end of its structural most quan ¬ tity of possible capital gains. This means that capitalism pursues all avenues to achieve this, characterized as a type of society governed by the logic of private profit, rather than by the logic of the collective. ¬ tion outlining a description of the tragic background to capitalism, Marx looks at the different roads to turn into it in view of his autoaccrescimento, showing how this system produces a series of contradictions and difficulties which threaten the survival, preparing the future death ¬ ra. Let's look at some milestones in this process. At first the capitalist is looking for growth by increasing the added value of their work day ¬ born workers (Raising, say, 15 hours). But this expansion of time, while generating more surplus labor, and therefore greater added value, has AlCu ¬ ni impassable limits, because beyond a certain number of hours the workforce of the worker ceases to be productive. Rather than the extension of the working day (which Marx called "absolute surplus value), then the capital point that part of the reduction of working days to reinstate the wage (which M 'relative surplus value'). In other words, if the worker, rather than spend six hours to pay their king, it takes four, the capital gains pocketed by the capitalist will obviously be greater. Obviously, this can get only achieve greater productivity, and this follows the need for structural adjustment, capitalism, constantly introducing new and more efficient methods and tools which make it more productive mo.
Historically, the process of production of relative surplus value goes through three stages: 4
cooperation simple
4, the manufacturing;
4 large industry
The turning point of the capitalist mode of production is the birth of mechanized, with the introduction into the work cycle of the machine, namely the "most powerful means for the shortening of work", that can dramatically increase the quantity of goods produced at the same time with the same number of workers and thus provide more relative surplus value. Moreover, having no need of rest, the machines also allow you to increase the absolute surplus value, making possible the extension of the workday. Without taking into account that make it less strenuous work operations allows the capitalists to use the workforce of the children, cheaper and more docile. However, because of the increased productivity achieved through the use of machines generate the cyclical crises of overproduction. While over the centuries were caused precede the scarcity of goods (in turn caused by famines, epidemics, etc..), In capitalist society depend on a plethora of goods. Paradoxically, there is a crisis in capitalism, not because there is little movement in goods, but because there is too much. This is due to the so-called "anarchy of production, so the capitalists rush" blind "in areas where profit is highest, ensuring that at some point there is a surplus production to the needs of the market. Everything generates the crisis, which has as its concomitant effects is the destruction of capitalist property (often the very ones which would need the poorer classes, coffee, fruit, etc..), and unemployment, which shall accrue to what Marx called "the 'industrial reserve army. "The need, for capitalism, a continuous introduction of new technologies creates another structural problem: the falling tendency of the rate of profit. This expression shows that Marx's law for whose greater immeasurably constant capital (made by machinery and raw materials) to variable capital, or increasing what the philosopher calls "organic composition of capital" decreases to force the rate of profit. The law of falling tendency of the rate of profit is therefore equivalent to a law of diminishing returns, "discouraging" than capitalist investment. While some lists' causes antagonistic "to alleviate or slow the trend (such as the purchase of raw materials abroad at a price lower than that required in the country), Marx considers the law of falling profit as the trend of the real "Achilles heel" of the capitalist system, in the belief that this law is likely to delay but not prevent catastrophic exist for bourgeois society.
phenomena adding to the anarchy of production, and overproduction of free competition, the falling tendency of the rate of profit, according to Marx, the bourgeoisie, cause problems and ends up producing that final and decisive feature of capitalism that is the trend towards division of society into two classes antagonistic
Marx's vision is essentially dualistic, according to which at all times the company consist of two basic classes. Attributing less importance to the middle classes, this doctrine reflects fully in the opinion of Marx, the situation of advanced industrial capitalism, in which, following the phenomenon of competition on the one hand it creates a progressive "expropriation of many capitalists by few with the effect of a 'steady decrease of the magnates of capital and on the other hand, it forms a larger and larger mass of employees, employed and unemployed. Marx tends to the proposed final state of capitalism in dialectical terms: on the one hand, a minority of the industrial giant and the immense power and wealth the other used a proletarian majority. Given the international nature of capitalism, this situation tends to occur on a global scale, denouncing the maximum reached by the contradiction that underlies all the other contradictions of capitalism: the contrast between the productive forces and the more social character of private law relations of production and ownership. Hence the famous epilogue of Book I of Capital:
Centralization of the means of production and socialization of labor reach a point where
become incompatible with their capitalist shell. And it is broken. He plays the last hour of capitalist private property. The espropriatoci are expropriated.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COMMUNISM AND SOCIALISM IN MARX AND HISTORY
When discussing using the same words but in different ways, there is a logomachy. One of the biggest, and worst, logomachy policy is when we speak of "socialism" and "communism". I think a few terms are (were) used so inappropriately, either by the person who is opposed both by those who put in a flag.
Therefore, first we have to define, that is, with as few words sum up the meaning of the terms that have been used millions, perhaps billions of times, but with varying meanings depending on who used them.
"Socialism" is the revolutionary transition from capitalism to communism, a society that is where the socialized means of production and implemented full employment ("who does not work, do not eat"), applies the principle "to each according to his work." The
"communism" is the next stage of socialism, in which, now abolished social classes and missing the contrast of mental and physical labor, the State is extinguished and becomes the guiding principle: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. "
Socialism is characterized, therefore, as a revolutionary society and transient, unconfined - choking penalty - within the borders of a country. Communism, a fortiori, it is a way of world production. Before
logical implication of historical these details. All the historical experiences that call to mind when you pronounce the word "socialism" and "communism" can actually refer exclusively to the first of them, socialism.
second implication. The "best" of these experiences can at best be regarded as attempts to build socialism. For example, the Paris Commune of 1871 was the first of these attempts, aborted in the bud by an immediate and ruthless counter-revolution. The Russian Revolution was the most sustained effort over time (1917-1924), which ended with the upper hand within the Bolshevik party, the forces of capitalist accumulation (Stalin) to those revolutionary (Trotsky, Bukharin, etc. Lenin died in 1924), justified by the theory of "socialism in one country."
In the vast majority of the discussions, rather logomachy, which are used in the aforesaid, the parties agree in advance not only their meaning, but neither hasten to control what they're actually discussing.
Therefore, we see continuous ceremonial funeral of "communism": that of a society that never would have died without ever coming to light! A "civilization buried ... before (yet) to have never existed!
As already stated, we can speak, so far, only history of attempts to build socialism. But it is clear to anyone who knows a minimum of history and current affairs, since they are not words that count but the facts, that the only two historical examples of this are the two first mentioned (the Paris Commune, the October revolution ). The
"Stalinism", the forced industrialization of Russia, the extermination of millions of peasants, of the same old guard Bolshevik of the gulag, etc.. neither of the tomb is not socialism nor communism, but are over the counter-revolution of capitalism and state experiment most radical and courageous for the establishment of socialism in a backward country and was, unfortunately, isolated. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the collapse Russian empire, are the precondition for a resumption of the march of world socialist revolution.
And Mao's China, then? Here, too, must meet a minimum of history, not to speak nonsense. The true revolutionary and socialist attempts have taken place in several Chinese cities in the years between 1925 and 1927, all nipped in the bud in the blood. The peasant movement, led by Mao Zedong, began in 1928, starting just from the countryside, as a movement of national struggle against the invading Japanese. Through the epic story (but not only), including the legendary "Long March (1934-35), managed to oust the Japanese, also taking advantage of their defeat in World War II. In 1949 he formed the People's Republic of China, based on a "new kind of democracy" and the bloc of four classes (peasants, workers, industrialists, businessmen). As is revealed by the same name ("popular"), has never been a socialist republic, despite the show by Mao and his followers of a pseudo-revolutionary phraseology. The subsequent history repeats, in other forms, the dramatic events of capitalist Russia, with the kit for millions of deaths in the country and continue to purge the top of the party and state, but without ever being passed, even for a day, the antechamber of socialism. The China of today presents itself in the domestic market, with the note "openness" to private property (which has never been abolished) and economic liberalism (read: super-exploitation of the unprecedented labor), and the external field, as the most formidable competitor for the imperial hegemony of the U.S. waning.
As explained, by the way, the transition to "market rules" both in Russia and in China, after decades of ironclad "conducting" state? In both cases, without the necessary distinctions, state capitalism, once sold out his military duties of 'primitive accumulation and promoted the industrial take-off, with the consequent development monopolistic economy, had to make way for the state monopoly capitalism that is, the state of the socialization of costs and privatization profits that were beginning to pour massive (Chinese Russian oil and steel). This is the true nature of the transition from "direct" to "liberalism." So, nothing to do with the problems of socialism, but with those of capitalist modes of production similar to those of the West, on which were erected with particular traits and social formations, each with differing fates: while Russia receded, due to dell'autonomizzazione centers peripheral accumulation of his empire, China sweep, having kept intact the national economic units, thanks to the most colossal mechanism of exploitation of labor power (and the extraction of absolute surplus value) never seen before in the history capitalism (before which the horrors of the industrial revolution English pale).
For others, residues, cases of "ill-called socialism" (Cuba, North Korea, etc..), Let the reader simply the effort to study the history and socio-economic realities of these countries to verify the statements and reports their leaders to the principles of socialism summarized in the introduction. Unless (you walk the beat heavy) you do not want to confuse socialism (women?) With sex tourism ... Notwithstanding that, of course, this clear, we are always on the side of Cuba and all other oppressed country against the U.S. and other imperialists. Finally. Socialism, As a first step to communism, was twice tried in earnest to implement it (regardless of the revolutions nipped in the bud), other times it is smuggled to entice the masses to swallow the bitter pill of colossal and tragic in the primitive accumulation ' auspices of state capitalism.
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