The genesis of capitalism in the thought of Karl Marx I

1
The genesis of capitalism in the thought of Karl
Marx I

• Lecture class Transition and Transition Debates
  in Global History, 15.03.06, David Mayer

2
Overview

• The intellectual context of the genesis of Marxs
  thought
• Philosophy of history
• commercialization theroy of the development of
  capitalism
• Introduction to Marxs conception of History and
  to some of Marxs general categories

3
Philosophy of history in 18th/19th century

• Context Enlightment, French Revolution,
  emergence of bourgeois society.
• History conceived as abstract and discrete
  category, representing a coherent process.
• History is intrinsic and functional.
• -gt realization of a preconceived destination
• (civic liberties and property rights)
• History as philosophers business -gt The
  underlying principles of reason are to be
  detected.

4
Stages under the sun of reason...
Rius, Introducing Marx, Cambridge 19995, 74
5
Human labour executing principles...

• Immanuel Kant (17241804)
• Reason as general principle of history acting
  in the background. General tendency towards the
  better interfered by human shortcomings.
• Georg Willhelm Hegel (17701831)
• History is the (dialectical) self-realization of
  the World Spirit.
• As a rational process, history is a record of
  the development of human freedom, for human
  history is a progression from less freedom to
  greater freedom.

6
Commercialization-model of the emergence of
capitalism

• Ellen Meiksins Wood, The origin of capitalism. A
  longer view, London/New York, 2002.
• Commercialization model (classical political
  economy)
• -gt capitalism is outcome of
• age-old and NATURAL human practice to truck,
  barter, and exchange (Adam Smith) -gt trade and
  markets
• evolving division of labour
• technical improvements (technological
  determinism)
• rising productivity
• obstacles for these developments removed
• -gt capitalism is the highest stage, THE
  commercial society

7
Division of labour as key in explaining social
transformations?
From Prospect 02/06
8
Marxs interpretation of history
Human labour IS the principle...
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General remarks

• No unitary Marxian notion of history
  fragmentary, complex, elastic.
• Starting point material (re-)production of
  social life by the human beings themselves.
• Three perspectives of the historical process
• Anthropogenetic outlook -gt self-realization of
  human nature
• Pragmatological oulook -gt practices of human
  beings
• Nomological outlook -gt laws of motion
• (Helmut Fleischer, Marxismus und Geschichte,
  Frankfurt a. Main 1969/ Helmut Fleischer, Marxism
  and History, Harmondsworth 1975)

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Anthropogenetic outlook

• The so-called early Marx (1840s)
• There is an intrinsic meaning to history human
  beings realize themselves in all their potential.
• There is a long intermediary phase to pass
  through a phase of ever increasing alienation.
• History so far is just prehistory.

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Pragmatological outlook

• Break with philosophy of history and telelogical
  thinking.
• History does nothing, it possesses no immense
  wealth, it wages no battles. It is man, real,
  living man who does all that, who possesses and
  fights history is not, as it were, a person
  apart, using man as a means to achieve its own
  aims history is nothing but the activity of man
  pursuing his aims.
• (Karl Marx/Friedrich Engels, The Holy Family,
  1845, in http//www.marxists.org/archive/marx/wor
  ks/1845/holy-family/ch06_2.htm)

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• Men make their own history, but they do not make
  it as they please they do not make it under
  self-selected circumstances, but under
  circumstances existing already, given and
  transmitted from the past. (Karl Marx, 18th
  Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, 1852, in
  http//www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18
  th-brumaire/ch01.htm)

13
Nomological outlook

• In the social production of their existence, men
  inevitably enter into definite relations, which
  are independent of their will, namely relations
  of production appropriate to a given stage in the
  development of their material forces of
  production. (Karl Marx, A Preface to the
  Critique of Political Economy, 1859, in
  http//www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/cr
  itique-pol-economy/preface.htm)

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Definite relations?

• General relations for human beings
• Humans lt-gt Nature
• Humans lt-gt labour process
• Humans lt-gt Humans
• Labour process as conditio humana
• metabolic interaction between human beings and
  nature in the everlasting nature-imposed
  condition of human existence.
• Meeting ends (Re-)producing subsistence in
  social-cooperation.

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Definite relations?

• Productive forces (Produktivkräfte productive
  powers) all the material and immaterial
  capacities at hand to realize the labour process.
• Means of production.
• Human labour-power and its knowledge.
• Social relations of production connect labour
  power and means of production in a specific way.
  -gt Who controls? Who possesses? Who commands the
  surplus labour?
• -gt Classes and class struggle.

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Modes of production
Mode of production
Productive forces
Social relations of production
Assumption In a viable socio-economic system the
productive forces must correspond to the social
relations of production.
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The course of world history or just a broad
outline?

• Asiatic
• Ancient
• Feudal
• Modern bourgeois
• mode of production?
• Each mode of production has its own laws of
  motion
• Transition from one mode to another by social
  revolutions
• The Focus is on social relations, the specific
  way of exploitation not technology or degree of
  exchange.

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WHAT is being socially produced?

• In general goods.
• In capitalism commodities
• The wealth of those societies in which the
  capitalist mode of production prevails, presents
  itself as an immense accumulation of
  commodities,its unit being a single commodity.
• (Karl Marx, Capital Vol. 1, in
  http//www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/cw/volu
  me35/index.htm)

19
From David Smith/Phil Evans, Marxs Kapital For
Beginners, London 1982, p. 30
20
The commodity as an oddity...
From David Smith/Phil Evans, Marxs Kapital For
Beginners, London 1982, p. 30