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Capital (Marxism)
Capital is a central concept in Marxian critique of political economy, and in Marxian thought more generally. Marxists view capital as a social relation reproduced by the continuous expenditure of wage labour. Labour and capital are viewed as historically specific forms of social relations. Marx stated that "''Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.''" See also * ''Property is theft!'' * Private property#Criticism * *Forms of capital in Marxism: ** Constant capital — Capital invested in the means of production. **Variable capital — Capital invested in labour power. ** **'' Monopoly Capital'' Key figures: * Robert Kurz * Moishe Postone * Roman Rosdolsky Roman Osipovich Rosdolsky (, ''Roman Osypovyč Rozdol's'kyj''; July 19, 1898 – October 20, 1967) was a prominent Ukrainian Marxian scholar, historian and political theorist. Rodolsky's book of 1968 entitled ''Zur Entstehungsgesch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marx
Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels), and his three-volume (1867–1894), a critique of classical political economy which employs his theory of historical materialism in an analysis of capitalism, in the culmination of his life's work. Marx's ideas and their subsequent development, collectively known as Marxism, have had enormous influence. Born in Trier in the Kingdom of Prussia, Marx studied at the universities of Bonn and Berlin, and received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Jena in 1841. A Young Hegelian, he was influenced by the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and both critiqued and developed Hegel's ideas in works such as '' The German Ideology'' (written 1846) and the '' Grundrisse'' (written 1857–1858). While in Paris, Marx wrote h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Critique Of Political Economy
Critique of political economy or simply the first critique of economy is a form of social critique that rejects the conventional ways of distributing resources. The critique also rejects what its advocates believe are unrealistic axioms, flawed historical assumptions, and taking conventional economic mechanisms as a given or as transhistorical (true for all human societies for all time). The critique asserts the conventional economy is merely one of many types of historically specific ways to distribute resources, which emerged along with modernity (post-Renaissance Western society). Critics of political economy do not necessarily aim to create their own theories regarding how to administer economies. Critics of economy commonly view "the economy" as a bundle of concepts and societal and normative practices, rather than being the result of any self-evident economic laws. Hence, they also tend to consider the views which are commonplace within the field of economics as faulty, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Relation
A social relation is the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences, and describes any voluntary or involuntary interpersonal relationship between two or more conspecifics within and/or between groups. The group can be a language or kinship group, a social institution or organization, an economic class, a nation, or gender. Social relations are derived from human behavioral ecology, and, as an aggregate, form a coherent social structure whose constituent parts are best understood relative to each other and to the social ecosystem as a whole. History Early inquiries into the nature of social relations featured in the work of sociologists such as Max Weber in his theory of social action, where social relationships composed of both positive (affiliative) and negative (agonistic) interactions represented opposing effects. Categorizing social interactions enables observational and other social research, such as Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft (), collective conscio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wage Labour
Wage labour (also wage labor in American English), usually referred to as paid work, paid employment, or paid labour, refers to the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer in which the worker sells their labour power under a formal or informal employment contract. These transactions usually occur in a labour market where wages or salaries are market-determined. In exchange for the money paid as wages (usual for short-term work-contracts) or salaries (in permanent employment contracts), the work product generally becomes the undifferentiated property of the employer. A wage labourer is a person whose primary means of income is from the selling of their labour in this way. Characteristics In modern mixed economies such as those of the OECD countries, it is the most common form of work arrangement. Although most labour is organised as per this structure, the wage work arrangements of CEOs, professional employees, and professional contract workers are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Property Is Theft!
Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, rent, sell, exchange, transfer, give away, or destroy it, or to exclude others from doing these things, as well as to perhaps abandon it; whereas regardless of the nature of the property, the owner thereof has the right to properly use it under the granted property rights. In economics and political economy, there are three broad forms of property: private property, public property, and collective property (or ''cooperative propert''y). Property may be jointly owned by more than one party equally or unequally, or according to simple or complex agreements; to distinguish ownership and easement from rent, there is an expectation that each party's will with regard to the property be clearly defined and unconditional.. The parties may expe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Private Property
Private property is a legal designation for the ownership of property by non-governmental Capacity (law), legal entities. Private property is distinguishable from public property, which is owned by a state entity, and from Collective ownership, collective or cooperative property, which is owned by one or more non-governmental entities. Private property is foundational to capitalism, an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. As a legal concept, private property is defined and enforced by a country's political system. History The first evidence of private property may date back to the Babylonians in 1800 BC, as evidenced by the archeological discovery of Plimpton 322, a clay tablet used for calculating property boundaries; however, written discussions of private property were not seen until the Persian Empire, and emerged in the Western tradition at least as far back as Plato. Before the 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constant And Variable Capital
Constant capital (c; ), is a concept created by Karl Marx and used in Marxian political economy. It refers to one of the forms of capital invested in production, which contrasts with variable capital (v; ). The distinction between constant and variable refers to an aspect of the economic role of factors of production in creating a new value. Constant capital includes (1) fixed assets, i.e. physical plant, machinery, land and buildings, (2) raw materials and ancillary operating expenses (including external services purchased), and (3) certain faux frais of production (incidental expenses). Variable capital, by contrast, refers to the capital outlay on labour costs insofar as they represent workers' earnings, the sum total of wages. The concept of constant vs. variable capital contrasts with that of fixed vs. circulating capital (used not only by Marx but by David Ricardo and other classical economists). The latter distinction corresponds to the very common distinction in econom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Means Of Production
In political philosophy, the means of production refers to the generally necessary assets and resources that enable a society to engage in production. While the exact resources encompassed in the term may vary, it is widely agreed to include the classical factors of production (land, labour, and capital) as well as the general infrastructure and capital goods necessary to reproduce stable levels of productivity. It can also be used as an abbreviation of the "means of production and distribution" which additionally includes the logistical distribution and delivery of products, generally through distributors; or as an abbreviation of the "means of production, distribution, and exchange" which further includes the exchange of distributed products, generally to consumers. The concept of "Means of Production" is used by researchers in various fields of study — including politics, economics, and sociology — to discuss, broadly, the relationship between anything that can have p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Labour Power
Labour power (; ) is the capacity to work, a key concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of capitalist political economy. Marx distinguished between the capacity to do the work, i.e. labour power, and the physical act of working, i.e. labour. Human labour power exists in any kind of society, but on what terms it is traded or combined with means of production to produce goods and services has historically varied greatly. The general idea of labour-power had existed previously in classical political economy. Adam Smith's ''The Wealth of Nations'' and David Ricardo's '' On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation'' already referred to the "productive powers of labour". However, Marx made the concept much more precise, critically examining the functions of labour-power in production, how labour-power is used, organized and exploited, and how it is typically valued and priced in bourgeois society. Under capitalism, according to Marx, the ''productive powers of labour'' a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monopoly Capital
''Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order'' is a 1966 book by the Marxian economists Paul Sweezy and Paul A. Baran. It was published by Monthly Review Press. It made a major contribution to Marxian theory by shifting attention from the assumption of a competitive economy to the monopolistic economy associated with the giant corporations that dominate the modern accumulation process. Their work played a leading role in the intellectual development of the New Left in the 1960s and 1970s. As a review in the ''American Economic Review'' stated, it represented "the first serious attempt to extend Marx’s model of competitive capitalism to the new conditions of monopoly capitalism." It attracted renewed attention following the Great Recession. Argument Big business can maintain setting prices at high levels while still competing to cut costs, advertise, and market their products. The actual and potential economic surplus generated exceeds the exist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Kurz (philosopher)
Robert Kurz (24 December 1943 – 18 July 2012) was a German philosopher, social critic, journalist and editor of the journal ''Exit!'' He was one of Germany's most prominent theorists of value criticism."Erneuerer des Marxismus: Robert Kurz ist tot" ''Spiegel Online''. 20 July 2012. Retrieved on 6 September 2012. Life and work Robert Kurz was born on 24 December 1943 in Nuremberg to a German working-class family. During his military service he was involved in pacifist propaganda and participated in the "Ostermärschen," protest marches against atomic weapons in the 1960s. Kurz studied philosophy, history and paedagogy at the university of Erlangen without taking a degree. He participated in the "student revolt" in 1968 and took par ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moishe Postone
Moishe Postone (17 April 1942 – 19 March 2018) was a Canadian historian, sociologist, political philosopher and social theorist. He was a professor of history at the University of Chicago, where he was part of the Committee on Jewish Studies. Life and career Postone was born on 17 April 1942, the son of a Canadian rabbi. He received his PhD from University of Frankfurt in 1983. His research interests included modern European intellectual history; social theory, especially critical theories of modernity; 20th-century Germany; antisemitism; and contemporary global transformations. He was co-editor with Craig Calhoun and Edward LiPuma of '' Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives'' and author of '' Time, Labor and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory''. He was also co-editor with Eric Santner of ''Catastrophe and Meaning: The Holocaust and the Twentieth Century'', a collection of essays that consider the meaning of the Holocaust in twentieth-century hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
