Li Yiping/Wen Our study of economic classics should start from Marxist economics, and the core classic of Marxist economics is "Capital", which is broad and profound, and its theoretical and academic significance is very far-reaching.
Writing of Capital
Karl Marx was born on 5 May 1818 in Trier, Rhine, Prussia, to a wealthy Jewish family of lawyers (died 14 March 1883). Although Marx's father intended to train his son to follow the path of academics or officials, he sent him to the Universities of Bonn and Berlin to study law. But he himself loves philosophy and history. After graduating from university, from 1842 to the beginning of 1843, Marx worked for the Rheinische Zeitung. The Rheinische Zeitung, a newspaper run by the bourgeois democrats of the Rhine region, which focused on the material life of the working people and exposed the darkness of the Prussian government, was shut down in April 1843. This experience made Marx feel the urgent need for economics and prompted him to study economics. Marx once said that concern for the material interests of working people "is the first motivating force for me to study economic problems."
From 1843 to 1867, Marx changed his manuscript several times with a strong sense of mission, and finally wrote the great "Capital". Chronic poverty and heavy work have seriously damaged Marx's health, and on the eve of the publication of the first volume of Capital, he said in a letter to a friend, "I have been hovering on the edge of the grave. As a result, I had to use every moment I could still work to complete my writings, for which I had sacrificed my health, happiness, and family. ”
Among Marx's whole theories, economic thought is the most central idea. Lenin once commented: "It is his economic theory that makes marx's theory the most profound, comprehensive and exhaustive proof and application." Marx's economic thought is epitomized in his three volumes of Capital and in a series of manuscripts prepared for the writing of Capital and the Theory of Surplus Value. The three volumes of Capital are also called the theoretical part of Capital, and the Theory of Surplus Value is Marx's reading notes for the purpose of writing Capital, also known as the historical part of Capital.
During Marx's lifetime, only the first volume of Capital was published on 25 July 1867, the remaining two volumes were compiled by Engels after his death, the second volume was published in September 1885 and the third volume in 1894, and the Theory of Surplus Value was published by Kautz from 1905 to 1910.
Karl Heinrich Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was the founder of Marxism, a German Jew, politician, philosopher, economist, revolutionary theoretician, and his main works were Capital and The Communist Manifesto.
Introduction to the contents of Capital
The theoretical part of Capital consists of three volumes, centered on the layers of "capital", the subtitle of the first volume is "The Production Process of Capital", which consists of 7 chapters and 25 chapters. In the first volume, Marx argued that "commodities are the economic 'cell' of capitalist society." He studied commodities and money, studied the actual operation of industrial capital, and established the labor theory of value and the theory of surplus value. Capitalist socialized production is characterized by expanded reproduction, and it is a connotative expansion of reproduction led by innovation (capitalists must take the lead in the pursuit of excess surplus value), which is the continuous improvement of the organic composition of capital, becoming more and more mechanized and modernized. The development of capitalist society is to expropriate the dispossessors and establish a "free association of men". The subtitle of the second volume of Capital is "The Process of the Circulation of Capital". This volume first examines the three forms of capital, namely, the cycle of money capital, productive capital, and commodity capital. The condition for the normal circulation of capital is the succession of the three forms of capital in time and the coexistence of space. The second is "capital turnover", which studies how to improve the turnover efficiency or use efficiency of total prepaid capital. Finally, "the reproduction and circulation of total social capital", the study of the sum of individual capitals that are interdependent and mutually conditional, that is, under what conditions can total social capital be sold and bought smoothly, that is, the conditions for the smooth reproduction of total social capital, also known as the realization theory of Marxist economics. If the commodity cannot be sold or the currency cannot be recovered, it will lead to the bankruptcy of the enterprise. The subtitle of the third volume of Capital is "The General Process of Capitalist Production" and consists of 7 chapters with a total of 52 chapters. Volume III examines how value is converted into the price of production, how surplus value is converted into profit, and how profit is converted into average profit, and examines the division of surplus value. Marx put forward in the third volume of Capital on the mechanism of the formation of average profits, on the theory of absolute rent and differential rent, on how agriculture is transformed from extensive operation to intensive operation under the condition of changes in resource constraints, on the theory of credit and virtual capital, on the theory that the joint-stock company is only the "transition point" from capitalism to socialism, on the theory that merchant capital and usury capital play different roles in different social backgrounds. It is very instructive for us to understand the actual economic operation.
On the basis of a flat introduction to the composition and related contents of the volumes of Capital, we should also focus on the issue of "capital" vertically and deeply, and we should also focus on the relevant topics for more detailed introduction and study.
Objects of study of Capital
For a science, the object of study and the method of research are very important. With regard to the object of study of Capital, Marx said: "What I want to study in this book is the capitalist mode of production and the relations of production and exchange corresponding to it." The so-called mode of production is to produce products or commodities in what form of organization and the combination of production factors. In Marx's pen, the product of labor, as a commodity, is a product of history, that is, at a certain historical stage, the self-sufficient product of labor becomes a commodity that can be exchanged.
The capitalist mode of production mentioned by Marx here refers to the capitalist social form of production, that is, the combination of wage labor and capital, the distribution of factors through the market, and the fruits of labor are expressed as commodities containing surplus value. Marx's political economy studied the level of institutions, institutions, and production organizations, and the relations of production determined by the mode of production (Western economics studied the technical level). Marx emphasized that "until now, the typical place of this mode of production has been England". Because the capitalism and market economy in Britain were the most developed at that time, only by going deep into it and personally perceiving it could we profoundly reveal the causes, characteristics and trends of the capitalist mode of production, so classical economics also arose in Britain. In this sense, contemporary China's reform and opening up, vigorous economic and construction development have also provided a vast fertile land for the development of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics.
Regarding the methods of political economy, Marx wrote: "The analysis of economic forms cannot be done with either microscopes or chemical agents, and both must be replaced by abstract forces. Here, the political economy that Marx is talking about is not a natural science, and it cannot be used in the natural science and laboratory methods, but it is necessary to go deep into reality, grasp a large number of materials, explore the essence through phenomena, dissect contradictions, analyze the cellular morphology of the economy, and then form concepts and categories, and reveal their internal connections. Abstraction requires wisdom. Abstraction is not a mathematical model, it also requires material, trivial descriptions, and abstractions from the road to simplicity.
Proceeding from the actual situation, not practicing dogmatism, and developing Marxist political economy in solving practical problems is the most valuable method for Marx to study economics, and it is of great practical significance for us to develop, construct, and develop socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics.
Commodity and Labor Theory of Value
"Commodities" are the economic cells of capitalist society and the logical starting point of Capital. The title of the first chapter of the first volume of Capital is "Commodities", and the first paragraph is "The social wealth in which the capitalist mode of production dominates, manifested as a 'great accumulation of commodities', and the individual commodities appear in the elemental form of this wealth." So that's where our research starts." Starting from the commodity, the economic cell of capitalist society, Marx founded the labor theory of value and built a theoretical system with great strength and logic on the basis of the labor theory of value.
Marx believed that the product of labor became a commodity because of the social division of labor. The social division of labor is the division of labor between different subjects of property rights, that is, the division of labor between different market entities, and what links the two is exchange. Commodities have use value and value. Use value is the attribute of commodities to meet social needs, and to commodity producers is the material bearer of value. Value is ordinary human labor condensed in commodities. The quantity of value is determined by the necessary working hours of society. Labor creates wealth, and this is Marx's labor theory of value.
Marx believed that the success of commodity exchange was very important, otherwise it would be only imaginary value and imaginary profit for commodity producers. Only the success of the exchange can become de facto value, de facto profit. However, since what commodity producers produce and how much they produce are self-determined, whether they meet the needs of society must be tested by the market. Marx called this exchange of fates for commodity producers a "thrilling leap." If you can't jump over it, it is not the commodity that is broken, but the commodity producers themselves.
When money appeared, Marx said, "Commodities always have to fall in love with money, but the road to true love is by no means smooth." Commodities and commodity production are the concentrated embodiment of the quality of enterprises: the location of the industrial chain, the mode of production, the innovation ability of enterprises, enterprise management, corporate culture, the fate of enterprises, etc., can all be reflected through commodities, the economic cells of capitalist society.
The exchange must have clear property rights. Marx, in Chapter II of The First Volume of Capital, "The Process of Exchange," devoted himself to the question of property rights. Marx wrote: "Commodities cannot go to the market by themselves, they cannot exchange themselves. Therefore, we must find its guardian, the owner of the goods. ”
Marx emphasized, "One side can only give up its own goods and possess other people's goods only through the unanimous will of both sides, so that they must recognize each other as private owners." This legal relationship in the form of a contract (whether or not it is fixed by law) is a will relationship that reflects economic relations: "private property rights, which is Marx's concept of property rights in commodity production and commodity exchange." Marx believed that in the case of public ownership, that is, in what he called the "association of free men", there is no commodity-money relationship. The development of the market economy under the socialist system is a great creation of the Chinese Communists to proceed from China's reality.
Marx's Theory of Money
Proceeding from commodity exchange, Marx pointed out that money is a special commodity that is differentiated from commodity exchange and fixed as a general equivalent. As a commodity, money is valuable. Because the precious metal is uniform in texture, easy to divide and easy to carry, it is the most suitable as a monetary material. As precious metals wear and tear as monetary materials in circulation, credit currencies are gradually produced. Credit currency is just a "mark".
Marx wrote: "The metal content of silver or copper marks is arbitrarily prescribed by law. They wear out faster in circulation than gold coins. Thus, their minting function is in fact completely irrelevant to their weight, that is, to any value. The existence of gold is completely separated from its value entity. Thus, things that are relatively worthless, such as paper notes, can replace the function of coinage. ”
That is to say, paper money itself has no value, but is circulated by the credit of the issuer, on behalf of precious metal money, so that "the special law of paper money circulation can only arise from the relationship that paper money is the representative of gold." This law is simply put: the issuance of paper money is limited to the actual amount of gold (or silver) it symbolically represents. ”
Marx emphasized: "If the paper money in all circulation channels today has reached the saturation level of money that the channel can absorb, tomorrow paper money will flood with changes in the circulation of commodities." All limits are gone. "Indiscriminate issuance of paper money is not worth much, the credibility of the issuer of paper money will fall to the ground, and there will be serious financial and economic risks." Marx's theory of money tells us that paper money issued is not capital, and if the paper money printed by the bank is capital, there is no country in the world that lacks capital, unless the bank cannot even print paper money.
The theory of surplus value
If the labor theory of value is the basis of Capital, then the theory of surplus value, which aims to reveal the exploitation of workers by capital, is at the heart of Capital. Through historical investigation and theoretical analysis, Marx pointed out that when labor-power becomes a commodity, it creates conditions for money to become capital. Money as money is not the same as money as capital. When money-capital purchases the means of production and labour-power, it begins capitalist production, i.e., the production of surplus-value.
From the point of view of creating surplus value, Marx distinguished capital into constant capital and variable capital. Constant capital, which is the capital of the capitalists to purchase the means of production, the value of which is transferred to the new commodity in stages or at one time through the labour of the wage-labourers, is an invariant, a condition for the production of surplus-value. Variable capital is the capital that capitalists use to buy labor. Labor can create not only its own value, but also surplus value, is a variable, and is the true source of the production of surplus value. Capitalist wages are monetary manifestations of the value of labor.
Marx divided the production of surplus-value into the production of absolute surplus-value and the production of relative surplus-value. Absolute surplus-value increases the surplus-value rate by extending the surplus-time by extending the surplus-time when the productivity of labor remains unchanged and thus the necessary labor-time unchanged. The other is the production of relative surplus-value, in which the productivity of labor is increased through innovation, the necessary labor time is shortened, and the surplus labor time is extended accordingly in order to obtain more surplus-value mode of production.
Marx described the production of relative surplus value in great detail. Under the external pressure of the internal impulse to pursue surplus value and fierce market competition, there are always individual capitalists who take the lead in innovating, breaking the existing balance and obtaining excess surplus value. Other capitalists have kept up, socio-economic and technological development has risen to a new level, and excess profits have ceased to exist. Someone else breaks the new equilibrium, and other capitalists follow suit, and so on, and so on, with no end in sight. Marx wrote: "The capitalists who adopt the improved mode of production can take a larger part of a working day as surplus labour than the rest of the capitalists in the same trade." What he does individually is what the capitalists as a whole do in the production of relative surplus-value.
But, on the other hand, this excess surplus-value disappears when the new mode of production is universally adopted, and thus the difference between the individual and social values of the commodities produced more cheaply disappears. The law by which value is determined by labour-time will both make the capitalist, adopting a new method, feel that he must sell his own commodity below the social value of the commodity, and, as a coercive law of competition, compel his competitors to adopt also new modes of production."
When Marx spoke of innovation, he meant that "the technical and social conditions of the labor process must be changed, so as to change the mode of production itself in order to increase the productivity of labor..." Without the change of social conditions, it is difficult to have technological innovation.
The primitive accumulation of capital, on the other hand, is the enclosure movement, the expropriation of the peasantry, the expropriation of the private owners who depend on their own labour for their livelihood, and the preparation of the conditions for capitalist production.
(The author is a professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Economics, Chinese Min University)