Karl Marx's Capital

From the works of Karl Marx, Capital it is the main platform on which he built the foundation of his economic and political doctrine. The German philosopher, as main theorist of communism, he will be responsible for the creation of one of the basic ideologies of the XIX and XX centuries that he founded through his influences on German philosophy, French socialism, and political economy English.

Next, in this lesson from unPROFESOR.com we are going to see a short summary of Capital by Karl Marx, a work in which he worked for most of his life and which is fundamental in political economy.

Capital -criticism of political economy- is a work in which Marx worked for almost forty years, trying to reel off the primordial characteristics of the capitalist mode of production and its relations of circulation and production.

Work is divided into four volumes, the first being published in 1867. The other two appeared after the death of Marx, in 1885 and 1894, taking charge of their organization and publication.

The objective of this work is to carry out a description of the capitalist economic system from its origins to a predictable end, being a compendium of subjects among which are economics, history, philosophy and politics.

In this other lesson we will discover the Karl Marx thought so you can delve better into their ideology.

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The first volume of The Capital of Karl Marx is the best known of all and deals with the capital production process. In it, one of the elementary theories in the German philosopher begins to take shape: that in capitalism the Ownership of the means of production is controlled by the bourgeoisie, while labor is carried out by the proletariat.

Within Karl Marx's Capital there are a series of basic concepts:

• On production of goods and its value, indicates that the capitalist system transforms everything into merchandise and that the labor force that produces them, exchanges and buys them like other merchandise, forgetting that behind it is man: the proletariat. This focuses his efforts on producing merchandise and the sale of it generates profits for the capitalist.
• The difference between the goods they buy and those they sell is the surplus value or surplus value, where capital accumulation is based. The capital gain it would be the surplus value of the unpaid labor of the salaried worker, which the capitalist keeps for free. The means that are used to increase the surplus value appear through the duration of the working day, with the increase in productivity or by the reduction of the worker's salary.
• In surplus value is the foundation of capitalist exploitation and alienation of the proletariat and social inequalities. Alienation increases when the worker assumes it as natural.
• Marx points out that economics should not distance itself from public morality and politics, understanding it alone in terms of production without taking into account the exploitation of workers and the concentration of wealth. The capitalists are the only possessors of capital and the workers only have their labor power, reproducing the production of goods in capitalist social relations. In this situation of poverty of the workers we would find the main source of the class struggle between proletarians and owners.
• Regarding the capital circulation process, Marx describes how the market works, its dependence on the agents that develop in it and of the regulations that are used to control the vagaries of the same and to tackle the problems that arise. Capital, by its very structure, tends to accumulate, with more and more money to invest in labor power. Furthermore, competition is constituted as a dispute between capitalists, which gives rise to an ever greater capital concentration in fewer people, so that the number of capitalists decreases, passing the surplus to be proletariat.
• About him money, Marx studies his role as a mediator in the exchange and measurement of values. In its function as a simple mediator, it becomes an end in itself: money produces more money, becoming capital. Its value is determined by the cost of producing gold, measured by the amount of socially necessary labor. The quantity of money does not determine the price level, but it is the price level that determines the quantity of money. Furthermore, he refers to the interest rate as the rental price of money, depending on the supply and demand of loanable funds and the type of profit.
• On the other hand, he claims that crisis of capitalism It would be related to the overproduction of the factories added to a population that does not have the resources to acquire what is produced. In addition, these would have the future bankruptcy due to massive mechanization, since the machines cannot be exploited like the workers, so this would be the bankruptcy of the companies.

Therefore, Marx points out in Capital the relationship between exploitation of labor and capitalism, between alignment and valorization of capital, also underlining that the contradiction between capital and labor is the result of history and can be overcome through action and class struggle.

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