Theories Of Surplus Value

Theories of Surplus Value is a book that, unlike Marx, actually needs an introduction. Theories was intended to be collected and published as the fourth volume to Marx's Capital, but after Engels had successfully collected and published volumes two and three after Marx's death, Engels died before he could publish it. Theories has had a long history of being in-and-out of publication, and particularly in-and-out of being an actually accessible publication. In 1905, the infamously-hated-by-Lenin Karl Kautsky, published the first edition of the manuscript in three volumes separated and rearranged by Adam Smith in volume one, to David Ricardo in the other two volumes, with the breakup of the Ricardian school as the third volume. Kautsy's version circulated in print and was translated to many languages over the decades, remaining the sole version of Theories until The Institute of Marxism-Leninism published a new German version. This arrangement, while still relatively close to Kautsy's narrative arrangement of tracing surplus value from Smith to the Ricardian split into "vulgar economics," annotated the manuscript with different topic headings. This version was then translated into English by Progress Publishers and this is the version of the book which circulates today and is considered to be the most accurate version to Marx's notebooks. This Radical Reprint by Pattern Books is made to be accessible and as close to only manufacturing cost as possible. This third volume of Theories of Surplus Value covers the confusion between the concepts of commodity and capital, constant and variable capital and over-production, the problem of the relativizing the categories of value and equivalence, John Stuart Mill's reduction of Ricardian's economic theories, and the reductions of surplus-value into profit theory, and, as Marx continually says, its descent into being "vulgar political economy." These three volumes, in totality, are to show how the classical theories of value led to a theory stuck within the market paradigm and caught in the loop of capitalist circularity. For Marx, the current ontology of political economy only ruled within the scope of pragmatism within the market system, and these programs no longer offered any integrated theory of capitalism.

Theories of Surplus Value is a book that, unlike Marx, actually needs an introduction. Theories was intended to be collected and published as the fourth volume to Marx's Capital, but after Engels had successfully collected and published volumes two and three after Marx's death, Engels died before he could publish it. Theories has had a long history of being in-and-out of publication, and particularly in-and-out of being an actually accessible publication. In 1905, the infamously-hated-by-Lenin Karl Kautsky, published the first edition of the manuscript in three volumes separated and rearranged by Adam Smith in volume one, to David Ricardo in the other two volumes, with the breakup of the Ricardian school as the third volume. Kautsy's version circulated in print and was translated to many languages over the decades, remaining the sole version of Theories until The Institute of Marxism-Leninism published a new German version. This arrangement, while still relatively close to Kautsy's narrative arrangement of tracing surplus value from Smith to the Ricardian split into "vulgar economics," annotated the manuscript with different topic headings. This version was then translated into English by Progress Publishers and this is the version of the book which circulates today and is considered to be the most accurate version to Marx's notebooks. This Radical Reprint by Pattern Books is made to be accessible and as close to only manufacturing cost as possible. This second volume of Theories of Surplus Value covers Smith, Ricardo, and Rodbertus' theories of rent, to the theory of cost-price, to growth and productivity in agricultural labor, to extensive diagrams on rent and the influence of machines. These three volumes, in totality, are to show how the classical theories of value led to a theory stuck within the market paradigm and caught in the loop of capitalist circularity. For Marx, the current ontology of political economy only ruled within the scope of pragmatism within the market system, and these programs no longer offered any integrated theory of capitalism.

Theories of Surplus Value is a book that, unlike Marx, actually needs an introduction. Theories was intended to be collected and published as the fourth volume to Marx's Capital, but after Engels had successfully collected and published volumes two and three after Marx's death, Engels died before he could publish it. Theories has had a long history of being in-and-out of publication, and particularly in-and-out of being an actually accessible publication. In 1905, the infamously-hated-by-Lenin Karl Kautsky, published the first edition of the manuscript in three volumes separated and rearranged by Adam Smith in volume one, to David Ricardo in the other two volumes, with the breakup of the Ricardian school as the third volume. Kautsy's version circulated in print and was translated to many languages over the decades, remaining the sole version of Theories until The Institute of Marxism-Leninism published a new German version. This arrangement, while still relatively close to Kautsy's narrative arrangement of tracing surplus value from Smith to the Ricardian split into "vulgar economics," annotated the manuscript with different topic headings. This version was then translated into English by Progress Publishers and this is the version of the book which circulates today and is considered to be the most accurate version to Marx's notebooks. This Radical Reprint by Pattern Books is made to be accessible and as close to only manufacturing cost as possible. This first volume of Theories of Surplus Value covers the origins of surplus value, to clarifying confusion between value and material substance, to Adam Smith's definitions of value and the contradictions of Smith's idea on value and profit, to another extrapolation on circulation within and by capitalist production and the process of reproduction. These three volumes, in totality, are to show how the classical theories of value led to a theory stuck within the market paradigm and caught in the loop of capitalist circularity. For Marx, the current ontology of political economy only ruled within the scope of pragmatism within the market system, and these programs no longer offered any integrated theory of capitalism.

In the Nineteenth-century, English textile workers responded to the introduction of new technologies on the factory floor by smashing them to bits. For years the Luddites roamed the English countryside, practicing drills and manoeuvres that they would later deploy on unsuspecting machines. The movement has been derided by scholars as a backwards-looking and ultimately ineffectual effort to stem the march of history; for Gavin Mueller, the movement gets at the heart of the antagonistic relationship between all workers, including us today, and the so-called progressive gains secured by new technologies. The luddites weren't primitive and they are still a force, however unconsciously, in the workplaces of the twenty-first century world. Breaking Things at Work is an innovative rethinking of labour and machines, leaping from textile mills to algorithms, from existentially threatened knife cutters of rural Germany to surveillance-evading truckers driving across the continental United States. Mueller argues that the future stability and empowerment of working-class movements will depend on subverting these technologies and preventing their spread wherever possible. The task is intimidating, but the seeds of this resistance are already present in the neo-Luddite efforts of hackers, pirates, and dark web users who are challenging surveillance and control, often through older systems of communication technology.

A lively, accessible, and timely guide to Marxist economics for those who want to understand and dismantle the world of the 1%. Economists regularly promote Capitalism as the greatest system ever to grace the planet. With the same breath, they implore us to leave the job of understanding the magical powers of the market to the “experts.” Despite the efforts of these mainstream commentators to convince us otherwise, many of us have begun to question why this system has produced such vast inequality and wanton disregard for its own environmental destruction. This book offers answers to exactly these questions on their own terms: in the form of a radical economic theory. “Thier’s urgently needed book strips away jargon to make Marx’s essential work accessible to today’s diverse mass movements.” —Sarah Leonard, contributing editor to The Nation “A great book for proletarian chain-breaking.” —Rob Larson, author of Bit Tyrants: The Political Economy of Silicon Valley “Thier unpacks the mystery of capitalist inequality with lucid and accessible prose . . . . We will need books like A People’s Guide to help us make sense of the root causes of the financial crises that shape so many of our struggles today.” —Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership “Ranging from exploitation at work to the operations of modern finance, this book takes the reader through a fine-tuned introduction to Marx’s analysis of the modern economy . . . . Thier combines theoretical explanation with contemporary examples to illuminate the inner workings of capitalism . . . . Reminds us of the urgent need for alternatives to a crisis-ridden system.” —David McNally, author of Blood and Money

This ambitious book presents a comprehensive new 'macro-monetary' interpretation of Marx’s logical method in Capital, based on substantial textual evidence, and concludes that, contrary to the prevailing view, there is no 'transformation problem' in Marx’s theory of prices of production in Volume III.