Marx clarifies why he started the manuscript with a critique of Darimon and his theories. We have now arrived at the basic question, which is no longer connected with our point of departure. The general question is: is it possible to revolutionise the existing relations of production and the corresponding relations of distribution by means of changes in the instrument of circulation—changes in the organisation of circulation? A further question: can such a transformation of circulation be accomplished without touching the existing relations of production and the social relations based on them ..read more

The ‘Introduction’ (‘Enleitung’) was written at the end of August 1857, a month or so before Marx wrote the actual 1857-58 Manuscript itself. Although it is an important text, it is not easy to say what it is the ‘introduction’ to, exactly. The 1857-58 Manuscript was never intended for publication, but seems to have been an exercise whereby Marx could set out his ideas in written form. The ‘Introduction’ is clearly not an introduction to this manuscript. When Marx did publish a version of his economic theories, at least in part, in the form of the 1857 Contribution to a Critique of Political E ..read more

This short text, which Marx apparently wrote in July 1857 (which makes it the first text included in the Manuscript of 1857-58―the text(s) we know today as the Grundrisse), is titled (by Marx) ‘Bastiat. Harmonies Économiques. 2 édit. Paris. 1851.’ The reference is to the work (Harmonies Économiques) of the French liberal economist and ardent supporter of free trade and laissez-faire Fédéric Bastiat (1850-1851). * * * The history of political economy, Marx tells us, begins, at the end of the seventeenth century, with Petty and Boisguillebert, and ends with Ricardo and Sismondi. The subsequent l ..read more

Ricardo reminds us that we have seen that ‘[t]he profits of stock in different employments hav[e] been shown to bear a proportion to each other, and to have a tendency to vary all in the same degree and in the same direction.’ In this chapter, therefore, ‘it remains for us to consider what is the cause of the permanent variations in the rate of profit, and the consequent permanent alterations in the rate of interest.’ The price of corn is determined by the amount of labour necessary to produce it on the land that pays no rent. The price of the product that is produced on this land, likewise th ..read more

The natural price of labour is ‘that price which is necessary to enable the labourers, one with another, to subsist and to perpetuate their race, without either increase or diminution.’ Subsistence is of course a function of the real wage: ‘[t]he power of the labourer to support himself, and the family which may be necessary to keep up the number of labourers, does not depend on the quantity of money which he may receive for wages, but on the quantity of food, necessaries, and conveniences become essential to him from habit, which that money will purchase.’ Given the subsistence real wage, the ..read more

Ricardo turns his attention to the effect of demand and supply. Although the ‘foundation of value’ of commodities is the quantity of labour necessary for their production, ‘[i]n the ordinary course of events, there is no commodity which continues for any length of time to be supplied precisely in that degree of abundance, which the wants and wishes of mankind require, and therefore there is none which is not subject to accidental and temporary variations of price. But these variations are self-correcting. ‘Whilst every man is free to employ his capital where he pleases, he will naturally seek ..read more

Metals (for example) are produced by nature, but are extracted by labour. Like agricultural land, mines tend to pay a rent; as in the case of agricultural land, the rent of mines is the effect, and not the cause, of the price of the product. Again as in the case of agricultural land, were there an abundance of mines of the same degree of fertility, there would be no rent: the price of the product would depend on the amount of labour required for its extraction and bringing it to market. But, given that there exist mines of varying productivity, the poorest (least productive, highest cost) mine ..read more

Ricardo opens: ‘It remains […] to be considered whether the appropriation of land, and the consequent creation of rent, will occasion any variation in the relative value of commodities, independently of the quantity of labour necessary to production.’ The ultimate object of Ricardo’s enquiry is thus not rent as such, but the effect of rent on relative prices. But what is rent? ‘Rent is that portion of the produce of the earth, which is paid to the landlord for the use of the original and indestructible powers of the soil.’ However, ‘It is often[…] confounded with the interest and profit of cap ..read more

I  ‘Value in use’ and ‘value in exchange’ Ricardo notes Adam Smith’s distinction between ‘value in use’ and ‘value in exchange’, and comments: Utility […] is not the measure of exchangeable value, although it is absolutely essential to it. If a commodity were in no way useful […] it would be destitute of exchangeable value, however scarce it might be, or whatever quantity of labour might be necessary to procure it. (Notice Ricardo’s use of the term ‘exchangeable value’; value, for Ricardo, is value in exchange, i.e. relative price: Marx’s ‘exchange value’.) II  The two sources of v ..read more

Like my glossaries for volumes 1 and 2, this glossary of volume 3 of Marx’s Capital has been produced principally for purposes of self-clarification. It is thus not exhaustive of the volume’s terms and concepts, but it does try to deal with some of the most important of them. It is ‘interpretative’ in the sense that the definitions given are my recapitulated interpretations of what I think the terms mean, rather than direct textual citations of what Marx says or implies they mean (even if, given that the glossary has been prepared from my own reading notes, I may in places more or less closely ..read more