Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1

Author: Works of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2001-04-12
Features: The author now hands over the volume to the readers. This work is a continuation of the author's "Critique of Political Economy," published in 1859. The content of the previous book is summarized in the chapter of this volume. This was done not only for coherence and completeness but also to improve the narrative style. Within the scope of the situation, many arguments only briefly mentioned in the previous book are further elaborated here, while those already detailed in the previous book are only briefly touched upon. The historical part of the value theory and monetary theory is naturally completely omitted here. However, readers of the previous book can find new historical material on these two theories in the notes of the chapter of this book.
As it is said, "A beginning is the most important part of the work." This holds true for every science. Therefore, the chapter of this book, particularly the analysis of commodities, is difficult to understand. The author has done his best to make the analysis of the value substance and the value magnitude as clear as possible. The value form with money as its completed form is extremely contentless and extremely simple. Yet, for two thousand years, human wisdom has made little progress in exploring this aspect, while the analysis of forms with more content and greater complexity has at least come close to success. Why is this? Because a developed body is easier to study than its cells. Moreover, analyzing economic forms cannot be done with a microscope or chemical reagents. Instead, abstract thought must replace both. For the bourgeois society, the commodity form of labor products or the value form of commodities is the cell form of the economy. In the eyes of the shallow, analyzing this form seems to be fussing over trivialities. Indeed, it is trivial, but it is the kind of triviality that microanatomy must address. Therefore, apart from the part on value forms, the book cannot be said to be difficult to understand. Of course, the author is referring to readers who want to learn something new and are willing to think for themselves.