[finds the book isn't clear appetizer, not a…]
Socialist Organiser1983 1983-01-20Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 11 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
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finds the book isn't clear appetizer, not a substitute s/he doesn't know where for the real thing.
Mary Wilkins reviews 'Kapital for Beginners' 'MARX's Capital for In some ways the book is Beginners', , like the other volumes in the series, attempts to provide simple explanation of the subject, extensively illustrated with pictures and cartoons. It gives a brief biographical introduction, and explains key concepts in "Capital'; and it is very funny.
What's more, it ends with a glossary of important terms and a short biblioøranhy for further reading. good. One immediate point in its favour is that both the text and the illustrations attempt to be non-sexist. There are pictures of women manual workers, and the text refers to wage labourers as she/he.
More particularly, many of the concepts of Mat's analysis of capital are explained clearly, in a way which is easy to understand. The double life of the commodity as both use value and exchange value is of cheap labour as a means of driving down wages in the imperialist country.
However the book does have its weaknesses. At times it seems confusing -and confused. Sometimes it is just plain wrong, sometimes -from an excessive desire to simplify; for example, the statement that the production of commodities for exchange only happens in capitalism is too simple and ignores the importance of commodity production in European feudalism, for example.
These are perhaps relaenough. Marx is insistent that useful labour cannot be equated with abstract labour - you can't just pretend the two are the same. Useful labour is productive activity carried on with a definite aim, of a definite kind, whereas abstract labour, the substance of value is only apparent at the moment of exchange.
* Difficult • Admittedly, the book faces a difficult task in trying to explain what the rate of profit falls, but the volume of production and sales expand, then the capitalist continues to make a profit and capital continues to accumulate. For Marx, crises arise when commodities cannot be sold; when there is overproduction and snortage oI markets. Again, the book's attempt to simplify leads to a misrepresentation Marx.
Further errors could be mentioned: the identification of price and value; the description of commodities, money and capital as 'the Marx: not so obscure
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