Marx

To mark PPE@10 this post continues a series of posts to celebrate ten years of Progress in Political Economy (PPE) as a blog that has addressed the worldliness of critical political economy issues since 2014. 

From the beginning of February to the end of July this year the Past & Present Reading Group undertook a reading of Grundrisse. Meaning ‘rough plan’ or ‘draft’, Grundrisse is a series of seven notebooks written by Karl Marx between 1857-8. Unpublished in Marx’s lifetime, a defining feature of the work is its unfinished quality. Sprawling in nature at over 900 pages, any attempt to provide a precis of such a work would be a fool’s errand. So, given the acknowledged roughness of the text and, given also that the work formed the materials written in preparation for the more polished outcome of Capital, what is the value of reading this work? Why not just proceed directly to the finished product? In this short blog post I will provide a number of reasons why I think Grundrisse makes for compelling reading and should be read as part of a broader understanding of Marx’s work.

Before Capital and before Capital

The Value, Health and Radical Needs Reading Group spent 15 months slowly and carefully reading Karl Marx’s Grundrisse. The task was certainly daunting, but also intellectually rewarding in equal measure. Since in these notebooks Marx is clearly developing a logical method of presentation that he has yet to fully master, we found it particularly difficult to keep sight of the central theme of each of its sections. Some long paragraphs where Marx works up calculations, describes historical events or recounts the ideas of selected political economy authors were also admittedly challenging. As a result of our efforts at a reflective reading, we feel that we possess a deeper understanding of the inner workings of capitalist society. We now bring our new knowledge, in its collective character, to written form.

The post 4 Talking Points from Karl Marx’s Grundrisse appeared first on Progress in Political Economy (PPE).

I use word frequency to study the rise and fall of capitalist ideology.

The post Have We Passed Peak Capitalism? appeared first on Economics from the Top Down.