Having experienced numerous summaries by much more credible authors , it was a surprise to read such an accessible and concise introduction to Marx by a British journalist. Wheen’s book is divided into 3 parts: “Gestation” (the formative years), “Birth” (of Capital Volume 1), and “Afterlife” (history since).
--“Gestation” really brings Marx to life, weaving together key concepts in his development:
1) Historical Materialism:
2) Roots in German philosophy, French politics, and English economics.
3) 1858 plan for 6 volumes on political economy
i) Capital (intro)
ii) Landed property
iii) Wage labor
iv) State*
v) International trade*
vi) World market*
--“Birth” dives into Capital Volume 1:
1) The conceptualization of capitalism begins with a commodity universe, exploring this abstraction to find use-value vs. exchange value, the Labour Theory of Value (LTV) through socially required labor-time,2 types of labour to match the 2 types of of values, and the abstraction of social labour relations into exchangeable items. This Frankenstein essence of commodification is represented by Wheen.
2) C-M-C (commodity-money-commodity) commodity2) C-M-C (commodity-money-commodity) commodity exchange in which money is expended on acquiring the use value of another commodity actually resembles small producers. The rising Industrial Capitalism becomes M-C-M', where money is invested, i.e. "advanced" instead of expended, where the return of more money M' is the end in itself. "Capital" is generated by this phase of advancing cash for more money.
3) Surplus value can not typically come from unequal trade, because buyers are also sellers. The surplus value comes from labour force, a special asset itself. Capitalists only need to pay enough for the social reproduction of labour, and surplus value is produced by the remaining unpaid labour.
4) Immiseration thesis: rise in productivity leads to rise in relative size of the Industrial Reserve Army (relative surplus population). Workers are displaced by automation (structural unemployment), refuting a Supply/Demand equilibrium.
5) Business cycles: commercial crisis of overproduction, where the only counter is to destroy some capital and/or expand markets (thus greater future crises).
6) Dialectics… or having it both ways?
a) Real-world capitalism is full of contradictions; thus, studies must be sufficiently versatile to both correctly characterise and synthesise micro-events with macro-events. Also for Marx's rich yet inaccessible presentation style, Wheen provides useful meaning.
b) Wheen then considers the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall (TRPF), where mechanization (constant capital) replaces labor power (variable capital) and the decrease in labor power (according to Labor Theory of Value) means decreased surplus value.
c) While Marx does change as he evolves with his research/real world conditions, Wheen also points to specific movements where Marx seems to hedge his bets, particularly around predicting future crises and theorizing a final crisis.
--“Afterlife”: all issues with the final section:
1) Although Marxism in the advanced capitalist countries dwindled into reformism, it flourished in backward Russia. The Narodniks theorised that they should question rigid historical law and leapfrog over the process of privatization/capitalist industrialization, because Russia already had an embryonic agrarian communal structure. When the “Agrarian Question” was posed to Marx in 1881, he replied with difficulty that the bourgeoisie phase “‘is expressly limited to the countries of Western Europe’”, i.e. transitioning from one type of private property (feudalism) to another (capitalism).
2) Wheen further illustrates the struggles of Marx with his long-held belief in revolution by collective action under conditions of adequate material efficiency compared to the clandestine operations taking place in backward Russia, framing it as the rising impatience of Marx.
Wheen seems rigidly set on not even giving one mention to imperialism and its overwhelming layers of aggression and strangulation for anyone who emphasises real-world contradictions, following the economised interpretation of Marxism conveniently common in the Western Capitalist Left.
3) On the domestic level, Wheen does manage to consider the limitations of the academic Western Left, and finishes with the relevance of Marx in the uneven geographies of 21st century globalization and financialization.
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