Most professionally trained neoclassical economists have never bothered to read Capital Volume 1—let alone know about the existence of its two companion theoretical volumes (2 and 3) and three historical volumes. While it’s generally advisable to refrain from speaking on topics one hasn’t deeply studied, bourgeois economics remains full of lively debates peppered with claims that begin: “But Marx didn’t account for [fill in the blank].”
This week on The Dialectic At Work, we examine these alleged “absences” in Marx’s Capital with Professor Richard Wolff. Since most such omissions stem from ignorance of Volumes 2 and 3, we’ll dedicate the next two to three episodes to these critical texts.
Recap: In our last discussion with Prof Wolff, we went over the structure of Capital Volume 1: the question of use-value, exchange-value, and Marx’s theory of surplus-value. We then zoomed into the site of the workplace and the working day, via an exploration of chapters 9 and 10 of the first volume. I also want to remind our audiences that in Season 1, we have already covered how Marx’s work in these chapters was extended and developed into a theory of class analysis by Richard Wolff and Stephen Resnick in their book Knowledge and Class.