Make value theory… just great!
M – C – M’. Contributions to the Critique of Political Economy is a review focussing on the critique of political economy. It aims to make available international contributions of high quality, elaborated in particular on the work of Marx. They have in common a reading of Marx, sometimes critical, with the aim of providing tools for revolutionary action in our societies where the capitalist mode of production reigns. It comes from the collective that runs the blog liremarx.noblogs.org
We elaborate this review by selecting articles from various academic and non-academic journals abroad. To do so, we cooperate with journals such as the New Left Review, Capital and Class and PROKLA as well as with their authors. We select articles that we feel are missing in the French debate on Marx and on the critique of political economy, but also from so-called « left » circles or anti-capitalist collectives in struggle. Defining our common objectives, questioning our revendications, thinking about the relationship between state and capital, between systemic exploitation and individual action are all compasses for our selections.
We have to admit that in France, the field of exchanges around Marxian work is rather small and polarised, and a simple glance across the Rhine, or across the Channel, is enough to make us blush, as there are so many publications. It is to make up for this lack, to open up this horizon of reflection, that we have set ourselves the objective of making these productions available in the form of a journal. It is indeed a question of providing ourselves with the elements that allow us to act in a revolutionary way in our present, far from any dogmatism of Marxism, in order to reach an analysis of the movement of capital and its consequences.
Why this name?
Movement of capital. Dance of death. M – C – M’ is the succession of metamorphoses in which the power that feeds on us, on our time, is housed. It is the movement that freezes and assigns us to economic functions, social roles, identities. This is the formula by which Karl Marx captures this movement and which he arrives at the beginning of Capital to « unveil the law of the economic evolution of modern society ». The seemingly magical metamorphosis of a certain amount of money M into commodities C, and then back into M, but with an increase in tears and blood: M’.
It is in this formula that the strength of the Marxian approach to political economy and its critique is condensed, a formula that condenses it without being reduced to it. There is in this formula as much the essence of Marx’s approach as it is of capitalism, with its strengths and limitations. It is – the analysis of capital as a movement.
Synonymous with capital, this formula is particularly representative of the gesture Marx makes in relation to political economy. We believe that understanding the functioning of contemporary capitalism is not an abstract or academic concern. The answers arrived at have immediate practical and political implications for any critical movement against capitalism. Secondly, it allows us to underline the specificity of our understanding of money. Indeed, money, the permanent existence of value in the whole economy, is only possible if value realises the movement M – C – M’. By choosing this formula as our title we are therefore specifically placing ourselves in the perspective of what is called a monetary theory of value.
To sum up, to consider that the Marxian theory of value has the specificity of being a monetary theory of value consists in affirming that commodity and value cannot exist, nor can they be grasped conceptually, without money. Money is therefore not something that stands next to the world of commodities, or that would be a convenient accessory; money is necessary for commodities to express their character of value, for all commodities to relate to each other as values. This also implies that commodity production and money are inseparable. Therefore, it is not possible, contrary to what some socialists thought, to abolish money while maintaining private production.
This has the immediate consequence of excluding from any conception of socialism utopian projections where value or money or wage labour would be maintained. It also implies a critical relation to cooperative projects that do not thematise the issues related to the commercialisation of goods produced through the market. As long as the market exists, the movement M – C – M’ can be realised, so production collectives are also subject to the capitalist constraints of production and exchange. And this is why Marxian theory is not just a critique of exploitation in the sense of a moral condemnation of the conditions of production.