150 Years of Das Kapital and No End in Sight. Unsystematic Remarks on a Never-Ending Story

Abstract

Michael Heinrich, one of the leading Marx scholars, provides a general introduction into Das Kapital with emphasis on the latest interpretations of it. The circumstances surrounding its writing and publication are shown to have interfered with an adequate appreciation of it. The formal structure and organization of the first volume are obstacles to readers and demand much from their education and intellect. The article summarizes the basic trajectories of Marx’s criticisms of political economy, including the critique of naturalizing social forms arising under capitalism and Marx’s original monetary theory of value. The author disentangles Marx’s Das Kapital from views mistakenly ascribed to it, such as the idea that value is determined solely by labor and the prediction of pauperization of the masses. First, Marx’s theory of value goes well beyond explaining prices under capitalism. Second, his main prophecy concerned the inevitable growth of inequality between the masters of capital and the employed classes and did not forecast impoverishment. The paper also points out that the sequence of publication of different volumes of Das Kapital caused lacunae in interpreting Marx’s oeuvre. For instance Engels’ efforts made the third volume more accessible to readers but also obscured the overall pattern of Marx’s thinking. the article shows that Das Kapital was a dynamic and fluctuating project to such an extent that Marx himself several times revisited his views of the causes of economic crises and falling profits and also intended to deal extensively with ecological issues. Reaching an adequate understanding of the theory contained in Das Kapital cannot depend on the manuscripts of those volumes alone. Marx’s notebooks, which have only recently published, are an indispensable aid to understanding it.