Capital -The Highest Stage of Methodological Revolution

Abstract

Capital Vol. I is the terminal point of the life-long evolution of Marx’s methodology. For this respect, besides the factual and theoretical material provided, the methodology of Capital is also important. This method is not systemic dialectical method and hence concepts in Capital does not follow a pre-determined logical path. On the contrary, the analysis in Capital starts with the analysis of the most observable and the smallest entity; commodity. In this analytical flow, through traversing the peculiarities of generalised exchange, the specificity of money is defined. Thenceforth, the transformation of money into capital is elaborated. At this juncture, capital in the form of money has to meet with another special commodity, the labour power and capital passes into the hidden abode of production. The main objective of money capital in initiating the turnover of industrial capital is self-valorisation. In this process, the exceptional quality of the use value of the labor power steps in. Among all the commodities entering into production process as inputs, only labor power has the capacity to transfer more value than it has into the value of commodity. Detecting this exceptionality, Mars surpasses the boundaries of bourgeois political economy. Thus, the true origins of both surplus value and its alienated form, profit, are unfolded at the same instant. From this point on, Marx analysed the imperatives of extended capital accumulation. This analytical flow and the methodology which is embedded in this flow no doubt directs us to consent to the argument that Capital itself marks a methodological revolution. Some characteristics of the methodology in Capital no doubt reinforces this conclusion. First, Marx accomplished a simultaneous critique of both bourgeois political economy and capitalism without drawing a demarcation line between two. Second, the concepts used by Marx are not abstract which imitates the objective dynamics, rather they are “concrete” concepts. Third, instead of deriving the concepts logically, Marx imposes each concept when the need occurs and he substantiates these concepts from the actual capitalism.