Marx’s Capital, by Ben Fine and Alfredo Saad-Filho

Abstract

Ben Fine and Alfredo Saad-Filho Marx's Capital, 5th edition, Pluto Press: London, 2010, 208 pp: 9780745330167 11.50 [pounds sterling] (pbk) The works of Karl Marx have been presented and popularised in different ways since the end of the 19th century. This book, Marx's Capital, in its fifth edition from Ben Fine and Alfredo Saad-Filho, is part of that effort, which has entered the new millennium with the goal of bringing Marx's economic thought closer to the general public. The special task of this new edition is to integrate topics that have gained worldwide attention since the 1970s, when the original text came out. Its aim is still to make a succinct but profound presentation of Marx's political economy in order to comprehend concrete issues that are rooted in the functioning of the capitalist system. It is a great endeavour for so few pages. Still, the book achieves its goal if one considers that the reader willing to make a more detailed analysis must proceed to further studies. The book deals with ali topics of the critique of political economy in fifteen chapters introduced by a preface. Besides contextualising this fifth edition, this presentation is very encouraging because it makes clear that the reader is not alone in his difficulties in the beginning of the studies of Capital. By pointing out various introductory references to the works of Karl Marx, Fine and Saad-Filho manage to create a positive atmosphere for debating different interpretations. One of the book's strongest points is, by the way, the indication of further references related to the topics presented in every section. All reading suggestions are put in the context of their controversies, and the book may also function as a compact organiser of the debates within Marxist economics. The structure of presentation follows the three volumes of Das Kapital. So the fundamental concepts are developed from the notion of the commodity, the labour theory of value and fetishism, up to the more complex and concrete levels about the interest rate and agricultural rent. In this fifth edition, Chapters 11, 12 and 14 have been revised, the list of recommended readings has been completely updated, and a whole new Chapter 15 has been written. The main concern in Chapters 11 and 12 is the distinction between the production and circulation spheres. This has theoretical implications for the notion of interest-bearing capital, because in practice, it is hard to establish with precision the transformation of capital from one form into another (industrial into merchant's capital and vice versa), as well as the transformation of money into capital. This difficulty is not well explored by Marxist economists, so we have an interesting attempt here to encourage research in this promising field. In Chapter 14, Fine and Saad-Filho react to some critiques against Marx's framework that are common in academia. Usually, the defense of Marxism can easily lead to dogmatism, but here it is remarkable how the arguments are well balanced. The authors manage to seriously tackle the attacks against Marxism and, at the same time, to explain how they do not invalidate Marx's method of analysis. For example, the idea that classes in contemporary capitalism are much more complex than the simple division of society in capitalists and wage workers is adequately rejected by the emphasis that this simplification is limited to a high level of abstraction. Other conflicting topics, such as the state, globalisation, the environment and socialism, are also analysed. …