Marx’s theory of capital in the history of economics: Marx’s concept of capital, classical school, Austrian School, and growth theory

Abstract

This was originally written in mid-2018 to celebrate the 200-year anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth. Its aim is to identify the position of Marx’s theory of capital in the history of economics. Thus, this article discusses Marx’s critical reception of his predecessors and the investigation after him. In this respect, Hicks’ distinction of capital theoreticians between “fundists” and “materialists” is useful. Marx’s view of capital shows several fundist characteristics in line with the classical economists preceding him. However, viewed from the materialistic perspective of capital theory, he had successors in the Russian planners of socialist centralized economy in the twentieth century. The peculiarity of Marx’s capital theory lies in its critical dimension, which supersedes the positivistic theorizing of ordinary economists. Marx would recognize the relationship of production that emerges out of the antagonistic split between subjective and objective elements (“primitive accumulation”). Thus, we must now ask if two centuries of mankind’s history has discovered a solution or made any progress in this respect.