How to Read Marx's Capital: Commentary and Explanations on the Beginning Chapters Paperback – August 23, 2021

Excellent writing and insights by Heinrich; excellent translation by Locascio. Marx himself is extremely well-read and intelligent and as clear a communicator of the material he presents as could be. He suffers from "philosopher's malady" though, I think: "They kick up a lot of dust, then complain they can't see anything."

Volume 1 of Capital is notoriously challenging for the newcomer, with its dual nature of the commodity and of labour, commodity fetishism, use value, exchange value and so much more. But workers today are used to extract surplus value [from which derive profits] just as they were in the mills and factories of Marx's era. The value that workers create in the sweatshops of south-east Asia and the call-centres of the UK is always less than the value of each worker's pay. For this reason alone Marx remains uniquely relevant and important. And capitalism is destroying the planet - so any book that helps us understand its workings is to be welcomed.That said, Heinrich's book is not for the newcomer; the argument is dense if not eye-watering. For a gentler approach try either "Understanding Marx's Capital" [Booth and Swell] or "A Reader's Guide to Marx's Capital" [Choonara].

Dr Heinrich provides an excellent close and rich reading of Capital Volume One, revealing all sorts of nuances in what remains an extraordinarily complex and cogent text. Of course myriad questions remain, e.g: if socially necessary labour time represents - simplistically - the average cost of keeping a worker alive in helping to produce a commodity for exchange is that socially necessary labour time also not reflected in an average price for that labour, I.e. food, lodging etc. In other words: is there a certain potential circularity of argument here where socially necessary labour time generates the value of a commodity in exchange but where the socially necessary labour time also has a price?Highly recommended!