Towards An Unknown Marx: A Commentary on the Manuscripts of 1861-63

by Enrique Dussel

Overview

This book is the first complete commentary on Marx's manuscripts of 1861-63, works that guide our understanding of fundamental concepts such as 'surplus-value' and 'production price'.

The recent publication of Marx's writings in their entirety has been a seminal event in Marxian scholarship. The hitherto unknown second draft of Volume 1 and first draft of Volume 3 of Capital, both published in the Manuscripts of 1861-63, now provide an important intermediate link between the Grundrisse and the final published editions of Capital. In this book, Enrique Dussel, one of the most original Marxist philosophers in the world today, provides an authoritative and detailed commentary on the manuscripts of 1861-63.

The main points which Dussel emphasises in this path-breaking work are:

• The fundamental category in Marx's theory is 'living labour' which exists outside of capital and which capital must subsume in order to produce surplus-value
• Theories of Surplus Value is not a historical survey of previous theories, but rather a 'critical confrontation' through which Marx developed new categories for his own theory
• The most important new categories developed in this manuscript are related to the 'forms of appearance' of surplus value.

The final part of the book discusses the relevance of the Manuscripts of 1861-63 to contemporary global capitalism, especially to the continuing underdevelopment and extreme poverty of Latin America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415215459
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/07/2001
Series:	Routledge Studies in the History of Economics
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	314
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Enrique Dussel is Professor of Philosophy, Universidád Metropolitana - Iztapalapa, México. He has written over 40 books in Spanish, a number of which have been translated into Englih, German, French and Italian, including The Philosophy of Liberation, Ethics and Community, and The Underside of Modernity.
Fred Mosely is Professor of Economics, Mount Holyoke College (Mass, USA) and is a highly regarded specialist on Marxian economics. He has written or edited six books, including The Falling Rate of Profit in the Postwar United States Economy (1992), Marx's Methods in 'Captial': A Reexamination (1993), and Heterodox Economics Theories: True or False? (1995).

Table of Contents

Part I: The Central Notebooks of 'Chapter III': The Production Process of Capital 1. Money Becomes Capital: From Exteriority to Totality 2. Absolute Surplus-Value 3. Relative Surplus Value Part II: Critical Confrontation of the Entire Categorical System 4. Critical Confrontation with Steuart and the Physiocrats 5. Adam Smith's Perplexities 6. Productive Labour 7. The Theory of Rent 8. Surplus Value, Profit, Accumulation and Crisis in Ricardo 9. The Fetishism of Vulgar and Apologetic Economics Part III: New Discoveries 10. Towards ‘Chapter II’ and ‘Chapter III’ 11. New Precisions for ‘Chapter I’ Part IV: The New Transition 12. The Manuscripts of 1861-63 and the Philosophy of Liberation 13. The Manuscripts of 1861-63 and the ‘Concept’ of Dependency