relations of production - Article Index

Encyclopedia - Commodity Fetishism: Encyclopedia Ii - Commodity Fetishism - Marx's Argument
People within capitalist societies find their material life organized through the medium of commodities. They trade their labor-power (wh...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Das Kapital: Encyclopedia - Das Kapital
Das Kapital ("Capital") is a very large treatise of political economy written by Karl Marx in German. The book is a critical analysis of ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Commodity Fetishism: Encyclopedia - Commodity Fetishism
In Marxist theory, commodity fetishism is an inauthentic state of social relations, said to arise in complex capitalist market systems, w...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Capital Accumulation: Encyclopedia - Capital Accumulation
Most generally, the accumulation of capital refers simply to the gathering or amassment of objects of value; the increase in wealth; or t...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Capital Accumulation: Encyclopedia Ii - Capital Accumulation - New Developments In Capital Accumulation
New trends in capital accumulation include: financialisation (the extraordinarily strong growth of the global financial markets. This is...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Capitalist Mode Of Production: Encyclopedia Ii - Capitalist Mode Of Production - State Capitalist Interpretation
As mentioned, Marx never explicitly summarised his definition of capitalism, beyond some suggestive comments in manuscripts which he did ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital: Encyclopedia Ii - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital - Modern Primitive Accumulation And The Washington Consensus
From a Marxian perspective, the main world institutions promoting primitive accumulation in the modern world (beyond national governments...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Commodity Fetishism: Encyclopedia Ii - Commodity Fetishism - After Marx
The Fetishism of Commodities has proven fertile material for work by other theorists since Marx, who have added to, adapted, or, as Marxi...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Commodity: Encyclopedia Ii - Commodity - Marxian Usage
Commodity - General. In classical political economy and especially Karl Marx's critique of political economy, a commodity is simply any...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Capitalist Mode Of Production: Encyclopedia Ii - Capitalist Mode Of Production - Defining Structural Criteria
Marx never provided a complete definition of the capitalist mode of production as a short summary, although in his manuscripts he sometim...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Antonio Gramsci: Encyclopedia - Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci (January 22, 1891 – April 27, 1937) was an Italian writer, politician, leader and theorist of Socialism, Communism and ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Capitalist Mode Of Production: Encyclopedia Ii - Capitalist Mode Of Production - Post-marxist Views
The difficulties in this Marxist debate have been both that most participants did not speak Russian, East European languages, Vietnamese,...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Capitalist Mode Of Production: Encyclopedia Ii - Capitalist Mode Of Production - Origins
Marx argued that capital existed incipiently or on a small scale for thousands of years, in the form of merchant and lending activities, ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Capitalist Mode Of Production: Encyclopedia Ii - Capitalist Mode Of Production - Basic Distinctions
The existence of “capital” presupposes only property relations which make it possible to make money from trade in goods, money and se...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Marxism: Encyclopedia - Marxism
Socialism Part of the Politics series History of socialism Democratic socialism Christian socialism Communism Libertarian socialism Socia...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital: Encyclopedia Ii - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital - Reason For The Concept
Marx showed in Das Kapital how "money is changed into capital" and "how capital generates surplus-value" forming more capital. But in doi...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Louis Althusser: Encyclopedia - Louis Althusser
Louis Pierre Althusser (October 16, 1918 - October 23, 1990) was a Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the presti...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital: Encyclopedia Ii - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital - The Myths Of Political Economy
In so doing, Marx had to dispel some religious myths and fairytales about the origins of capitalism. Marx wrote: "This primitive accumula...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital: Encyclopedia Ii - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital - Primitive Accumulation And Privatisation
Marx says that primitive accumulation means the expropriation of the direct producers, and more specifically "the dissolution of private ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital: Encyclopedia Ii - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital - The Past And The Future
"Orthodox" Marxists see primitive accumulation as something that happened in the late Middle Ages and finished long ago, when capitalist ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital: Encyclopedia Ii - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital - Ernest Mandel's Theory Of Primitive Accumulation
Ernest Mandel offers a Marxian theory which differs from orthodox Marxist stage theory. In his theory, primitive accumulation is part of ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital: Encyclopedia Ii - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital - Schumpeter's Critique Of Marx's Theory
The economist Joseph Schumpeter believed that the truth was that Karl Marx could not explain the origin of capital at all. He wrote: "[Th...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital: Encyclopedia Ii - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital - Where To Now With Development Studies?
It would probably take a modern Hegel or a new Marx to re-evaluate history in the light of such critiques, distinguishing between fact an...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Commodity: Encyclopedia - Commodity
The word commodity is a term with distinct meanings in business and in Marxian political economy. For the former, it is a largely homogen...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital: Encyclopedia Ii - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital - The Basic Meaning Of Primitive Accumulation
Marx believed that getting to this point was partly just a gradual process of market formation and the growth of trade over the centuries...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital: Encyclopedia Ii - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital - Marx's Case History
In a case history of England, Marx looks at how the serfs became free peasant proprietors and small farmers, who were, over time, forcibl...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital: Encyclopedia Ii - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital - The Link Between Primitive Accumulation And Colonialism
At the same time as local obstacles to investment in manufactories are being overcome, and a unified national market is developing with a...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital: Encyclopedia Ii - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital - Primitive Accumulation And The Spreading Of Civilisation
There exists also a conservative style of argument of the "barbarians at the gates" variety to justify primitive accumulation. This argum...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital: Encyclopedia Ii - Primitive Accumulation Of Capital - The Essence Of Capitalist Production Relations Revealed
In the last chapter of Das Kapital, Vol. 1, Marx illustrates the social conditions necessary for capitalism with a comment about Edward G...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Capital Accumulation: Encyclopedia Ii - Capital Accumulation - The Rate And Measurement Of Accumulation
In Marxian economics, the rate of accumulation is defined as (1) the value of the real net increase in the stock of capital in an account...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Capital Accumulation: Encyclopedia Ii - Capital Accumulation - The Origin Of Capital Accumulation In Trade
In the simplest circuit of commercial trade, a sum of money M is loaned and returned with interest as the larger sum M'. Or, as a variati...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Capital Accumulation: Encyclopedia Ii - Capital Accumulation - Psychology Sociology And Ethics Of Capital Accumulation
There have been numerous psychological and sociological studies of the motivations of investment behaviour by individuals. Most of these ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Capital Accumulation: Encyclopedia Ii - Capital Accumulation - Harrod-domar Model
In macroeconomics, following the Harrod-Domar model, the savings ratio (s) and the capital coefficient (k) are regarded as critical facto...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Capital Accumulation: Encyclopedia Ii - Capital Accumulation - Capital Accumulation And Military Wars
Capitalist competition for profits, markets and spheres of influence, pushed to an extreme, culminates in military wars. In that sense, t...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Capital Accumulation: Encyclopedia Ii - Capital Accumulation - The Circuit Of Capital Accumulation From Production
Strictly speaking, capital has accumulated only when realised profit income has been reinvested in capital assets. But the process of cap...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Capital Accumulation: Encyclopedia Ii - Capital Accumulation - Marxian Concept Of Capital Accumulation
In Karl Marx's critique of political economy, capital accumulation refers to the chrematistic operation whereby a sum of money is transfo...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Capital Accumulation: Encyclopedia Ii - Capital Accumulation - Simple And Expanded Reproduction
In volume 2 of Das Kapital, Marx continues the story and shows that, with the aid of bank credit, capital in search of growth can more or...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Capital Accumulation: Encyclopedia Ii - Capital Accumulation - Capital Accumulation And Risk
Most capital accumulation involves risk, because capital is committed to an investment without perfect certainty about future earnings. A...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Capital Accumulation: Encyclopedia Ii - Capital Accumulation - Environmental Criticism Of Capital Accumulation
The environmental criticism of capital accumulation focuses on four main ideas. Firstly, there is the problem of externalities. This mean...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Capital Accumulation: Encyclopedia Ii - Capital Accumulation - Regime Of Accumulation
Both the Regulation School of French Marxist economists, inspired by the original writings of Michel Aglietta and developed by Robert Boy...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Capital Accumulation: Encyclopedia Ii - Capital Accumulation - Different Forms Of Capital Accumulation
Essentially, in capitalism the production of output depends on the accumulation of capital. The propensity to invest in production theref...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Capital Accumulation: Encyclopedia Ii - Capital Accumulation - Capital Accumulation As Social Relation
"Accumulation of capital" sometimes also refers in Marxist writings to the reproduction of capitalist social relations (institutions) on ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - New Historicism: Encyclopedia Ii - New Historicism - The Study
New Historicist scholars begin their analysis of literary texts by attempting to look at what other texts—both literary and non-literar...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Simple Commodity Production: Encyclopedia Ii - Simple Commodity Production - From Simple Commodity Production To Capitalist Production
The large-scale transformation of simple commodity production into capitalist production based on the wage labour of employees occurred o...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Karl Marx: Encyclopedia Ii - Karl Marx - Biography
Karl Marx - Early life. Karl Marx was born into a progressive and wealthy Jewish family in Trier, Prussia. His father Herschel, descend...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Superstructure: Encyclopedia Ii - Superstructure - Marxist Concept
Within Marxist social theory, superstructure is the particular form through which human subjectivity engages with the material substance ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Social: Encyclopedia Ii - Social - Some Different Definitions
In the absence of agreement about its meaning, the term "social" is used in many different senses, referring among other things to: atti...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Late Capitalism: Encyclopedia Ii - Late Capitalism - Characteristics
Among the characteristics of late capitalism (or the 'third age' of capitalism after freely-competitive capitalism and monopoly capitalis...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Historical Materialism: Encyclopedia Ii - Historical Materialism - Disclaimers
Marx himself took care to indicate that he was only proposing a guideline to historical research (Leitfaden or Auffassung), and was not p...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Socially Necessary Labour Time: Encyclopedia Ii - Socially Necessary Labour Time - Simplified Explanation Of The Concept
In a market economy, labour expenditures producing outputs and the market demand for those outputs are constantly adjusting to each other...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Productive And Unproductive Labour: Encyclopedia Ii - Productive And Unproductive Labour - Marx's Critique
Karl Marx regarded land and labour as the source of all wealth, and distinguished between material wealth and human wealth. Human wealth ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Surplus Product: Encyclopedia Ii - Surplus Product - Surplus Product In Capitalist Society
The category of surplus product is a transhistorical economic category, meaning it applies to any society with a stable division of labou...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Surplus Value: Encyclopedia Ii - Surplus Value - Five Measures Of The Rate Of Surplus Value
According to Marx's theory of exploitation, living labour at an adequate level of productivity is able to create and conserve more value ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Prices Of Production: Encyclopedia Ii - Prices Of Production - Facts And Logic
The concept of "average profit" suggested that a process of competition and market-balancing had already established a uniform (or ruling...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Value Product: Encyclopedia Ii - Value Product - Criticism & Controversy
Marx's idea of value creation and value product makes little sense from the point of view of the theory of factors of production and prod...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Productive Forces: Encyclopedia Ii - Productive Forces - Productive Force Determinism
According to some Marxist and liberal interpretations, influenced by modernism, social engineering and technocracy, a productive force de...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Exchange Value: Encyclopedia Ii - Exchange Value - Exchange Value And The Transformation Of Values Into Prices
In volumes I and II of Capital, Marx usually assumed that exchange values were equal to values, and that prices were proportional to valu...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Mode Of Production: Encyclopedia Ii - Mode Of Production - The Modes Of Production In History
In a broad outline, Marx recognized seven distinct epochs of human history, each corresponding to a particular mode of production: Primi...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Antonio Gramsci: Encyclopedia Ii - Antonio Gramsci - Thought
Gramsci wrote more than 30 notebooks of history and analysis during his imprisonment. These writings, known as the Prison Notebooks, cont...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Marxism: Encyclopedia Ii - Marxism - The Hegelian Roots Of Marxism
Marx's immensely rich and varied politico-theoretical preoccupations were initially influenced by his contact with Hegelian philosophy. H...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Analytical Marxism: Encyclopedia Ii - Analytical Marxism - Criticisms
Analytical Marxism came under fire from a number of different quarters, both Marxist and non-Marxist. Analytical Marxism - Method. A nu...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Law Of Value: Encyclopedia Ii - Law Of Value - Criticism
Traditionally, criticism of Marx's law of value has been of three kinds: conceptual logical empirical The conceptual criticism concerns...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Constant Capital: Encyclopedia Ii - Constant Capital - Measurement
Constant capital can be measured as a stock magnitude, i.e., the total value of means of production in use at a specific point in time. I...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Marxism: Encyclopedia Ii - Marxism - The Hegelian Roots Of Marxism
Marx's immensely rich and varied politico-theoretical preoccupations were initially influenced by his contact with Hegelian philosophy. H...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Surplus Labour: Encyclopedia Ii - Surplus Labour - Origin Of Surplus Labour
Marx explains the origin of surplus labour in the following terms: "It is only after men have raised themselves above the rank of animal...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Transformation Problem: Encyclopedia Ii - Transformation Problem - Implications And Interpretations
The literature summarised above relates to the logical (mathematical) aspects of the transformation problem, as discussed by the numerica...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Louis Althusser: Encyclopedia Ii - Louis Althusser - Thought
Althusser's earlier works include the influential volume Reading Capital, which collects the work of Althusser and his students on an int...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Commodity: Encyclopedia Ii - Commodity - Business Usage
Commodity - Definition. In the world of business, a commodity is an undifferentiated product whose market value arises from the owner's...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Prices Of Production: Encyclopedia Ii - Prices Of Production - Value And Price
A lot of criticism of Marx's concept originates from the ambiguities referred to earlier. Consequently, many of the criticisms can be dis...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Law Of Value: Encyclopedia Ii - Law Of Value - Law Of Value In Capitalism
Marx argues that as economic exchange develops and markets expand, the law of value is modified in its operation. Thus, capitalism is a t...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Law Of Value: Encyclopedia Ii - Law Of Value - Economic Value As Such
Economic value exists necessarily, according to Marx, because human beings as social and moral beings must co-operatively produce their m...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Law Of Value: Encyclopedia Ii - Law Of Value - Smith's Hidden Hand
Neo-classical economics is based on the assumption that, left to themselves, markets will balance supply and demand spontaneously. If equ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Productive And Unproductive Labour: Encyclopedia Ii - Productive And Unproductive Labour - Classical Political Economy
The classical political economists, such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo raised the economic question of which kinds of labour contribute...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Productive And Unproductive Labour: Encyclopedia Ii - Productive And Unproductive Labour - National Accounts
In national accounts and social accounting theory the concepts of productive and unproductive labour do survive to some extent. The first...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Productive And Unproductive Labour: Encyclopedia Ii - Productive And Unproductive Labour - Neoclassical Economics
In neoclassical economics, the distinction between productive and unproductive labour was however rejected as being largely arbitrary and...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Productive And Unproductive Labour: Encyclopedia Ii - Productive And Unproductive Labour - A Quote From Adam Smith
In Book 2, Chapter 3 of The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith wrote: "There is one sort of labour which adds to the value of the subject upon...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Exchange Value: Encyclopedia Ii - Exchange Value - Criticism Of Marx's Interpretation Of Commodity Exchange
Some scholars, such as the Japanese Marxian scholar Kozo Uno, have criticised Marx's presentation of the labour theory of value on the gr...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Law Of Value: Encyclopedia Ii - Law Of Value - Modification Of The Law Of Value In The World Market
Marx believed that the operation of the law of value was not only modified by the capitalist mode of production, but also in the world ma...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Law Of Value: Encyclopedia Ii - Law Of Value - Factors Counteracting The Law Of Value
The main factors counteracting the operation of the law of value, as a law of economic exchange, are: structural unequal exchange - alte...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Law Of Value: Encyclopedia Ii - Law Of Value - Post-modern Thinking About The Topic
It has become increasingly clear to intellligent economists that there is not one principle that can explain resource allocation in any r...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - New Historicism: Encyclopedia Ii - New Historicism - Pre-history
Clearly, in its historicism and in its political interpretations, New Historicism owes something to Marxism. But whereas Marxism (at leas...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Law Of Value: Encyclopedia Ii - Law Of Value - Steve Keen And The Machine
In an important new book, Debunking Economics, Steve Keen tries to pull the rug from under Marx's theory with a stunningly simple argumen...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Law Of Value: Encyclopedia Ii - Law Of Value - A Comment By Marx On The Law Of Value
In his letter to Kugelmann of July 11, 1868, Karl Marx commented gruffly: "As for the Centralblatt, the man is making the greatest conces...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Prices Of Production: Encyclopedia Ii - Prices Of Production - Basic Definition
For most political economists, this kind of price corresponds roughly to Adam Smith's concept of "natural prices" and the modern neoclass...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Prices Of Production: Encyclopedia Ii - Prices Of Production - Two Interpretations Of Production Prices
Unfortunately, Marx never prepared the manuscript of the third volume of Das Kapital for publication. Therefore his draft text, which ske...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Law Of Value: Encyclopedia Ii - Law Of Value - The Law Of Value In Non-capitalist Societies
There has been a long and drawn-out debate among Marxists about whether the law of value also operates in non-capitalist societies where ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Law Of Value: Encyclopedia Ii - Law Of Value - Is It An Equilibrium Theory?
Some authors have interpreted Marx's law of value as a theory of market equilibrium. However, Marx offered no theory of market equilibriu...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Prices Of Production: Encyclopedia Ii - Prices Of Production - Production Prices And The Transformation Problem
The concept of production prices is one "building block" in Marx's theory of the "equalising tendency of the rate of profit", which aimed...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Prices Of Production: Encyclopedia Ii - Prices Of Production - Three Types Of Production Prices
Most Marxists missed the fact that Marx identified (though often not very clearly) three main types of production prices: the private or...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Exchange Value: Encyclopedia Ii - Exchange Value - Other Theories Of Exchange Value
In modern neo-classical economics, exchange value itself is no longer explicitly theorised. The reason is that the concept of money-price...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Socially Necessary Labour Time: Encyclopedia Ii - Socially Necessary Labour Time - Criticism
Marx's interpretation of value from the point of view of a society as whole proved elusive for many critics. Marx took a swipe at them, i...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Transformation Problem: Encyclopedia Ii - Transformation Problem - Overview
The production of any commodity generally requires both labour and some produced means of production (or capital goods), like tools and m...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Transformation Problem: Encyclopedia Ii - Transformation Problem - British Classical Labour Theory Of Value
Marx's value theory was developed from the labour theory of value discussed by Adam Smith and used by many British classical economists. ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Surplus Labour: Encyclopedia Ii - Surplus Labour - Modern Criticism Of Marx's Concept Of Surplus Labour
According to economist Fred Moseley, "neoclassical economic theory was developed, in part, to attack the very notion of surplus labor or ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Surplus Labour: Encyclopedia Ii - Surplus Labour - Surplus Labour And Unequal Exchange
Marx acknowledged that surplus labour may not just be appropriated directly in production by the owners of the enterprise, but also in tr...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Surplus Labour: Encyclopedia Ii - Surplus Labour - Surplus Labour In Capitalist Society
In feudal society, it was often quite clear how many days a serf or peasant worked for himself or herself (necessary labour), and how man...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Surplus Labour: Encyclopedia Ii - Surplus Labour - Surplus Labour And Historical Materialism
In Das Kapital Vol. 3, Marx highlights the central role played by surplus labour: "The specific economic form, in which unpaid surplus-l...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Transformation Problem: Encyclopedia Ii - Transformation Problem - Marx’s Labour Theory Of Value
Transformation problem - Labour as the value-creating substance. Marx defined the "value" of commodities as the total amount of sociall...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Transformation Problem: Encyclopedia Ii - Transformation Problem - Transformation Of Values Into Prices
Like Ricardo, Marx knew that relative labour values— in the above example—do not generally tally with relative competitive prices—...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Value Product: Encyclopedia Ii - Value Product - An Additional Comment By Marx
Marx claims that, in an accounting period, the workforce normally produces a new value which is equal to its own wage-cost, plus an addit...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Value Product: Encyclopedia Ii - Value Product - Marxian New Value Added Versus Gdp
The equation of new value added with net output or GDP (also known as gross value added) would have made no sense to Marx, mainly because...   » Read the article