An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx’s Capital in Marx & Philosophy Review of Books

Michael Heinrich

ISBN 9781583672884

Reviewed by Chris O’Kane

Review

Michael Heinrich is a leading exponent of what is known as the New German Reading of Marx which interprets the theory of value that Marx presents in Capital as a socially specific theory of impersonal social domination. He is a collaborator on the MEGA edition of Marx and Engel’s complete works and has published several philological studies of Capital. He has also authored a major theoretical work on Marx’s theory of value, The Science of Value, which is forthcoming in the Historical Materialism book series. Heinrich advocates a monetary interpretation of Marx’s theory of value in both these types of work. A few of Heinrich’s shorter pieces on specialist topics, such as ‘Engels’ Edition of the Third Volume of Capital and Marx’s Original Manuscript’ and ‘Capital in general and the structure of Marx’s Capital. New Insights from Marx’s Economic Manuscripts of 1861-63’, have been translated. An Introduction to all Three Volumes of Capital is his first full-length work to appear in English.

Heinrich’s theoretical orientation and his textual methodology distinguish his introduction to Capital itself from others. To my knowledge it is the only introduction that discusses important issues of philology and translation that are vital to understanding Capital. It is also the only introduction to Capital that espouses Marx’s theory of value as a monetary theory of value. In the following review I focus on the latter and refrain from discussing many of the points where Heinrich utilizes the former.

Heinrich’s interpretation of the monetary theory of value underlies the focus and structure of An Introduction. In the first place, Heinrich uses what he calls the monetary theory of value to distinguish his interpretation of Marx from what he terms ‘traditional’ interpretations of Marx. In the second place his exposition of Capital focuses on demonstrating how the monetary theory of value unfolds across all three volumes of Capital. Heinrich also provides his own theoretical analysis which complements his interpretation of Marx by: a) pointing out the contemporary relevance of Marx’s critique of political economy and b) supplementing Marx’s theory by accounting for social phenomena, such as the state, that are not covered in Capital.

This orientation is laid out in two preliminary chapters where Heinrich situates his interpretation of Capital in relation to ‘Traditional Marxism.’ Heinrich’s discussion of ‘worldview Marxism’ is of particular importance to this distinction. The term ‘worldview Marxism,’ is used to designate the economist, determinist and teleological belief-system of thenineteenth and early twentieth century workers movement. For Heinrich ‘worldview Marxism’ ignored the critical aspect of Marx’s critique of political economy in favour of an orientation that played an ‘identity-constituting role’ (25) establishing the position of the working class and explaining ‘all problems in the simplest way imaginable.’ (25). In Heinrich’s view today’s widespread conceptions about Marx and Marxism are based on these tenets of ‘worldview Marxism.’ (26)

The interpretation of Capital that Heinrich puts forward contrasts with this traditional interpretation. His conception of capitalism as a historically specific and systematic form of impersonal domination informs Heinrich’s discussion of the object of Marx’s critique of political economy. In contrast to the historically pervasive logico-historical reading of Capital which holds that Capital describes the historical development of empirical reality, Heinrich stresses that Capital consists in a theoretical examination of the ‘essential determinates’ (31) of the capitalist mode of production in its ‘ideal average.’ (31) In opposition to those who treat Marx as a political economist, Heinrich stresses that Capital is a critique of political economy. For Heinrich Capital does not criticize the conclusions of political economists but the way the very discipline of political economy analyzes capitalism. Thus, rather than providing an alternative political economy, Heinrich argues that Marx’s critique of political economy aims to demonstrate two things: the perverse manner in which capitalism is socially constituted and reproduced at enormous social and human costs and the absurd theoretical standpoint of the discipline of political economy. Finally, Heinrich forcefully differentiates himself from dialectical characterizations of Marx. By contending that Marx only uses dialectics in the methodological presentation of Capital – in which ‘individual categories are unfolded from one another’ (37)- Heinrich distinguishes himself from Engels, Hegelian-Marxist and systematic dialectic interpretations of Capital. This position also leads Heinrich to argue that is only in volume three that Marx’s ‘ideal’ depiction of capitalism approaches concrete reality.

This distinction from ‘traditional Marxism’ is cashed out in Heinrich’s discussion of the labour theory of value. Heinrich stresses that Marx conceives of value as the unintended outgrowth of historically specific social relations. This has two important consequences for Heinrich’s analysis. In the first place he argues that value is constitutive of a structure that determines individual action, which is reproduced through these actions. (‘these relations impose a certain form of rationality to which all individuals must adhere if they wish to maintain their existence … the activity of individuals also reproduces the presupposed social relations.’ (46) This means that individuals are compelled to act as bearer’s of social relations. Capitalists function as personifications of economic categories with their actions compelled by the imperative of capitalist valorisation. Proletarians are coerced to sell their labour-power in order to survive. Capital, as self-valorising value, is thus an autonomous form of impersonal domination that compels the behaviour of individuals.

In the second place Heinrich argues, contra traditional interpretations, that Marx’s labour theory of value is not interested in proving that value corresponds to labour time. This means that Heinrich holds that Marx does not have a ‘substantialist’ theory of value, in which labour is directly embodied in the labour of products, and conceives of value as the ‘specific social character of commodity-producing labour.’ (47) As a result Marx’s explanation of value unfolds across all three volumes of Capital.

From here Heinrich turns to Capital proper where his exposition of all three volumes provides an account of how the historically specific character of capitalist social labour is constituted and reproduced. Since a detailed account of his exposition of all three volumes of Capital exceeds the limits of a book review, I focus on some of the points that make Heinrich’s excellent introduction distinct.

Due to the importance Heinrich places on money, his exegesis of Part 1 of Volume 1 is thorough. Most will do well to follow Heinrich’s advice that ‘this chapter should be read particularly closely, including by those who think they understand the theory. (11) It is the best introduction to this difficult section of Capital that I have come across. His excellent discussion of money lucidly highlights the central role it plays in Marx’s theory of value. This is outlined in his discussion of value as a real abstraction that consists in abstract labour and is realized in exchange. It also points to Heinrich’s argument that Marx’s theory of value combines production and circulation. Consequently, in Heinrich’s interpretation, money is not ‘an appendage of value … Marx’s value theory is rather a monetary theory of value’ (63). This is due to the fact that a monetary theory of value is necessary for explaining how commodities relate to each other in the act of exchange in which value is realized and how money1) functions to measure value, and 2) serves as the means of circulation of value. Money thus serves to unify production and circulation providing the means of capitalist valorisation. As later chapters point out money also plays an essential role in interest, credit, ‘fictitious capital’ and the periodic development of crises….

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