The New Reading of Karl Marx’s Capital in the United States

Richard Wolff

History of Economics Review, 2007, vol. 45, issue 1, 26-40

Abstract: Allen Oakley scrutinised the evolution and development of Karl Marx’s critique of political economy from its earliest roots to the mature theory of surplus value. This theory was both a development of classical themes and also a transformation into a unique approach to economic systems. This paper explores the uniqueness of Marx’s theory of the relationship between social classes and the production, appropriation and distribution of surplus value. It recognises that Marx’s theory is not reductionism but rather ‘overdeterminist’, a multi-causal and multi-layered analysis of classes under capitalism. This new reading of Marx’s Capital has been gathering momentum for a few decades now. In this approach, people occupy multi-class positions; crises both reflect and transform the production and distribution of surplus value; and past and present capitalist class systems oscillate between both private and state forms. The new approach also enables one to include, as objects of class analysis, firms, states, financial institutions, households and global relations.

Date: 2007
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DOI: 10.1080/18386318.2007.11681235

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