Wealth and Suffering: On Capital Chapter I

• Authors: Bonefeld Werner
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Karl Marx’s Capital is critique of the capitalistically organised social relations of reproduction. It recognises economic categories as perverted social categories and asks about the manner in which human social practice manifests itself in the form of inde-pendent economic categories and laws that unfold as if governed by invisible principles. He says, the capitalist relations are beyond human control and he argues that the indi-viduals act under economic compulsion and are controlled by the products of their own labour. His critique says, in the capitalist social relations the individuals act as personi-fication of economic categories. The immense wealth of capitalist society is abstract, it appears in the form of money as more money. In these wealth-relations, time is money, the satisfaction of human needs a mere sideshow. Yet, the economic categories are purely social forms. Critique of political economy is social critique of economic inver-sion, it is about the sheer unrest of live as the hidden misery of economic things.

Keywords

EN

Marx’s Capital; capitalism; labour economy

• Publisher: Instytut Filozofii i Socjologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk; Fundacja Filozofia Na Rzecz Dialogu
• Journal: Dialogue and Universalism
• Year: 2018
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 123-140

Contributors

author

Bonefeld Werner

• University of York, Department of Politics, York YO10 5 DD, UK