Introduction to Marxism – Alex Merlo

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Outline of last years' presentation

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Aims:

• Methodological introduction to the School
  
• Presentation of some general problems of Marxist thought
  
• Introduction to Marxist economy

1. Marx's break: The Thesis on Feuerbach

Introduction: Place of Marxism in History

A. "Praxis”: Critique of vulgar materialism
B. Man's essence. History and society
C. "Self-emancipation": how to change the world.

2. Marx's Historical Materialism. 1859 Prologue and Letters

Introduction: Presentation of the text

A. Social relations of productions. The new starting point
B. The notion of an "economic base"
C. The progress in History

3. The Critique of Political Economy. Introduction

Introduction: Critique of Economy and Marxist Economy

A. The "simple" market. Use value and exchange value
B. Surplus value, exploitation, labour force
C. Consequences of the analysis

Reading Materials

• Ernest Mandel, The Place of Marxism in History, "Appendices": "The Eight Main Periods of the “History” of Marx" and "A Few Events of Marx’s Time", IIRE, Amsterdam, 1983

• Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach, 1845

• Karl Marx, Abstract from the Preface of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (extract), 1859

• Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology (extracts), Also:, 1846

• Friedrich Engels, "Introduction" to "Wage Labout and Capital" (Extract), 1891

• Karl Marx, Capital Volume 1, "Chapter Six: The Buying and Selling of Labour-Power" (Extract), 1867

• León Trotsky, Ninety Years of the Communist Manifesto, 1937