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writings. Originally it was intended as the first instalment of a complete work on Political Economy; later this plan was abandoned and the substance of the Critique was summarised in the first volume of Capital (published eight years afterwards), the two other volumes being edited by Engels after the death of Marx.
Obviously it is impossible, in the present small pamphlet, to enter into a discussion of Marx's economic theories. We can only confine ourselves to a bare outline of the fundamental ideas underlying Marx's treatment of his subject. The whole question is dealt with by Marx from an historical, concrete point of view. Indeed, his economics is only a particular application of his general philosophic, historical theory to the economic structure of the capitalist system. When he treats of labour, of value, of capital, of property, he does not discuss these things merely in the abstract, as entities in themselves, for they have, and can have, no meaning for us when divorced from social relations. Unlike the bourgeois economists before him, he did not accept the prevailing economic system as the final and only natural system. He regarded it as one stage in the development of society, and he set out to define the relation between labour and capital and the inevitable results of the progress in the modes of production.
Under the capitalist system, unlike the systems which preceded it, a man's wealth does not consist in the number of articles of comfort or use to himself which he may possess. The distinctive feature of capitalist production, which gives it its peculiar character is that things are produced not for the satisfaction of the needs of the producer or even of the employer, but fur the sole purpose of exchange. The things produced are wares and merchandise or, in the economic term, commodities. And since the wealth of capitalist society "presents itself as an immense accumulation of commodities, our investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of the commodity."
THE THEORY OF VALUE.
Marx therefore goes into an exhaustive analysis of a commodity, and finds that, apart from having a use value, that is, being ultimately useful for the consumption or
