Marx: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

by Peter Singer

as the work of a critic of capitalist society. Marx wanted to expose the deficiencies of classical economics in order to expose the deficiencies of capitalism. He wanted to show why the enormous increase in productivity and wealth brought about by the industrial revolution had made the great majority of human beings worse off than before. He wanted to reveal how the old relationships of master and slave, lord and serf, survived under the cloak of freedom of contract. His answer to these questions was the doctrine of surplus value. As an economic doctrine it does not stand up to scientific probing. Marx’s economic theories are not a scientific account of the nature and extent of exploitation under capitalism. They nevertheless offer a vivid picture of the kind of society created by the forces unleashed by capitalism: a society in which the productive workers unconsciously create the instruments of their own oppression. It is a picture of human alienation, writ large as the dominance of past labour, or capital, over living labour. The value of the picture lies in its capacity to lead us to see its subject in a radically new way. It is a work of art, of philosophical reflection, and of social polemic, all in one, and it has the merits and the defects of all three of these forms of writing. It is a painting of capitalism, not a photograph.