Jeanne McGuire presents an introduction to Marxist political economy.


The presentation was for the Summer 2020 New Members' School organized by the Communist Party of Canada (Ontario) on July 26, 2020.

The presentation notes created by Jeanne McGuire are as follows:


Notes on Political Economy


Commodities:
To be a commodity a thing must have:
Use value – the ability to satisfy some human want or need.

Exchange value – the amount of socially necessary labour power embodied in it. When you see the term “value” in Marxist literature, it almost always refers to exchange value.
With the advent of capitalist production, for the first time in history, labour power becomes a commodity. Its use value is its ability to create a surplus, and like every other commodity, its exchange value is the amount of socially necessary labour power embodied in it.




Exploitation – the private appropriation of someone else’s surplus.
Class – a group of people sharing a similar relationship to the means of production – in capitalism, the means of production is capital and there are four possible relationships to it:
• Own and not work – Bourgeoisie
• Own and work – petite bourgeoisie
• Work and not own – working class
• Not own and not work – lumpen proletariat





Five features of classes –
1. Classes are relational – (slaves/slave owners, serfs/landowners, capitalists/workers) there has to be two at least for there to be classes.
2. Classes are not static – the grow and change over time – in both composition and size, coming into being and going out of existence.
3. Classes are not monolithic – they are segmented: white collar workers, blue collar workers; public sector workers, private sector workers; manual workers, skilled workers; industrial capitalists, finance capitalists; self-employed professionals, small shop keepers, artisan producers and farmers all of whom are petite bourgeoisie.
4. Within class structured society there is always an element of structural conflict – that is conflict not based on ideas, or personality, or likes or dislikes but on one’s place in the process of production and the interests one has as a result of one’s place in production. E.g. – the interests of the slave and the slave owner are inherently in conflict regardless of how nice or not nice the slave owner is. And while there may be periods when that conflict is not apparent, it is there and will at some point manifest itself.
5. For a class structured society to continue to exist there must be an element of what we call false consciousness – that is for the dominated class not to be aware of itself as a class and not to be aware of the interests of itself as a class, to accept that the existing order of things is right and proper. . The obverse is also true, in order to continue to rule, the ruling class must be aware of itself as a class and to be aware of the interests of itself as a class.





Consequences of M – C - M₁
1. Concentration and centralization of capital
a. Destruction of the petite bourgeoisie
b. Process of monopolization
c. Process of proletarianization
d. Imperialism

2. Socialization of labour power
a. Increase in size
b. Develops social interconnectivity
c. Develops organization and discipline
d. Develops skills and knowledge

3. Anarchy of production
a. Crisis of overproduction
b. Creation of poverty

4. Separation of the function of management from ownership

5. Alienation of labour power
a. No control over what is produced
b. No control over how it is produced
c. No control of the use of the product
d. No control over the use of the surplus produced.





Contradictions of Capitalism –
In addition to the primary contradiction of every social system – the contradiction of developing forces of production and the relatively unchanging relations of production, Capitalism creates specific contradictions.
1. Labour vs capital
2. Social production vs private appropriation
3. Production vs consumption
4. Crisis vs planning
5. Monopoly vs everyone