The state was the executive agent of the landowning class-the feudal lords, the church, the monarchy. Before the rise of capitalism, Europe was a feudal society. Marx describes how this system came to be. Capital and the states that “serve and protect” it are thoroughly interrelated, because they both arise on the “ruling” side of the underlying class-divided structure of society. Within this totality we can make sense of why different parts act as they do. The insights Marx won in these areas continue to provide a guide to revolutionaries seeking to understand the political and economic situation they’re operating in, to assess the social forces shaping that situation and to anticipate future developments.Ĭapitalist society, Marx contended, must be understood as a totality-a world system, the driving force of which is competition between big businesses and corporations (capitals) and between the capitalist states in which they’re situated. The other was to describe the turbulent dynamics of accumulation over time. One was to lay out the economic system underlying capitalist society. Consider two of the main tasks Marx undertook in writing the book. The usefulness of Capital for revolutionaries remains undiminished today. The resolution pointed out that to Marx belonged the honour of being ‘the first economist who subjected capital to a scientific analysis and who reduced it to its basic elements’”. As Marxist historian David Riazanov recounts, after the first volume of Capital was published in 1867, a resolution passed by the International Workingmen’s Association (the First International) “urged the workers of the different countries to study Capital. Its potential as such a weapon was recognised from the start. What Capital offers, above all, is a solid science of capital accumulation-one intended as a weapon to be wielded in the working class’s struggle for liberation. They laid bare for the first time a coherent theory of capital-the stuff that capitalists strive to accumulate. The crowning achievement of his efforts in economics was the three volumes of Capital. Marx played many roles in his life: activist, journalist, historian, philosopher and also an economist.

Kapital marx