Going Back to the Source: A Personal Reflection on Capital, Volume 1

Yves here. KLG tells us how as a child in a union home, he came upon the oppressive and arguably immoral operations of capital, and how that stoked an anger similar to that which informs the writing of The Bearded One. The publication of a new translation of Marx’s Capital prompted this essay.

KLG’s opening thoughts:

Karl Marx himself was impressed by the achievements of capitalism, which increased aggregate “wealth” by several orders of magnitude compared to what came before. He was also the first philosopher, historian, and political economist to describe what capitalism is and how it does its hidden work. While he did not anticipate where capitalism would lead us due to what Andreas Malm has described as Fossil Capital, it is clear that neither the earth nor most of its inhabitants, human and otherwise, are doing well. Given this trajectory, Marx would not be surprised.

A new translation of Capital, Volume 1 has been published by the Princeton University Press. It will revive serious consideration of Marx’s analytical approach to the problems we face in the Anthropocene. What follows is a personal reflection on the importance of this book for our time. It was good to be reminded that Chapter 1 is entitled “The Commodity,” now that capital has converted virtually all that is important to human life into commodities of one kind or another. And that what is not subject to direct commodification has been transformed beyond recognition by financialization in this, the final stage of capitalism that is Neoliberalism.

By KLG, who has held research and academic positions in three US medical schools since 1995 and is currently Professor of Biochemistry and Associate Dean. He has performed and directed research on protein structure, function, and evolution; cell adhesion and motility; the mechanism of viral fusion proteins; and assembly of the vertebrate heart. He has served on national review panels of both public and private funding agencies, and his research and that of his students has been funded by the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, and National Institutes of Health.