Theories of Surplus-Value

Also known as The History of the Theory of Surplus-Value. The fourth volume of Marx’s Capital, a Marxist classic on the history of economic theory. In 1905–1910, it was organized and edited by Kautsky and successively published in three volumes; later, the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union translated it into Russian on the basis of Marx’s original manuscripts and published it successively in 1954, 1957 and 1961. The first Chinese translation was published by Guo Dali in 1949 in three volumes by the Practice Publishing House on the basis of the edition organized by Kautsky. After the founding of the New China, the Central Translation and Compilation Bureau made a translation on the basis of the second Russian edition of the Complete Works of Marx and Engels.

In the 1850s, Marx planned to divide his economic masterpiece A Critique of Political Economy into six books. Book One, Capital consisted of four books, the first of which studied capital in general. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Part I), published in 1859, included only the first two chapters of this book. From August 1861 to July 1863, Marx wrote this draft of the Chapter III of this book, now known as the Economic Manuscripts of 1861–63. In the process of writing this manuscript, Marx re-studied the theoretical structure of his economic work and decided to divide the whole book into four books under the general title of Capital: Book One is about the process of production of capital, Book Two is about the process of circulation of capital, Book Three is about various forms of the process as a whole, and Book Four is about the history of theory. After finishing the manuscript of Theories of Surplus-Value, since Marx was too busy with the publishing of Volume 1 of Capital and the revision of Volumes 2 and 3, he did not have time to revise Theories of Surplus-Value. After Marx’s death, Engels originally prepared to publish Theories of Surplus-Value, but died without completing it. On his deathbed, Engels gave the entire economic manuscripts of Marx to his young daughter Eleanor. Later, Eleanor handed over the arrangement and publication of Theories of Surplus-Value to Kautsky. At the time of publication, Kautsky did not publish it as Volume 4 of Capital according to Marx’s plan, instead, Kautsky published it separately under the title Theories of Surplus-Value.

Theories of Surplus-Value has three instalments/parts in total. Among them, Part I deals with the historical development of the political economy before Ricardo, focusing on the economic theories of the Physiocrats and Adam Smith. First of all, Marx studied the theory of James Steuart, a representative of mercantilism, and pointed out that Steuart’s view that profit comes from the sphere of circulation is false, industry and ingenuity is wrong. Then, Marx studied the Physiocracy at great length. Marx pointed out that the Physiocracy is correct about the source of surplus-value not being in the sphere of circulation but in the sphere of production, but the Physiocracy is incorrect in believing that it is only agricultural labor that is the sole creator of surplus-value.

Finally, Marx studied theory of value, theory of surplus-value and the theory of productive labor of Adam Smith, the chief representative of bourgeois classical political economy. Marx affirmed Smith’s view that labor in all branches of production creates value, and pointed out that in his analysis of profit and ground-rent, Smith essentially reduced them to surplus-value, and that he had recognized the true origin of surplus value; however, Smith confused the distinction between labor and labor-power, and put forward the erroneous view that revenue determines value.

Part II of Theories of Surplus-Value mainly analyzed and studied the economic thoughts of David Ricardo, a bourgeois classical political economist. First of all, Marx pointed out that Ricardo was more thorough than Smith on value, not only advocating that labor determines value, but also proposing the concept of the amount of socially necessary labor. Next, Marx affirmed Ricardo’s theory of wages and theory of profit. However, Marx pointed out that Ricardo’s theory of price of production was unscientific. He did not divide capital into constant capital and variable capital, did not establish a theory of the organic composition of capital, did not distinguish between competition within and between branches, even replacing competition between sectors with competition within a branch, thus could not explain the formation of average profits and the transformation of value into the price of production. Further, Marx pointed out that Ricardo’s theoretical contribution to the issue of ground-rent lies in the direct and conscious connection between the theory of ground-rent and the determination of value, and in the division of differential rent into two forms. However, Marx severely criticized severely criticized him for recognizing only the existence of differential rent, not the existence of absolute rent, and for linking differential rent with the law of diminishing returns to land. Finally, Marx pointed out Ricardo’s limitations on the question of capital accumulation and economic crises, and expounded the possibility and reality of the outbreak of economic crises in the capitalist society.

Part III of Theories of Surplus-Value mainly analysed the historical process of the disintegration of bourgeois classical political economy and the formation of vulgar economy, and studied a number of economists and their works. It mainly includes the economic views of Malthus, the founder of bourgeois vulgar economy, a group of representatives in the process of the disintegration of the Ricardian School, and a group of the representatives of the “proletarian opposition” based on Ricardian Theory and the late period of bourgeois classical economics.

Theories of Surplus-Value is a historical document of theoretical criticism of Marxist political economy. With the theory of surplus-value as its core, it systematically studied the history of the development of bourgeois political economy from the mid-17th century to the 1850s. It both affirmed the contribution of bourgeois economists to the theory of surplus-value, and objectively and fairly evaluated the status of these economists and their economic theories in the history of economic doctrines, and at the same time also criticized their theoretical errors. It is an excellent work that perfectly combines theoretical criticism with theoretical innovation.