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Topic Map · 1 of 10

Political Economy

Value, wages, surplus value, accumulation, crisis, and capitalist production.

资本论工资剩余价值Capitalwagessurplus value

Open Topic WorksBack to Map Overview
78Related works
5Study stages
8Related authors
Covered study stages

01 Class Intuition: Seeing Capitalism in Everyday Life; 02 Method: From Experience to Historical Materialism; 03 Political Economy: Understanding the Motion of Capital; 04 State, Class Rule, and the Question of Revolution; 05 Imperialism, Colonial Systems, and World Revolution

Related authors

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, V. I. Lenin, Mao Zedong, Antonio Gramsci, Rosa Luxemburg, IMRA Editorial Collective, Louis Althusser

Reading Path

From questions to texts, station by station

Start with the core questions, then follow the entry, core, and advanced readings into concrete book and article pages.

Core Questions

  1. How are value and surplus value produced through everyday wage relations?

  2. Why does accumulation produce wealth, poverty, and recurrent crisis together?

  3. How do price, profit, and wage appearances hide social relations?

Entry Reading

4 texts
1847 · Karl MarxFull textWage Labour and CapitalAccessible explanation of wages, capital, labor power, and wage labor.1865 · Karl MarxFull textValue, Price and ProfitExplains wage struggles, value theory, and the role of unions.1875 · Karl MarxFull textCritique of the Gotha ProgrammeDiscusses transition, distribution, the state, and workers' party programs.1845 · Friedrich EngelsFull textThe Condition of the Working Class in EnglandEmpirical study of industrial capitalism, urban poverty, and working-class formation.

Core Reading

5 texts
1844 · Karl MarxFull textEconomic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844Classic early text on alienated labor, private property, and human emancipation.1859 · Karl MarxFull textA Contribution to the Critique of Political EconomyIts preface gives a classic formulation of social being, production, and historical change.1913 · V. I. LeninFull textThe Three Sources and Three Component Parts of MarxismConcise overview of Marxism's sources and components.1956 · Mao ZedongFull textOn the Ten Major RelationshipsExplores industry, agriculture, central-local relations, and socialist construction.1899 · Rosa LuxemburgFull textReform or RevolutionCritique of Bernstein on reform, revolution, and socialist aims.

Advanced Reading

5 texts
1847 · Karl MarxFull textThe Poverty of PhilosophyCritiques Proudhon and clarifies class struggle, value, and political economy method.1867 · Karl MarxFull textCapital, Volume ICore work on capitalist production, commodity, value, surplus value, and accumulation.1885 · Karl MarxFull textCapital, Volume IIAnalyzes circulation, turnover, reproduction, and total social capital.1894 · Karl MarxFull textCapital, Volume IIIAnalyzes profit rate, merchant capital, interest, rent, and capitalism as a whole.1844 · Friedrich EngelsFull textOutlines of a Critique of Political EconomyEngels's early critique of political economy, influential for Marx's economic turn.

Common Misreadings

  • Reading political economy as ordinary market economics.
  • Treating capital as things or money rather than a social relation commanding labor.
  • Discussing inequality without analyzing production and surplus value.