The main aim of the course is to introduce the field of Marxist political economy and more specifically the most important theoretical issues that Marx deals with, especially in the first two volumes of Capital, such as the labour theory of value, the concept of capitalist commodity production, the theory of the circulation and formation of capital and the extraction of surplus-value, the accumulation of capital and the formation of the “reserve army of labour”, commercial capital and the patterns of reproduction.
The topics to be covered include:
- Methodological issues and scope of “Capital” – materialist conception of history.
- The labour theory of value.
- The transformation of money into capital.
- The concept of surplus value and the distinction between absolute and relative – length and intensity of the working day – labour process and technological change.
- The process of capital accumulation – the ‘reserve army of labour’
- Commercial capital
- The schemes of simple and extended reproduction.