Understanding "Left Wing" Communism, an Infantile Disorder, by V. I. Lenin

While maybe not as in-depth or instantly essential as The State And Revolution or Imperialism: The Highest Stage Of Capitalism, “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder is a pretty runner-up work in regards to importance. I would start with those first two works mentioned above. However, I see this as an important one to read once someone has a basic grasp on what Leninism is, which can mostly be understood from those first two works. I do also think that Left Wing Communism is a little less dense, and can be summarized and explained without the section-by-section breakdown that the other two may require for a full understanding. That said, this work may make less sense without the principle Marxist or Leninist understanding, but it really only comes down to a few principle ideas in a historical context.

The work begins with a history of the revolution from 1902 through 1917. This is important to understand, namely because of the 1905 revolution’s necessary lessons to precede the February and October ones in 1917. Lenin talks of party discipline, especially when it comes to the spontaneity aspect of the proletariat and the vanguard. This in particular is expanded upon in What Is To Be Done?, a work that I would also recommend holding until understanding the other aforementioned works. It talks of the dangers of anarchist tendencies and the Mensheviks, and their similarities to petty bourgeoisie politics; how not having a plan and disorganization can lead to failure, and opportunism. Moreover, it covers how the first world war managed to give way more force against Czarism during extreme tensions within Russia, and how the end goal was to give soviet (worker council) control. This is stressed to not having been possible without the entire backing of the working class, which leads us to our next point.

Participation in legal and illegal struggle tactics are said to be important, discussing where it can still be helpful to partake in bourgeoisie parliament, elections, and trade unions. We can see the benefits of a lot of this today, as it’s used to win the backing of the working class regardless of their own beliefs or personal identities. Lenin addresses how “left-wing” communism isolates itself from that mass following, or in other words, doesn’t take the time to meet workers where they are. Again, this is something rather important to organizers that already have a good grasp on Leninism and perhaps are part of a revolutionary struggle. It’s also important to recognize what is worth compromising to work towards the same end goal of socialism. There’s a funny comparison of getting held up by bandits, as you would compromise your car, wallet, and keys for your life. However, this shouldn’t be viewed as a final victory, but a setback that has to be overcome. The bandits are compared to western imperialists. Sometimes it becomes strategic to work with them in order to spare yourself, but you don’t want to become them or let it get out of hand. 

Looking into real life examples seems to be one of Lenin’s favorite ways of explaining things. The split of the Communist Party Of Germany is observed due to reasons mentioned in the prior paragraph. In capitalist society, the masses are divided into classes, a trait Marxists hate from the gate, and this is something to consider. In Germany, much of the masses were used to the legal framework of democracy, and were overwhelmed at the idea of revolutionary crises pushing these tactics into illegal territory. Timing and calculation of how much support a vanguard might have is to be understood. We turn our attention then, to German “left” communists’ refusal to work in trade unions, which also was wrong in the eyes of Lenin. Much of this was written to Germany, and Lenin expanded upon their own example in Russia. The organization of soviets was led by the Bolsheviks, in order to consider the relationship between classes, parties, and leaders. Keep in mind that by April 20 of 1920, the Bolsheviks had roughly 611,000 members, according to the work. Thus, larger amounts of representatives are necessary for proper people representation within soviet organization. The party was then able to rest on the trade unions, rather than refuse to work with them, which consisted of a far heavier 4,000,000 people. Note that this doesn’t discount the struggle with Mensheviks and reactionaries that it allows, which is why connection solely through trade unions isn’t enough, but total control over the state by workers is needed. The importance here is to show the method of organization, rather than isolation. We have some serious issues of this in the United States currently.

Most who have made it this far in revolutionary study understand that capitalism leaves behind the necessary tools to transition to socialism, which is also part of the importance of everything said so far. Keep in mind, the level of development in one capitalist state can heavily influence how easy this transition will go. That’s less from Lenin than it is from myself, as a general note when considering historical dialectics in this transitional phase. This is worked into the importance of trade unions in the earlier stages of capitalism here, which is why conserving them is unavoidable under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin mentions the difference in struggle in the “advanced” countries of the west, that were far further along than Russia at the time. It’s stressed that left wing communists are those who would not work where the masses were to be found, despite the need for sacrifices in these areas of proletarian gathering. Regarding participation in parliament, it’s a bit more direct in how it doesn’t cause any harm, and can sometimes show the backwardness of capitalist “democracy.” Think about the illusion of choice, how little participation most civilians have in government, and how rotten it appears to just about anybody even before you introduce Marxist principles. It seems rather confusing, I know, but in a way, it reveals that simply voting and doing nothing else under this class ruling doesn’t accomplish anything, and that you should vote and carry out activist work and outreach. This is, at least, my understanding of this point.

Ultimately, this is to show that oftentimes it is worth compromising as long as you don’t drop your values entirely, and that you can use the services under a liberal “democracy” to further your move. It comes down to the need for that working class backing, and that not budging anywhere, whether it’s legal vs. illegal action, trade union participation, parliamentary participation, or whatever, is harmful to the socialist movement. This is what is meant by “left wing” communism, even though we know communism as an entire idea to be left wing on the political compass. There’s another entire section of “left communism” in Britain, and along with the German examples and the Russian criticisms, it should be clear that this work relies pretty heavily on the historical context of the struggles.

We conclude with the final result of the fact that Russians were able to bring soviets to complete development on a national scale, following the Russian Revolution, which was only done by meeting the working class where it was. It must experience a struggle in order to grow, and alienation will never allow for this growth. Lenin notes how this shows the importance of studying the unique struggles within every country, and how its differences impact how all of this struggle is carried out. Think about Maoism, or Juche, and how policies were needed for the specific material conditions of the countries each were born in. While many (myself included) would argue that neither of those have any place in the U.S., policies in regards to each were necessary for development in China and Korea respectfully, especially with a large peasantry still remaining at the time. In conclusion, the vanguard is only powerful if it’s seen as a means to spearhead the staff of the entire working class and its material conditions. Proper use of propaganda, party work, tools that the liberal class leaves us, and outreach are important, and while I probably sound repetitive at this point, that is more or less the point of “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder.

Understanding Imperialism, The Highest Stage Of Capitalism, by V. I. Lenin

If I had to pick one work that I'd consider to be just as important to socialists as Karl Marx's Capital, it would have to be Vladimir Lenin's Imperialism: The Highest Stage Of Capitalism. While State And Revolution is also up there, this one almost acts as a direct continuation of Capital, observing the world stage half a century or so later. In this one, Lenin uses a lot of charts, tables, and numbers to express the importance of his concepts. I won't be including those here, but I'll try to best sum up the points by stating what they show. It also wouldn't be a Lenin work if he didn't attack Karl Kautsky regularly, would it. I will, for the most part, be omitting those areas save for a few key reasons for bringing him up; after all, this is another work that cites many other works for its case study, including that of bourgeoisie economists. With that said, I do think this is one of the easier ones to understand, as it breaks down what imperialism is chapter-by-chapter, and then summarizes it and gives some concluding chapters. Let us dive right in!

Chapter 1: Concentration Of Production And Monopolies

There are several steps to to showing that we've reached the phase of imperialism, and Lenin begins by pointing out how rapidly the concentration of production and industry growth in large companies moves. By this, he means more and more production processes and smaller companies are getting bought out by larger companies at an accelerated rate.

We first look at Germany. Lenin observes how the number of employers that employ more than 50 people has drastically increased between 1882 and 1907, in a 25 year span. But utilities also play a role in this, as 1% of all companies in Germany were using 75% of the steam and electric power, showing how much is in control of so few enterprises. The other small enterprises use a whopping 7% of it. Looking at other great powers of the time, The United Kingdom, and The United States of America had the same trend running at the time. Large industry everywhere, under this concentration, will pop up, something Marx pointed to in Capital. Trades, railroads, and infrastructure get monopolized by smaller numbers of enterprises. In other words, with a free market, you eventually enter a monopoly state.

The enormous profits yielded by these massive industries made it easier to estimate production of resources within one state. Older stages of capitalism comprised of far smaller, weaker chains of capitalism before this concentration within certain states gave rise to superpowers. Thus, commodity production is still the basis of the economic life, but it changes form due to financial manipulation by fewer and fewer people. Marx talked about crises, and that's addressed here. As these crises natural to capitalism occur, it allows for companies and landlords with enough money to buy everything at a cheap price that most couldn't afford. Over time, it becomes more rapid and is ultimately what allows for this concentration of production under fewer. This leads right into the role of the banks.

Chapter 2: Banks And Their New Role

Banks had been established before this point in history, but the key word here is their new role. We all know that they were meant to serve as a middleman between purchaser and buyer of all sorts, but over time they've become a means of transforming inactive capital into active capital for the sake of making profits. On a small scale, maybe this goes unnoticed; as revenues are collected, the banks more and more work at the disposal of the capitalist class. Just like small businesses, small banks get absorbed by larger ones, almost moving parallel to how enterprises get concentrated. The ends result is a handful of monopolies, which we addressed in the last chapter, having a stronghold on the bank command, together giving complete control of the means of production to these monopolies within a country or a few countries.

At this point, our attention turns to a chart on German banks, to show the high levels of holdings by purchasing and exchanging shares with predatory loans, something that many of us are all too familiar with today. While invisible, stripping it down this way really shows the ridiculous nature of why so few are able to control everything based off of a man-made concept meant to keep so many poor. Massive loans are lent out for the aforementioned big operations from the huge enterprises, ultimately outgrowing this "middleman" role and being now an important tool for the capitalist class. 

Once more, we look at Germany, with another chart to show this expansion with the large increase of branches within the largest banks from 1895 to 1911. Essentially, as Lenin puts it, the bank serves as an eternal bookkeeping mechanism to retain control over the "free" market. The stock market hardly holds the significance that it once did, and we finally look at America at the time. By the writing of this, Morgan and Rockefeller had control of about 11,000,000,000 marks worth of capital. As the bank gets more and more from the capitalists, industrial capital further relies on this role of the banks, which is why we have bank bailouts in a time of crisis for the capitalists. Without them, the economy and industry would absolutely tank. The inevitable is the merging of bank capital and industrial capital, expediting production to a new level for everyone with a stake in these two things to profit faster. Thus, the turn of the 20th century saw capitalism shifting from the dominance of capital, to what Lenin calls the dominance of finance capital.

Chapter 3: Finance Capital And The Financial Oligarchy

What exactly is finance capital, then? Lenin first refers to Rudolph Hilferding's (Federal Minister of Germany for Finance) definition as the term for capital that is controlled by bank capital that the industrial capitalists employ. Lenin, however, views this as incomplete, since it doesn't mention the concentration aspect leading to the monopoly stage that's discussed in chapter 1. Even a lot of capitalist apologists address this phenomenon in their writings, which gets cited here from time to time.

We now must look at shares. Owning 40% of a large enterprise's shares gives one person total domination over that enterprise, oftentimes being commodities that are essential for living or are in high demand. Small shareholders would never have enough time to direct the affairs of such a large company, which is what allows this dominance of the person who has so much finance capital at their disposal. This holding system creates oligarchs who hold a lot of power, letting them cheat the public due to the "free" market preventing parent companies from facing legal responsibilities within the daughter companies. Think of Coca-Cola, for example, and how many small companies they own. It's very good at hiding the fact that the "free" market that people love so much is only an illusion. Lenin looks at assets of Russian banks in 1912, showing this in the form of a chart.

The function of this finance capital is to issue bonds, which he then shows an example from France. Bonds are issued at 150%, letting the bank gain 50% on top of every franc, yielding enormous profits and more control in this merging of bank and industry capital. We see this more by observing what Marx calls "boom" and "bust" cycles. During the boom, profits are able to go up without hurting the living conditions of the workers. Inevitably, though, we'll hit a bust, as we always will in capitalism every decade or so. This is when oligarchs who got richer can buy up assets, property, and industry faster compared to before, since the ordinary worker couldn't come close to competing. The concentration gets higher and higher every time this cycle passes; think of the housing crises' in America in 2008, 2020, etc.

Unfortunately, this form of monopoly works its way into every sphere of life, allowing for the emergence of the aforementioned financial superpowers. At the time of writing, they were Great Britain, The United States, France, and Germany in that order. France and Great Britain had the largest amount of colonial territory due to how old their status was. Together, the four had 80% of the entire world's finance capital, making it pretty easy to understand why western European nations and the U.S. could develop far ahead of the other nations. Remember that next time someone tries to tell you that "third world countries did it to themselves." How they were able to do this was from the export of capital, a dependence needed for the network of capital.

Chapter 4: The Export Of Capital

Before diving into this part, we need to understand the difference between exporting commodities and exporting capital. The former was a normal aspect in the earlier ages of capitalism. The latter is what we have upon reaching the imperialist stage. As Marx says, a distinct feature of capitalism is that labor power itself is commodified, which is why we have uneven development between industries (and countries). England was capitalist before any other, allowing it to become a goods supplier to the world. This in turn allowed it to maintain a lot of raw materials, with the help of tariffs with neighboring nations. It now becomes easy to see that this type of monopoly causes a few rich countries to accumulate a massive surplus of capital (from all the extracted surplus value from its workers). What, then, do these countries do with that?

Exporting is the only option, since this surplus value cannot be used to satisfy the needs of the country's population; doing that would not be profitable. Instead, it's used to invest in export from colonies and other less-developed lands, preventing them from growing at all. England's capitalists can't simply invest overripe capital into agriculture and impoverished citizens; instead, this is the route it goes. So many former colonies still lag behind as a result; you can see this in the Americas, Asia, and Africa. I would also add eastern Europe, a region that got re-colonized in all but name after 1991, like the other examples.

Essentially, as Lenin puts it, finance capital "throws its net" all over the world to further enrich the exporting country and keep the colony underdeveloped for the sake of profit. Branches of banks will play a hand in this role. For example, in Britain in 1902, they had 50 colonial banks with 2,279 branches total. These capital exporting countries have essentially divided the world amongst themselves, taking a literal sense with finance capital.

Chapter 5: Division Of The World Among Capitalist Associates

Here is where we fully realize the workings of the imperialist phase, as the concentration of production in the form of monopoly spreads across the world. America and Germany, for example, managed to hold the largest control over electricity, especially as it was fairly new for the turn of the century. A small number of companies owned a large amount of smaller electric industry companies, and it's only gotten more obvious in the past hundred years. It was backed by a small amount of banks, and thus, no electric company could exist fully independent of either of these two countries. This capital could be exported elsewhere, whenever they wanted, same as we have seen and do see with oil.

Some have tried to argue that this was a way of keeping peace between nations, but instead it did the exact opposite. This caused for large competition between world powers, which is what would lead us to World War I, the first imperialist war. The class struggle still exists in the mother country and its colonies, doing the exact opposite of creating peace. The world is divided not because of intentional malice, but because this new type of class conflict is essential for capitalism at this stage to survive. Associations on different countries' division of the world is what determined who allied with who, and spheres of influence in the colonies also caused tensions.

Chapter 6: Division Of The World Among Great Powers

This is more or less an extension of chapter 5. Our attention is drawn to a chart showing the percentage of a few continents' lands that are colonies between 1876 and 1900. Africa alone goes from 10% to 90% (largely due to the Berlin Conference). This struggle for world dominance with monopoly capitalism utilizing finance capital brought us to World War I. Between 1886 and 1900, by territory, each power gained a significant sum of colonial land. Great Britain, though they got a lot of theirs before this, had accumulated 3,700,000 square miles; France got 3,600,000; Germany 1,000,000; Belgium 900,000, and Portugal 800,000.

This started with the British needing to expand their colonial reach to prevent civil war, due to the reasons gone over in chapter 4. Lenin notes that colonialism did exist prior to the capitalist mode of production, but only with military invasion, rather than the need to export for the sake of finance capital. The Roman Empire expanded with the mode of slavery, and the Mongol Empire built itself during the feudal period, both coming before the capitalist expansion phases.

These monopolies are established at the point when one enterprise can afford to buy up all of the raw materials to dominate production; it's why even today America needs to seize oil fields in west Asian countries, the point being that it never really stops even after the colonial period. The more capitalism struggles, the more everyone will feel the shortage of raw materials in their everyday lives, leading to more intense hunting of raw materials, and eventually imperialist war. 

Finance capital is interested in sources of raw materials, mostly for when new methods of production rise. You'll see banks expedite special groups of engineers or agricultural experts, as Lenin gives for an example. Finance capital is strong enough to subject itself to independent states, once more pointing to how it still affects post-colony nations even today. We look at Argentina as an example, where they were independent in name, but their bourgeoisie class was in diplomatic connection to British finance capital, all but making them dependent. We refer to this as a "semi-colony." I say again, it shouldn't be surprising why many places are still underdeveloped at the hands of the United States and west Europe. These countries get no say in how their resources are extracted and allocated.

Chapter 7: Imperialism As A Special Stage

Right about now is where we start to sum things up. We look back and compile Lenin's five elaborate parts to imperialism.

1) The concentration of capital production has developed so high that it creates monopolies.

2) Bank capital merges with industrial capital to create finance capital.

3) The export of capital instead of the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance.

4) Formation of international monopoly capitalists that share the world amongst themselves takes place.

5) Territorial division of the world among the largest powers is created.

Understanding these factors is crucial to understand imperialism. We see Lenin's criticism of Kautsky reach high levels here, as well as that of other bourgeoisie economists. Finance capital and trusts cause a large imbalance in world development, something they all leave out. Nothing but war can come from this special stage of capitalism, due to these contradictions and disparities.

Chapter 8: Parasitism And Decay Of Capitalism

Parasitism is a bit of a side observation as a characteristic of imperialism, heavily looking at rentiers isolated from production processes that can grow. On a small scale, you could look at landlords living off of peoples rent as an example, but on a large scale this works in the form of predatory loans. Think of how Britain did this with Egypt, China, countries in South America, etc. to further understand how imperialism works outside of colonialism. Decayed capitalism with weaker chains pops up more easily, influencing socio-politically concerned countries in conjunction. It's also why you'll see immigration from the "backwards" underdeveloped nation to the mother country in search of higher wages; this is why someone from one of those nations might try to get to America, even if your conservative relatives try and say it's about "freedom."

Lenin also points out that Marx and Engels both noted opportunism on the rise, as smaller petty-bourgeoisie sects would form to hurt the interests of the working class. This was very evident in England, and the weaker chains of capitalism in say, Russia or China made it easier for revolution (something Stalin addresses later). We also see the emergence of social-chauvinism, a disliking of other ethnicities that ultimately have the same interests as you, but are painted to be the problem by the capitalist class. Boy, do we see a lot of that today in America.

Chapter 9: Critique Of Imperialism

With opportunists in mind, we get more criticism of Kautsky's talks on imperialism. Like with social-chauvinism, different attitudes will divide the working class up based on their personal general ideologies. Points like this are usually skipped by bourgeoisie writers on imperialism, and often times they try to criticize it without criticizing capitalism; we now know that that's quite impossible. It fits their narrative to talk about "world peace" without addressing what actually needs to change for that to happen. Kautsky specifically tries to argue that capitalism could develop without imperialism, something we also now know to be impossible due to the contradictions.

Chapter 10: The Place Of Imperialism In History

Lenin concludes with some history first by summing up the four principle types of monopolies: concentration of production, of raw materials, of bank capital, and colonial policy. Colonies existed before imperialism, but they grew into a new role separate from that of, say, Christopher Columbus. When only 1/10 of Africa was colonized, it was far easier to roam free for resources. Once it all got cut up and divided by Europe, inter-imperialist struggles began. Capitalists strove for domination of world markets, not freedom (despite what your patriotic uncle might think). What it all comes down to is being a transitional phase of capitalism; it's a step further from what Marx outlined fifty years earlier, but different only in form and phase, not concept.

My Afterwards:

Considering this was all written a century ago, we can see its ripple effects get worse since then. Decaying capitalism would shortly after this give rise to fascism, which combines traits of national chauvinism, monopoly domination, and the forceful breaking up of socialist resistance in violent forms. An entire second imperialist war known as World War II broke out following this, and not long after that, the Soviet Union was forced into the Cold War. Despite its name, it's more appropriate to call it a class war, as revolutions broke out all around the world due to imperialist contradiction. Fascist squads and U.S. backed military juntas would do all they can to stamp these out. Considering the edge that the large powers of the world since the end of World War I had on everything else, it only makes sense that imperialism would run rampant even into the post-colonial world. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, we would see the unipolar world of the U.S. as a world power dominate whatever it wanted, and only recently has this been challenged with a new, capitalist run Russia and a reformed China. I won't spend time going over the next century of imperialist destruction, but I find it somewhat important to note how everything we have seen recently reflects Lenin's work here. You can also now understand why China isn't imperialist; trading commodity production in exchange for technological advancements is not imperialism. Building infrastructure for underdeveloped nations without predatory loans is not imperialism. The unipolar world of U.S. policy, however, is. And if nothing else, it becomes far easier to understand why now, a century later, certain powers are still reign over the entire world.

For more on Imperialism in the 21st century, I recommend this work.

Book Review: The Governance Of China I, by Xi Jinping

Ever since China opened up its economy in 1978, their politics have been somewhat unpredictable. Many leftists in America put trust in the Communist Party of China to steer things the right direction, despite the introduction of heavy capitalist policies. In my personal opinion, the past decade or so, with Xi Jinping taking over the leadership role, things have swung more left. Currently, there are four volumes of books out called The Governance Of China, composed of speeches, letters, essays, and interviews given by Xi. At the stage of the first volume, which I'll be covering here, his term was in its earliest phases, giving a good idea of how the CPC is to carry out its roles. Obviously we can judge how well this works over time, but for our purposes, we're going to examine the book itself and the main points meant to be conveyed.

First, it's important to understand that the translation from Chinese into English comes off clunky at times, and because of the nature of how this was stitched together, there's a fair amount of repetition. What's nice about that is that it makes it easier to decipher what the biggest ideas are. All throughout the first volume, Xi Jinping expresses the goal of the rejuvenation of China, the importance of Mao Zedong thought and Deng Xiaoping theory, the vital thought of the Three Represents, aiming for the Chinese Dream, and realizing the concept of Socialism with Chinese characteristics. Yeah, I know, that's a lot, so what exactly does it all mean?

Mao Zedong thought is somewhat the foundation, highlighting the fact that the party's foundations are principled around Marxism-Leninism, which has been expressed in several areas. Deng Xiaoping comes in when touching on the areas of opening up economically, which we'll revisit later. The Three Represents is representation of the Chinese people on three levels, by using the interests from the population rather than a few specific interests. Socialism with Chinese characteristics is more or less all of these things together, which are the Marxist-Leninist foundations combined with the material conditions specific to Chinese land, culture, people, and history. As we know, history doesn't exist in a vacuum, despite what your reactionary family members might say. This then paves the way for the Chinese Dream, which ultimately is meant to represent the happiness, security, democracy, and liveliness of the nation, or in other words, the rejuvenation. If I had to sum up the main points of the book in a paragraph, this is it.

But I get it, this is still a lot, and means little when not put to practice with specific measurable goals. What I like about the work is that Xi takes the initiative to do just that, lay out much of the problems China faces, how he thinks they should be resolved, and gives timelines for carrying this out. He addresses the fact that China, despite all of their advancements into a world superpower, having such a large economy, and bringing up the quality of life overall since 1949, is still behind in many ways. The "Chinese characteristics" part of the formula touches on how they need to reach a modernized level to that of the more advanced nations technologically by 2049, which is helped out by their openness to foreign trade and investment. Sure, this sounds opposite of Marxist principles, but the control of the party, that of millions, is used to fight corruption, another topic heavily addressed. There is a whole area of this book dedicated to strict discipline for fighting corruption, and how party members are to hold themselves and each other accountable. 

Oh no, how scary, that can't possibly be democratic, can it? I for one think that kind of checking power is needed. Party work is carried out as a responsibility, not a job where bureaucrats collect the wealth of the nation with the lobbying of billionaires. Of course, like I said, nothing there is perfect, and more rural and poor areas can get neglected, which is touched on. This is where concepts around government involvement become important to areas not in the immediate larger cities. Getting back on track, the use of foreign investment is not only to help their economy, but also allows newer technologies to flow in. The goal set from the time of this writing was to double the average GDP of the people by 2020, and to lift the country to the level of "rich" western powers by 2049, a centenary goal of the People's Republic of China. Now, it's also important to understand that Xi doesn't see a nation's GDP as a true measurement of its success, which is mentioned in the book. What's more important is that the nation's wealth is being utilized for the people's need in a democratic fashion, especially with the state of the world economy in a post-Soviet world.

Speaking of democracy, keep in mind that democracy in one country being different than the way it is in yours doesn't mean it isn't democracy. In fact, odds are, if your "democracy" is electing one of two "choices" chosen by the ruling class every four years, it's even less democratic than that of China. As it states, the party is massive, and The Governance Of China stresses the importance of participation on all levels, how committees get elected on local levels through the people and campaigns, working its way up to higher regions, all the way to the top of the party leadership. You can't truly be democratic without participation from the workers more than once every four years.

Moving on, Xi sees the importance of housing everybody, preventing food insecurity, and the health of the people as a necessity for everybody's happiness. He also points out, several times, how large their population is and how many different ethnic groups exist within the borders, which is an expansion of why local interests need to be represented. Everyone won't have the exact same needs, and things even get extended to other nations, in how Chinese people everywhere are still part of their people and should do all they can to improve whatever country they're living in.

This is a good time to transition into relations with other nations, which is where a lot of letters to other world leaders, especially those in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) collaboration. Even nations you would expect to be seen as "enemy" nations are addressed in positive light. Relations with the United States, one that will do everything in its power to see the destruction of China as we know it, are stressed as being important. We even see this now, with how many commodities have been produced over the decades from China, almost turning the capitalist contradiction on its head as it reaches its later stage. But more importantly, there is a lot of stress on the Belt and Road Initiative, and relations with Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Over the past decade, the activity of trading with other nations has shifted greatly from the United States to China, mostly because of things that are meant to help develop other countries without predatory loans. Not only does this help China and their economy, but now carries out Xi's idea of having good relations with the world and helping the livelihood of people everywhere.

Much of this is focused in the end of the book, around the chapters addressing peaceful development, multilateral relations, "major country" relations, and connections to the people. Divorcing the government from the people is what leads to such horrid capitalistic interests dominating, and these things become easier to understand alongside the earlier chapters on law and national defense. Even touchier subjects along the Taiwanese Strait, Macau and Hong Kong are touched on, specifying that they are indeed part of China and that there's no intentions of threat. There's a concept known as "one country, two systems" meant to help integrate these regions in a way that doesn't invoke war (assuming the many U.S. bases surrounding China don't try for that anyway). Much of this goes back to what is known as the "century of humiliation," when foreign powers had the country in its grips for colonization, and how part of the Chinese Dream is to get it to a stage where this can never happen again. It also ties into the grander rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, which brings us full circle to what this is all about.

For the most part, this covers your basis of the first volume. It's somewhat of a plan-oriented book, based on Marxist-Leninist principles alongside what needs to be done to fit the needs of the Chinese nation, regarding its history, material conditions, culture(s), and general opening up in a way that can help them grow to achieve socialism with their characteristics. Stressed in many areas, a lot of the writing followed the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which is where a lot of the party's history and leadership since its founding is discussed. It's important to understand the history, recent and far, as well as the present and how everything will be carried out.

So ultimately, you may ask yourself, is this worth reading? It comes down to how interested you are in China as a leftist. Obviously, this is not a history book and it can't be used as a judgement of how things are run, however it gives a good idea of the ins-and-outs of how the party will operate in the Xi Jinping era, and the general goals in place used to guide how things will run, whether it goes that way or not. As of now, there are three more volumes, which I'll touch on as we get to them, but it doesn't take much time to look back at how much China has achieved since this book's publishing, and what was achieved before this to bring Xi to the point he was. For the most part, it's a very straightforward and a rather easy read despite its intimidating size. I had a much easier time with this than I did with Capital Vol. 1, and it certainly makes much more sense in comparison to The Federalist Papers, an upholding of the U.S. constitution that was written, what, two hundred and fifty years ago? Somehow we've hardly moved beyond those very principles that Americans will die on a hill for, and works like this are certainly worthwhile for those eager to see a modern blueprint for a foreign nation, especially for those who follow Marxist-Leninist principles.

Understanding Capital Vol. 1 (Part 8), by Karl Marx

Welcome to Understanding Capital Vol. 1, where the goal is to analyze all angles of Capital, extract the important points, and summarize as much information as possible. The purpose here is less about inserting opinions on the work or what's said, and more about laying everything out to someone who has never read it, or someone who has a tough time reading it, yet can get a full understanding of the information.

Here we have it, the final section of Capital, a shorter one broken into eight even shorter chapters, which focuses a little more on the historical aspect of capitalism. This is a very important area that I find to be one of the easiest ones to understand and work through. It addresses how the capitalist mode of production was able to form, and the blood on its hands from doing so. As for most of the book, Marx looks at England as the case study, due to it being the most advanced capitalist nation at the time.

Chapter 26: The Secret Of Primitive Accumulation

Possibly the smallest chapter in the book, this essentially just says that capital emerged through breaking the sacred laws of private property by allowing it to accumulate. It was started by splitting people from their means of subsistence, such as land, productive forces, skills, culture, trades, and so forth. This somewhat goes back to the aspect of dehumanizing people by isolating them from their labor, extracting what we hold dear as a mode of private profit; everything eventually becomes commodified as the process advances forward.

Chapter 27: The Expropriation Of The Agricultural Population From The Land

As we discussed before, the biggest difference between capitalism and feudalism is that production is no longer tied to the land with the latter. The theft of land accumulation forced peasants to wage labor as soon as feudal lords were replaced with the conquering and privatization of land. The peasantry previously had the same right to the land as the lord, it's just that a portion of the labor done there went to the lord, as we previously discussed. Now, capital is no longer interested in land, but is interested in money to turn commodities into more money, which relates back to the first section.

Enter legislations role in this; money accumulates in the earliest stages, then acts as the power to lobby and command the state through capital. This also sees the reformation of church, dividing the church and state, which the latter then divided up land for extremely low cost to create the capitalist class. But what of the commons, or in other words, public places that the state couldn't control? The 15th and 16th centuries saw subjected these through acts of violence until they became managed by the state in the 17th century. By now, these lands were granted to landlords as a means of private property, which allowed for evictions of peasants and massive acts of violence to lay the foundations of private capital. Even today, we see this on smaller scales in order to maintain capitalist control. The dissolution of the USSR even saw this process happen again from capitalists reclaiming power, showing serious regression from the public property getting sold and concentrated into private hands. Housing and needs are now in the hands of oligarchs in Russia, and violence was used against those who tried to resist this.

Chapter 28: Bloody Legislation Against The Expropriated Since The End Of The Fifteenth Century; The Forcing Down Of Wages By Acts Of Parliament

What a mouthful! This chapter focuses more on the states new involvement as capitalist society arose. While some tried to argue that the peasant classes were now "freed persons," they were actually forced into becoming wage laborers in the industrial centers. They would be punished for not doing so, or would end up homeless (or both). In other words, peasants were called "voluntary criminals" in order to bring more of them into the new working class. Think again to what we talked about in an earlier section about anti-homeless laws, and the "reserve army of laborers," as if this is simply a choice every person can have. Whipping, branding, and torture were all used as punishment, much like how it was under slavery.

Over time, this will all get worked into the culture of a certain land, which we see in America a lot today. Think about how much propaganda is pumped into your entertainment, news, and general status quo. This takes its origins hundreds of years ago. Capitalism's conditions in education and culture help justify it by showing only how it built itself up from feudalism, while dodging slave society and violence used to prop this up, and the violence it takes in keeping it in place rather than moving to socialism. How many times has someone made the tired "human nature" argument to you, as if that hasn't changed over time? How often do you hear words like "freedom" and "democracy," as if they're exclusive only to the capitalist mode of production and nothing else? The littlest bit of research can disprove this nonsense. And finally, you'll end up with people actually believing that the poor are poor because of bad choices, while the rich are only rich from "saving." Do I really need to go further with this?

Finally, parliament extended working days to create these "reserve army" of workers, and give it a normal degree of dependents. Wages were driven down to create a wage ceiling, once more allowing for higher profit and more power with capital's command via the state. Trade unions were outlawed, said to be an attack on "liberty" (read: private capital), and the only way concessions against this were won in history was through massive resistance by the working class and left movements.

Chapter 29: The Genesis Of The Capitalist Farmer

This was mentioned briefly in chapter 27 and this chapter essentially expands on that just a little bit. As we know, land privatization is what created the capitalist class of farmers, and even some serfs began exploiting other serfs. All they had to do was split capital investment between themselves and the landlord (or larger capitalist) before eventually starting their own stream of capital accumulation. All this is to show the role capitalist farmers played in creating the owning class in the early stages.

Chapter 30: Impact Of The Agricultural Revolution On Industry; The Creation Of The Home Market For Industrial Capital

Another mouthful title nearly as large as the point it makes. This serves to point out how formerly, peasants consumed raw materials and created commodities for themselves and the lord (which we should note is still exploitative in its own way), but those commodities now go to the large, private farmer to sell. Since he has a market of manufacture, it allowed labor power to create the market itself.

Chapter 31: The Genesis Of The Industrial Capitalist

The next step in this forward movement deals in history more recent to Marx's time, as larger industry begins, advancing closer to the next stage of capitalism. The M-C-M step takes high fruition here, lending out money for commodities used to get more money, which is the key reason for labor power and surplus value extraction. Revolution does not work within the law, and this is where breaking sacred laws of private property really ramp up; so think to the industrial revolution, colonialism, or events that lead to the American Revolution. All it took was for Europeans to discover that there was gold in the Americas to aim for conquering foreign land. They could then exploit resources for the growth of capital, enslave others, genocide indigenous populations, and form national debts to force capital to keep flowing from colonies. This is then downplayed as "nature," something that conveniently doesn't fit when advancements to socialism are described, but somehow does for capitalism.

Brute force is now employed by the state power that we discussed growing in chapter 27, but on a far larger scale. National debts are publicized, and people will continue to get worked into the finance capital started by the state without getting any share or say in the production processes; electing a different ruling class president every four years is not democracy, and does not count as "having a voice." Think about even recently (2008, 2020), as the state gave money to banks and what that caused for the working class. Think of the Great Depression. Think about how empires kept colonies in debt with things like the IMF and National Bank. Debt credit and taxation are needed for the capitalist mode to remain in its later stages. Economists will argue that they are what cause poverty with no mention of how they're needed in order to keep our current system. And most importantly, this leads to imperialist wars meant to seize common property and privatize it.

Chapter 32: The Historical Tendency Of Capitalist Accumulation

Everything we've read until this point is meant to show why capitalism leads to revolutionary tendencies; while Marx never saw any huge revolutions in his time, he saw enough blowback to reflect the amount of socialist revolutions that arose in the 20th century. Productive forces were always built on prior arrangements (I.E. slavery, feudalism) that turned to handicraftsman falling into the hands of private owners. Then, these fall into the hands of larger capitalists, which was the main point of part 7 on capital reproduction. The more this centralizes, the more the proletariat class grows and gives way to this type of revolt that we've seen in the past century.

The point is that capitalism digs its own grave because of its conditions to function. Socialism so far has happened heaviest where capitalist chains were the weakest, something Josef Stalin addressed in The Foundations Of Leninism. Think of how weak capitalism was in Russia, China, or colonies dominated by bigger capitalist powers in the 20th century. And worst of all, the competition drive between large corporations causes the protection of research and development that could be for the public. Health, science, engineering, and inventions are privatized for profit, rather than need, and this is why capitalism must go.

Chapter 33: The Modern Theory Of Colonization

Really, chapter 32 could work as a summary of this entire section, but Marx threw in one last small chapter that I think works something like an afterword. This is where he mentions that the contradictions of capitalism get pushed the most by colonialism (and eventually imperialism), which Lenin somewhat takes the horns and drives with from here. It's the basic principle of how nobody can be free if there is slave labor in another colony, as that threat of "it could be worse" will always loom. National chauvinism is a strong weapon of the bourgeoisie, and we see that everywhere today. The way Americans look at those in Africa, Asia, and other nations that were mutilated from colonialism and imperialism should tell you all you need to know.

Understanding Capital Vol. 1 (Part 7), by Karl Marx

Welcome to Understanding Capital Vol. 1, where the goal is to analyze all angles of Capital, extract the important points, and summarize as much information as possible. The purpose here is less about inserting opinions on the work or what's said, and more about laying everything out to someone who has never read it, or someone who has a tough time reading it, yet can get a full understanding of the information.

We're reaching the final areas of Capital, and in my opinion, Part 7 on reproduction can be as much of a slog the beginning of the book. But this is where we wrap things up before finishing off with a shorter, more history oriented section. There are only three chapters to this, but they're dense as hell, so it has a small intro to it that we'll address here; think of it as a mild summary of everything we've read to keep in mind for Part 7. It touches on the three parts of the circulation of production. The first step is taking money to invest in the labor power and the means of production, which the early chapters talked about. Then comes the actual production process, where the variable and constant capital combine to produce values greater than the original capital advanced, aka surplus value. Finally, the commodities enter circulation and are realized in money form. This circuit repeats into continual growth while the workers don't see the true value of their labor power regardless of profit. And if there is no profit, the workers are the first to go. Marx addresses this section assuming there is no interruption in this process in order to scientifically study it properly.

Chapter 23: Simple Reproduction

The biggest takeaway from the intro into this is that all processes of production are inevitably going to become process of their own reproduction, similar to how we talked about the worker reproducing his wage after the necessary labor time, only now on a grander scale. But it isn't only the pieces of capital that are reproduced, but also the material conditions that justify its existence. In a prior chapter, Marx compared how the relationship from worker to owner weren't void in older modes of production, but the conditions themselves are what changed.

This then leads to simple reproduction, which is defined as the capitalist taking some of the surplus value produced to throw back into the reproduction process. If someone owns a pizza shop, and it grows in popularity, the owner might use some of that extra surplus value to invest in another employee to help keep up, and lead to more accumulation. By now, we understand that the worker never gets paid until after his labor power is used, so all wages come from the worker's own labor, which is strictly meant for the reproduction of his labor moving forward. This is hidden, because it appears that the worker has been paid for "all" of his labor, when really, the capitalist wants it to be as little as humanly possible. The worker must spend his wage on other worker-produced commodities in order to survive, and continue labor reproduction.

But what about workers that aren't directly involved in this labor process? Suppose you make your own money some other way, such as the rare case of running your own business by yourself and making enough to live on, or maybe you're a farmer, or something detached from the mass of private property owners; you're still at the mercy of capital. Best hope that you can afford private healthcare, and that the corporate-controlled market doesn't eventually work past your ability. Why does this matter? It's to understand that the entire working class is susceptible to the same pitfalls of those employed by a capitalist. Thus, remaining agricultural workers, or depending on the stage of capitalism, feudal workers, still have the same interests as the working class. Think of the revolutions that occurred in largely agriculturally regions.

Overall, this chapter serves to show that the capitalist state functions to regulate labor in its interests as much as possible, regarding labor power, supply, distribution, and most importantly, reproduction. This relationship of owner and worker is held by suppression of the state and keep it in continuation. Again, I can't recommend reading Lenin enough.

Chapter 24: The Transformation Of Surplus Value Into Capital

For much of this work, we've looked at how surplus value comes from capital, but as the section suggests, we will now look at this equation the other way around. The previous chapter explains why capital rests on continual expansion, needing the reproduction of surplus value to maintain its power. That's not exactly cheap, which is why when businesses can't continue increasing output, they eventually go out (and the owner gets a nice subsidy while the workers are out of income). The more surplus value squeezed out in a year will basically fund grander exploitation the following year, if capital works the way it's intended to. The faster this accumulation happens, the more rapidly exploitation will continue. People not understanding that is why so many believe that inflation is not related to rising profits for owners, but in actuality, that's exactly how capitalism was always meant to function.

So it should go without saying that the more capital the owner gets, the more power he has, as he can buy out smaller, or unsuccessful businesses and over time own more and more of the means of production, and ultimately access to human needs. Think about how Amazon can sell things at such a low price, since they're so big that they can afford it. Once that accumulates, they go and buy out small competitors.

Next, Marx returns to Adam Smith, and his statement on how capitalists will always hire more workers as they make more profit. We now know that this isn't exactly true, especially after the initial start to the process. More workers means needing more raw materials to work with, and eventually, accumulation will allow the owner to invest in machinery to take labor from more workers. Think back to the CNC machine example from before, replacing machinists. The implementation of new technology to lessen the burden is good, until workers are cut and the labor is only for higher profit while fewer people get paid. This leads us to the conclusion that capitalists only care about production for production's sake, not for the well being of people and helping society. This connects to the very beginning of the book, on why capitalists are interested in the exchange value, not the use value. Accumulation of more capital, and more savings leads to billionaires and the rich class controlling virtually everything.

This chapter ends with the use of war in capitalism. A war in another nation not only allows for the exploitation of resources and workers at a potentially cheaper rate, but it lays the groundwork for future investment. The destruction of an area can even enable this very workforce at a cheaper cost. It's also worth mentioning the difference between a population's GDP in a capitalist nation vs. a socialist country. If the U.S. GDP goes up, it's because the owning class is getting richer. If it goes up somewhere like Cuba, it means more needs are being met. This isn't to say that there are no issues that go under the radar, but the ruling class of a socialist nation won't work to only make a few rich. Socialism is interested in use-value, not exchange value. The only reason it may need exchange value is for trading, such as what the USSR was forced to do in the early days, since many western nations sanctioned them and wouldn't accept their money.

Chapter 25: The General Law Of Capitalist Accumulation

And here we reach the densest part of this section, on how this accumulation is based on the ratio between variable capital to constant capital. In other words, this ratio of the two growing (or not) determines the amount of command capital has over the workers.

Let us then talk about constant value composition, which is the growth of both forms of capital at the same rate. If these remain close at all times, the increased demand for labor power will continue, allowing wages to go up for the sake of competition in the labor power market. But the minute this correlation widens, and profits don't get up, capitalists will work to push wages down and remain on top. One might argue that if that's true, a gas station wouldn't offer $17 an hour to fill roles in a time like America's recession in 2021, however people forget that that's still far less than the inflation rate, and is looked at as a concession. In other words, keeping rates lower in comparison with inflation over time allows them to fool workers this way. Regardless, as we keep saying, if the surplus value extraction percentage isn't going up, then the mode of production cannot continue, and it only will by greater exploitation over time.

This brings us to technical composition, which is constant capital growing at a higher rate than variable capital. The means of production then get more investment than the labor power, causing the need for capitalists to increase productivity from fewer workers as a means of competition. Then they can sell commodities at a lower rate than their competitor and still turn the same profit. Thus everyone must either match the new technological investment, or go out of business. Starting to add up yet?

How, then, does a capitalist gain more means of production? A little thing called concentration and centralization. The former is exactly as it sounds; investing in more machines, more buildings, etc. The latter is what we talked about earlier, regarding the bigger guy buying out the littler guys to counter individual capitalists repelling each other. Once a few larger capitalists achieve the concentration step, the door is opened for monopoly as fewer and fewer hands own everything. Now social reproduction is expanded into the hands of even fewer. So how do the few large capitalists accelerate this process? This is where finance capital plays a role, which Marx covers more in the following volumes, as well as Lenin with Imperialism: The Highest Stage Of Capitalism. Joint-stock companies are basically legal monopoly; consider how many brands are owned by bigger brands in America.

But let's talk more about centralization. Isn't that the planning strategy used in socialist examples? Sure, and Marx mentions that even under capitalism it can lead to more rapid production in large-scale examples, such as with the construction of railroads. The difference is the profit motive vs. the need motive, and it then becomes easier to understand why building socialism goes smoother following a developed capitalist state than a feudal, or lower capitalist state. Many would argue even that capitalism is a necessary step regarding separation from a larger empire, or developing industry. The point is, though, that once this step is achieved, it is no longer progressive, and the foundation for socialism should follow, instead of ending with the capitalist mode of production. Transitioning and planning from this stage is far easier. Imagine America, a nation with more resources and riches than any other, distributing what it has based off central planning for needs, not central control for profit.

Next, Marx looks to debunk the myth that poverty arises through workers having too many children. Workers creating technologies that put them out of work, and falling profits are what push wages down and cut people out of work. There's no "law of population," yet capital dictates the workforce as if there is, despite there being enough resources for a growing population. Marx calls this the "reserve army of labor," essentially those imprisoned, homeless, or unemployed to keep those employed in check, with a constant threat of "ending up like them." The "excess" population allows for fewer workers to do more, harder work, at worse wages, a violent tactic that shows how much it would benefit everyone to be involved in work for less time, and still receive what they need.

On the other hand, these "reserve classes" are what Marx refers to as "dangerous" to the bourgeoisie. Since they have less to lose, they're more willing to fight harder against the ruling class, and the ruling class will fight harder to suppress them (think police brutality). Socialist society wouldn't have this "reserve" class, as everyone would be entitled to work for the betterment of society, not profit. Any surplus production is meant for the whole population. But as capital accumulates and reproduces, this population grows due to more being thrown out of work, allowing for capital to form its own enemy. This is known as the Absolute Law, and Marx ends this section by showing how this plays out with pauperism misleading workers.

Preventing workers from being conscious of this is a weapon wielded by the bourgeoisie state and ruling class, often times through gentrification. We see this a lot today; as capital flows into a town or sections of a city, banks and businesses thrive which look great, yet we overlook the way it drives poorer classes into more concentrated areas. This becomes a higher area of crime, and police can easier suppress the poorest "reserve" workers. In other words, capitalism doesn't actually solve housing or the housing crises, it just moves it. If homelessness was more visible to the public and less hidden in smaller quarters, public reaction would allow more room for the working class to fight back and unify. Anti-homeless laws, such as loitering or putting up the center piece on benches would take way more fight from the working class as well.

Conclusion

The biggest takeaway in this part is really centered on how labor plays into its own reproduction for profit, and how workers can actively take part in suppressing their own class without trying. Working class unity is very important, no matter how much the accumulation of capital will try and trick us into working against each other. Looking at the Irish Potato Famine in 1846, one million of the poorest class died, while the capitalist class still profited and did nothing to help it. Racism and national chauvinism further breaks up the working class and pits it against each other, and these are things we as workers must overcome. Without liberation of minorities and other targeted groups, none of us are free.

Understanding Capital Vol. 1 (Part 6), by Karl Marx

Welcome to Understanding Capital Vol. 1, where the goal is to analyze all angles of Capital, extract the important points, and summarize as much information as possible. The purpose here is less about inserting opinions on the work or what's said, and more about laying everything out to someone who has never read it, or someone who has a tough time reading it, yet can get a full understanding of the information.

Part 6 is another small section that mostly focuses on wage, as that term has been the centerpiece due to its relation to surplus value and necessary labor time. I recommend that you read parts 5 and 6 together. Find part 5 here.

Chapter 19: The Transformation Of The Value Of Labor Power Into Wages

As we showed in the last section, wage is meant to appear that we've been paid for everything we produce, when we've only actually been paid for the commodity of labor power. Supply and demand is used to explain the changes in prices of things, a tactic we all saw in 2022 in America with the skyrocketing of gas prices despite oil companies seeing record profits. This also fails to explain why some commodities are given a higher value than others, despite the necessary labor time not being any different, which is the true measurement of value. Wage is used to hide the surplus value concept, and as I've said, it truly works on many Americans. Workers who contribute so much to the profit of their masters still struggle to get by.

Marx compares this mode of production to previous modes. First, he observes how slave society did the same thing, in that it appears that the slave only produces for his master, but his work also contributes to the means of his ability to live. Does that suddenly mean this slave has freedom? No. He's given the bare needs for survival and reproduction (which is gone over in Part 7), all of which were work needed for this own survival, and every other bit of his existence goes to the enrichment of his master. Feudal society is like a slightly lesser version of this, where a peasant works part of the year for himself, and part for the lord who's land he works on. With capitalism being the next mode of production, this same relationship between worker and master is represented in wage. Since you're paid by the hour, week, or year, the relation between master and worker appears invisible.

Chapter 20: Time Wages

Time wages are exactly what they sound like; a wage based on certain hours of work instead of a day or week. This irregularity allows for capital to dominate the time of the worker. Figure a bartender that closes for eight hours and then opens the next day, or a store clerk's hours getting cut to save money. It appears that you get paid based on your work, but now the capitalist is controlling the specific parts of the day that you work and when they can extract the most value from your labor power. Overtime comes in play as the worker getting a slight portion of the surplus value that was previously extracted, another small concession won by labor movements.

Essentially, this structures workers to be "on call," more figuratively in these senses but more literally in fields like medical and HVAC or maintenance. A worker's free time is often used to rest and prepare for the next working day, while also juggling taking care of your needs, or possibly kids. In a way, capital colonizes the time of the worker, while the capitalist has all the free time in the world.

Chapter 21: Piece Wages

Again, fairly straightforward, but also worth breaking down the "why" behind it. Instead of being paid by the time, you're paid by the piece of what you produce. This allows for a bit of self-discipline, as producing more commodities will give you more money, and if you can do that in a lesser amount of time by increasing the intensity, you will. It can also lead to competition between workers, and all of this decreases the value of your labor, yet sees higher profit for the capitalist due to more being produced in less time.

The drawback for the capitalist here is that it becomes far more apparent to the worker that the capitalist is taking more from the value of his labor. It's easy to see what the product sells for vs. what you're paid for making it. If you're screen-printing T-shirts, and get paid $5 per shirt, but they sell for $25 per shirt, it doesn't take a mathematician to see what's going on. Or think again to the gig workers, and how much an Uber driver gets to give you a ride vs. how much you pay for the ride. Faster, sloppy work can be an outcome as well, which makes for garbage commodities that break easily.

Chapter 22: National Differences Of Wage

Marx closes this section off by acknowledging the labor power value varying from country to country, and how it plays a role. Material conditions, the state of class struggle, attitude, availability, labor laws (or lack thereof), technology, and many other things can be a reason for these differences. Thus, the same goods will have different values from country to country or region to region. If the average wage in one country is far lower than another, that doesn't always equate to meaning impoverished, if the state of the nation allows for free education, housing, healthcare, etc. To the opposing point, if wages in a nation are higher, that doesn't equate to a high standard of living if those essential things are not provided, and you must go into debt to attain any of them and risk losing them at any time.

This is all why capitalists will push for free trade amongst countries, as outsourcing work to nations where the wages are low means higher profits. This inevitable need is what lead to colonialism and eventually imperialism, something else that Lenin breaks down further in the 20th Century. It's also one of the many reasons why capitalist powers, specifically America, don't like when other nations go socialist (think about Cuba and why they're sanctioned) or at minimum, nationalize their resources (think about the Iraq War). Even China creates a lot of output for America with its current state of private sectors under an overall public sector controlled by the Communist Party of China. Their labor force is cheap, but much of their social needs are met by the planning of the state. Subsidizing lower wages for foreign capital has all sorts of benefits to exchange for.

Conclusion

As Part 5 basically revealed how capitalism is the command of capital over unpaid labor, Part 6 brings forth wages and how that plays the biggest role in masking this core factor. There are different ways wage is used to cover it up; the capitalist's interests are only to meet needs to reproduce labor and labor power, and I truly think these two short parts are the most important section of the entire book.

Understanding Capital Vol. 1 (Part 5), by Karl Marx

Welcome to Understanding Capital Vol. 1, where the goal is to analyze all angles of Capital, extract the important points, and summarize as much information as possible. The purpose here is less about inserting opinions on the work or what's said, and more about laying everything out to someone who has never read it, or someone who has a tough time reading it, yet can get a full understanding of the information.

Parts 1 and 2 of Capital were very fundamental and objective, where 3 and 4 both dove into the science of the exploitative nature involving surplus value and labor power. 5 and 6 are both very short, yet are probably two of the most important, as they bring the entire first half of the work into the most realistic breakdown. So let's jump right into it!

Chapter 16: Absolute And Relative Surplus Value

The two types of surplus value are compared and contrasted here, showing how productive labor narrows and widens as capitalism develops. We observed how the products no longer relate to the individual worker, but are a social aspect of common collective labor. It's all guided by the production of surplus value, and work is done for the interest of the self-expansion of capital, not for creating common goods and needs for human fulfillment. Here Marx mentions that this not only applies to physical labor, but also education, research, knowledge-work, and things that fall under the "intellectual labor" category. Yet, some of these don't generate surplus value directly, but are a means for the production of it in other areas of the workplace. For instance, cashiers don't actually create anything, but they're an essential facet to the sale of the product (although in 2023, we're seeing a new version of machines replacing workers unique to our time that only further proves how relative surplus value uses machines to reduce labor power cost, yet workers who are employed work the same amount). This type of social order is maintained by a state to enforce the social order, which is something that gets touched on far more in the next century by Vladimir Lenin (see how).

What does all of this mean in regards to the two types of surplus value? We've already discussed in Part 4 that relative is capital's strategy for when workers win rights to shorten the working day, thus capitalists must find ways to get more out of less time. Absolute surplus value, however, is dependent on how long the work day is. If it takes two hours to produce your wage, or the necessary labor time, then the longer work day makes for more absolute surplus value. If your workday is ten hours long, then eight of those hours are straight surplus value for the capitalist. Things today such as the gig economy stretch this even further by aiming to eliminate the structure of a workday. If an Uber driver relies on an income for survival, and is technically free to work when they want, they're going to drive as long and often as they can to meet those needs. Thus, the capitalist can extract more and more from the rides they give.

Chapter 17: Changes In The Magnitude In The Price Of Labor Power And Surplus Value

Hell of a long chapter name, I know. This part essentially comes down to three things; length of the working day, intensity of labor in that working day, and productiveness of that intensity. In other words, it's the product of both relative and absolute surplus value. It's noted that the standards of living can improve while exploitation rates goes up, but whether that happens depends entirely on the pressure of capital to force more value from labor based on those three concepts, and the resistance of the workers coming together to win rights. Think of the mass movements in the early 20th century that lead to paid time off, the weekend, the 40 hour week, sick leave, etc. which was especially prominent during the rise of the USSR and other socialist forces threatening the capitalist structure.

So this leads to the big what if; the working day is reduced to only the necessary labor time (or enough work for the value of your work to equal your wage). This means no surplus labor, thus no profit for a capitalist. Therefore, the entire structure of work would change. Instead of working for the profit of one owner that controls the means of production, you're now working for the whole of society and yourself. Does this mean everybody would just work two hours per day? No. But all of the excess labor would become values for society at large, and as technology takes away the need for some jobs, less work is needed to produce more for society. Think about how much has changed since Marx's death, and how much less work we could do as a society thanks to machines, instead of just concentrating the work on fewer people for more profit. Instead, workers aren't free to determine how we utilize time and distribute to more people; that's decided by the capitalist.

Chapter 18: Various Formula For The Rate Of Surplus Value

This part ends on a quick chapter that goes over the three formulas that determine the rate. Surplus value generated in relation to the entire working day, surplus value in relation to the value of the product, and surplus product over the total product. This is how the capitalist economy confuses the term "labor" with "labor power," and it works like a charm on a lot of people who defend the interests of the class exploiting them. They claim that the capitalist buys our labor, thus we're paid in full. But in actuality, the capitalist is buying our labor power, which produces far more actual labor than what we're paid. Thus, we get to what is likely the grandest conclusion in the whole book. Marx references Adam Smith's definition of capital being the command over paid labor, and how it is incorrect. Everything thus far is actually showing us that in fact, capital is the command over unpaid labor. This section will not have a conclusion, as that previous sentence holds enough weight to do that job itself.

Understanding Capital Vol. 1 (Part 4), By Karl Marx

Welcome to Understanding Capital Vol. 1, where the goal is to analyze all angles of Capital, extract the important points, and summarize as much information as possible. The purpose here is less about inserting opinions on the work or what's said, and more about laying everything out to someone who has never read it, or someone who has a tough time reading it, yet can get a full understanding of the information.

Part 4 of Capital is a pretty beefy one, especially with the chapter on covering machinery and large scale industry. It starts off with a couple components that lead up to this, namely a dive into relative surplus value, as well as co-operation and how the capitalist aims to squeeze as much out of each worker as they can. The last of the four chapters covered here is extremely dense with a lot of statistics and analyzations of factory work, so I'll do my best to summarize that in a digestible fashion.

Chapter 12: The Concept Of Relative Surplus Value

Opposite of absolute surplus value, which involves the lengthening of the workday to gain more surplus value (a concept touched on in the next part), relative surplus value comes from the alterations of the limits within the working day to decrease necessary labor time. As we know now, the necessary labor time is the amount of time it takes for the worker to produce the value of his wage. So if the capitalist can find ways to make this difference in relation to the full working day go up, he will. Changing the division of labor, decreasing wages, and other means can achieve this. In other words, cheapening the value of the commodities factored into labor power without cheapening the price to match. 

Marx observes this on an individual level to make it a little more simple. Suppose the necessary labor time to make a pie is two hours, but then you find a way to make that same pie in only one hour. You're now producing twice as many pies as a competitor bakery, yet can sell it close to the social market value of pies. It's an increase in the productivity that allows the cheapening of commodities for a better sale ratio, yet the amount of surplus value still goes up. There are more use values from the same amount of overall value (socially necessary labor time), and that's what is meant by "the cheapening the value of commodities." There is less value in each one.

Chapter 13: Co-operation

Co-operation is exactly how it sounds, the cooperation of more than one worker by applying the relative surplus value we just covered to more workers. Capital truly begins its motion when a capitalist employs a large number of workers to produce a great number of commodities. The system of working is unchanged, just that now you have many people working in this process at the same time to allow for a larger amount of surplus value being generated. This material base at its core is working separately on the common means of production.

It then moves to show the common force of workers and how this amps up productivity even if every worker is not working on their own individual project. Think about four grocery clerks stocking their own pallets of groceries vs. four clerks stocking one massive pallet. Or for a personal case, one person cannot lift a couch themselves, but several people together can. In any case, the productivity increases, as does the surplus value.

Something important to note is that as this working class grows, the collectivity factor is more easily realized, and capitalists don't realize they can dig their own graves. Resistance to the domination of capital will grow as more workers come together and recognize the exploitation of the capitalist. We've seen it all throughout history, and we certainly see it today, even if not every worker is conscious of it. Counter-pressure will be needed from up top to overcome demands of the workers, and this is when you begin seeing strikes, protests, stoppages, and other forms of the contradictory nature in this economic model. Workers are the ones who create everything in the world, and it becomes easy to recognize that a boss is not needed for production once it's in motion. Working as a collective is an engrained human trait, and always has been in history. Capital will just try to force the individualization of everybody to work against each other and protect themselves, even though day after day workers come together to produce. Workers are not paid a higher wage for this higher output, yet it costs the capitalist nothing more than the necessary wages of each worker. In a way, all of the extra value is like a gift to the capitalist. Co-operation preceded capitalism, and it will succeed capitalism, which is really the bread and butter of this whole part. 

The only thing left out is the special kind of wage labor that we know as managers and supervisors. This makes the workforce into an army-like strata, where a small rank of workers are caught between the interest of the workers they oversee and the capitalist. On one hand, at the end of the day, they do not own capital, and are still selling their labor time to the capitalist, so the interests should lie with the workers. On the other, bowing to the capitalist and enforcing his interests are what keep him in good relation and paid higher. Ever notice that in most workplaces, the less work you do, the more money you make?

Chapter 14: The Division Of Labor And Manufacture

Manufacture is a step that comes in between the handicraft production and large industry based on machines. Seizing on the handicraft production and subjecting it to the factory-like setup is how the capitalist subjects it. This can be done in two ways. One of them is bringing in multiple handicrafts to produce one commodity, and the other is bringing in several handicrafts that don't rely on each other to make something.

Skill is the basis here, and more often than not, different skills are needed for the same capitalist's production. With manufacture, workers typically only work on one aspect of a finished product instead of the whole product. In a way, their body is worked into a part of a grander machine for the sake of generating profit, not for the common need for commodities. If the capitalist can't profit from something, it's a no-go. The more a worker does this one task, the better and faster they become, producing innovation through their work. Special tools with precise purposes are produced for labor, skill and knowledge to come together. Production of the instruments of labor themselves are also a part of this process. At the end, somebody focusing on one part of the process may not even know how it will look when it's finished. That's probably less common now than it was in Marx's time.

So how do we break down the two processes of manufacture? Heterogeneous and serial production. Heterogeneous production is when different products are produced under the same roof but not necessarily for the exact same purpose. Nonetheless, it's all still owned by one person. Serial production is when one commodity is produced, but it's broken down to discrete parts. For example, you hire a machinist to make metal parts, and a welder to assemble them together. In both cases, manufacture organizes a space by concentrating workers into that one space to reduce gaps of time between switching trades, tools, tasks, etc. If a handicraft is someone building parts of a car and assembling them, manufacture is having one person per part and then bringing it all together, or having many people each building their own car, depending on the direction seem as most efficient. The car is then sold for a high price, which the workers only see a little bit of. The surplus goes to the capitalist, rinse and repeat.

One last note on this section is that this shows how the worker becomes alienated from the product and process itself, thanks to it all being for the purpose of making someone else rich while they often times only scrape by. Transforming labor power and knowledge into a single motion of a greater process for someone else leaves less to be desired.

Chapter 15: Machinery And Large Scale Industry

And here we have it, all of this in practice. Returning to the cheapening of commodities that was mentioned earlier, machinery plays a large part in that. Yet, somehow the amount of work for the worker isn't decreased. If that sounds like it doesn't make sense, it's because it shouldn't, and that's touched on heavily in the next section on absolute surplus value.

To be a machine, there must be a motor that automates and transmits work into a tool that would have previously been used by a worker. Think of a CNC mill machine taking over the control of a bit that previously would have been done by a person. Collective labor in these technologies changes how we deal with nature, sustain life, form social relations, and mental conceptions (such as going from hand drawing to using AutoCAD). If the productivity in one industry goes this route, it forces another industry to do so in relation or response to this. Again, think back to relative surplus value. This becomes especially true when one mode of production relies on another one in order to advance. Thus, capital moves all over the place, even on a global scale. How many times have you come across something with different parts made in different countries? Furthermore, this is why colonial territory became so important in the days of empire and colonization. Exploiting a raw material in a colony while manufacturing it in the home country maximizes profit, which we saw with emerald mining during Apartheid in South Africa (And endless other examples). 

Marx observes the Factory Act, which was a response to some of the crushingly long working hours, especially those forced upon women and children, as well as the deterioration of one's life that this violent mode of production caused. A state-imposed reduction of working hours on children called for more machines, which gives capitalists even more control over production, pay, and who can get goods that they need (people who can afford them). 

Looking back, we recall that a machine never transfers more value to a product than it initially has. If a machine is good for 10 years, then 1/10th of the value of the machine is transmitted into commodities each year. This caused a decrease in the value of labor power, which shakes the support of family and social lives, as it's now harder for more people to fulfill their needs. With the invention of machinery, you would think it means now the same amount of workers can all do less work, produce the same amount of output, and live easier. Instead, now fewer workers are worked even harder, and others don't work at all and cannot receive an income. Like I said before, this gets touched on more later. A machine not in use is seen as a loss by the capitalist, which is why workday lengths increased, and why shiftwork has become a concession in response to strikes against this.

Next Marx looks at how labor can get domesticated, or in other words, take place in the worker's household. This isn't only addressing the more common practice of working remotely these days, or the gig economy, but also the patriarchal relationship that came about. Wives and children were sold into the work force in order to assist in survival at home, and lasting effects of this still exist today.

Another way to add more value besides more time or more machines is the intensification of the workday. This is carried out by either making everybody speed up, or putting more machinery into the hands of the same amount of workers. Boom and busts occur during these cycles depending on material conditions at the time; the example Marx uses for the most part is with cotton production, and how a market can reach a crises from outside forces (the U.S. Civil War being one thing brought up). As these boom and bust cycles happen, capitalists who are already at the top can buy out others during the bust cycle, now possessing more means to exploit by concentration of everything into fewer and fewer hands. 

Conclusion

Really, this is the part of the book that truly brings to light why capitalism sucks. That was already started in the previous part, but it only goes further into that as we move forward. I think the overall point here is to show how humans are converted into machines for the purpose of producing surplus value for the capitalist to extract. As machinery replaces tools and skills, living labor is almost integrated into the dead labor, and workers become far more replaceable. This is not to say that technology and heavy industry are bad, even though it may sound this way. These things are both good, but when they're used as a means to squeeze out as much profit from workers as possible, the nature of them becomes flipped. Imagine instead of replacing ten workers with ten machines, if you gave each worker a machine to work with, for far less time out of their day and a return of the same wage from the value that they produced.

This section really drives home why capitalism's profit incentive for the capitalist will never allow that, because money matters more than fulfilling needs and getting out commodities to the public. History shows that strikes and stoppages can be a powerful weapon against this, but as long as the capitalist power remains, the workers will only ever win concessions that can be repealed at any time. Sometimes, corporations might even support regulations if they know it will drive out smaller competitors. This individualistic mindset alienates the worker from labor so much, and that's what begins to unfold.