Marx's critique of political economy: intellectual sources and evolution

This is the second of two volumes in which Allen Oakley undertakes an analysis of the intellectual sourses and evolution of Marx's critique of political economy. The present volume treats the years 1861-1863, the period during which Marx consolidated and refined the arguments of his evolving critique of political economy in a set of manuscripts under the title Theories of Surplus Value'. The primary importance of these manuscripts is that they reveal Marx's endeavours to differentiate and distance his critical problematic of political economy from the work of his predecessors. They have been relatively neglected by Marxist scholars and no other study makes such a sustained effort to trace the evolution of Marx's critique of political economy in this context.

Allen Oakley sets out in detail the nature, scope and limitations of Marx's critique. He pays special attention to the critique of Ricardo's Principles and concludes that Marx exposed profound limitations in the logic and scope of the treatment of capitalism in that work. He also shows how Marx was able, through his critical reading of the history of political economy, to make significant advances in the degree of analytical sophistication of his critical investigations over their drafting in the Grundrisse. By 1863, as Oakley demonstrates, Marx was able to begin work on the presentation of his critique of capitalism in the magnum opus we know as Capital.