Marxist guide (1997)

Book Review from the August 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx: A Clear Guide by Edward Reiss (Pluto Press, 1997)

Reading Marx for the first time has always been something of a problem. Even with his more popular works, such as Value, Price and Profit (also found under the title Wages, Price and Profit), an understanding of its historical context and related arguments is helpful in making sense of what he was saying. This prospect is daunting for most newcomers. The Socialist Party has usually recommended reading the Old Man himself because commentators often have an ideological axe to grind, particularly Leninist ones. So it comes as a pleasant relief to read an introduction to Marx and his work that is generally clear and reliable.

Reiss organises his book into chapters on alienation, history, class, politics, socialism, ideology, philosophy, economics, gender, colonialism and religion. Included are chapters on the lives of Marx and Engels, with a couple of chapters assessing their work, and each chapter ends with a list of questions for the reader to take the analysis further.

There is much that is excellent. Socialism is "a society of common ownership and production for use: or an end to the exchange economy (buying and selling), classes and the state". However, this is a "warts-and-all" account of Marx and his ideas, with all the errors and inconsistencies of a mere mortal. And of course there are some views of Marx which the Socialist Party does not accept. That said, it is to be regretted that Reiss follows conventional academic practice (he is a lecturer at the University of Bradford) in rubbishing Marx’s theory of value. "The whole notion of value as a fundamental unit of analysis is mistaken." writes Reiss, because it is "an idea which corresponds only roughly to the actual prices of real things." This assumes that it was Marx's intention to provide a theory of price rather than a theory of exploitation. Reiss appears to realise that this was not the case, but argues that Marx's approach to exploitation is untenable in any case:

  “In an important sense, people know in on immediate, practical way when exploitation is happening. It does not then need to be ‘proved' in an abstract way. Indeed the abstraction may complicate and confuse what would otherwise be a straightforward, direct and felt realisation that exploitation is occurring. The danger is that in trying to make the concept more precise, you end up making it more convoluted.”

The danger of overcomplicating things is very real. But so is the danger of oversimplifying things to the point of being false. Marx did not simply equate exploitation with low pay, as Reiss does when he gives the example of Thai workers earning 16 pence an hour for producing Nike footwear. Many socialists will testify that workers in such situations more often than not want to end their exploitation by getting "a fair day's pay for fair day’s work". On the other hand, too many workers with average and above average incomes do not regard themselves as exploited. It is precisely to avoid reaching such complacent and dangerous conclusions that Marx's theory of value is so important. It is a theory which abstracts from the real lives of workers and reveals the underlying mechanism of exploitation, a mechanism which is not always noticeable in our everyday experience. Marx's analysis showed how, under feudalism, the distinction between "necessary" and “surplus" labour is, according to Reiss, "glaringly obvious". The time peasants spend on their own patch is "necessary labour"; and the days toiling on the baron's estate "surplus labour":

  “Under capitalism the distinction is not so apparent. When workers get their wage packet or salary, it is not clear how much corresponds to ‘necessary' labour and how much is ‘surplus labour, but, according to Marx, even if the distinction is invisible, it is still important.”

Indeed it is. Surplus labour (or surplus value: rent, interest, profit and taxes) fuels the entire capitalist world economy. No other theory comes close to satisfactorily explaining the social accumulation of capital, the vast personal fortunes of a few and the sheer drudgery of most workers’ lives.

This criticism should not deter even those who have read Marx, for this is an honest, thoughtful and at times provocative study of Marx and Marxism. It is highly recommended.

Lew Higgins