Capitalism 2 Manual
Matilda Equiluz
The past decade has witnessed a resurgence of interest in Marxism both within and without the academy. Marxian frameworks, concepts and categories continue to be narratively relevant to the features and events of contemporary capitalism. Most crucially, an attention to shifting cultural conditions has lead contemporary researchers to re-confront some classical and essential Marxist concepts, as well as elaborating new critical frameworks for the analysis of capitalism today.
What I find fascinating about agrarian change in early modern England as a field of study is its incredibly well researched nature while at the same time being exceptionally open to continuous debate, new data and new theoretical perspectives. As a trained intellectual historian, I look into the intellectual and ideological aspect of these changes. While there are countless interesting sources to look at, I have chosen one surprisingly revealing source type as my point of focus: agrarian books and manuals.
Reading up on the history of the European agrarian literary tradition, I have found that this literature gives us a unique insight into not only concrete farming practices, systems and techniques in a given society, but also the social and cultural ideals, norms, and values of that particular society. Questions about how to plough, which seeds to sow and how, what animals to rear, and other farming practices were always closely linked to questions about the organisation of labour processes, the distribution of land and property, the social relations between the owners of the land and those who work it, between rulers and producers.
The manuals are heavily embedded in specific social and cultural contexts, and in order to understand these contexts, engaging with the extensive literature on cultural changes in the period is necessary. For the sixteenth century, I have found that the manuals gradually shifted from a paternalist household ethic in the tradition of classical agricultural literature, to new ways of considering farming more oriented toward the market. In a wider sense, the texts reflected and contributed to broader cultural changes. So far my reading of the texts have reaffirmed many of the results from the last twenty or so years of research into changes in gentry culture as identified by for example Felicity Heal, the emergence of a new middling culture as elaborated by Craig Muldrew and many others, and the creation of a scientific culture.
In my research, I try to understand the agricultural writers as engaged in particular conflicts over property rights and relations, tenurial forms, the organisation of labour processes, and types of knowledge and knowledge production pertaining to agrarian changes in the period. By intervening in these conflicts, struggles and negotiations, the writers both drew on and contributed to wider cultural changes by acting as innovating ideologues in the sense mentioned above.
In the seventeenth century, the publication of agrarian books and manuals greatly increased as they contributed to the making of what Paul Slack has described as a dominant culture or ideology of improvement by the turn of the eighteenth century. It is my claim, that in order to account more fully for agrarian change, and the emergence of agrarian capitalism, it is important to show how the social struggles, conflicts and negotiations leading to these changes were also carried out on an intellectual and ideological level.
About the author: Esben Bgh Srensen is a PhD student at Aarhus University in Denmark. His research uses the work of agricultural writers to explore the role of ideology, ideas and thought in the early emergence of capitalism in England. He was joint runner-up in the prize for the best postgraduate paper at the 2018 Social History Society conference.
This manual is the first in the series of Embracing Extreme Capitalism. It is a workbook that begs the reader to question their purpose, values and boundaries while giving insight into how one might look at themselves as the purveyor of many resources.
During the process you will come to think differently about yourself and the capitalist world in which you exist. The book is designed to help you develop an understanding of corporate personhood and the modes of production under Extreme Capitalism (a term loosely used to describe a free-market world). Whether your motives are of self-interest, protection, ownership, or wealth creation - knowing the differences between corporations (legal persons) and humans (natural persons) is a crucial first step towards realising your goals. Once you understand that the two types of people are not created, nor treated equally, opting for corporate personhood might seem like the only viable option.
This manual will provide you with an introduction of what to consider before making the legal jump to corporate life. You will learn how to think like a corporation first and how to form the foundation of the Extreme Capitalist framework, where you must consider how every aspect of your life can and will be deconstructed, compartmentalised and commercialised for existing markets. You will be challenged to think about value and profit in various and novel ways. You will also learn about diversification and growth through asset creation.
This textbook of political economy has been written by a group of economists comprising: Academician K.V. Ostrovityanov; Corresponding Member of the V.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences D.T. Shepilov; Corresponding Member of the V.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences L.A. Leontyev; Member of the All-Union Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences I.D. Laptev; Professor I.I. Kuzminov; Doctor of Economic Sciences L.M. Gatovsky; Academician P.F. Yudin; Corresponding Member of the V.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences A.I. Pashkov; and Candidate [Master] of Economic Sciences V. I. Pereslegin, Doctor of Economic Sciences V. N. Starovsky took part in the selection and editing of the statistical information included in the textbook.
In connection with the drafting of the textbook a large number of Soviet economists made valuable critical observations and contributed numerous useful suggestions concerning the text. These observations and suggestions were taken into account by the authors in their subsequent work on the book.
Of very great importance for the work on this textbook was the economic discussion organised in November 1951 by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In the course of this discussion, in which hundreds of Soviet economists took an active part, the draft for a textbook of political economy submitted by the authors was subjected to a thorough critical examination. The proposals worked out as the result of this discussion for improving the draft of the textbook were an important source of improvement in the structure of the textbook and of enrichment of its content.
Being fully aware of the importance of a Marxist textbook of political economy, the authors intend to continue to work on further improvement of the text, on the basis of critical observations and suggestions which readers may make when they have acquainted themselves with the first edition. In this connection, the authors request readers to address their comments and suggestions on the textbook to the following address:
The first edition of the Political Economy textbook, published at the end of 1954 in over six million copies, was rapidly sold out. Besides the Russian original, there were versions in many of the languages of the peoples of the U.S.S.R., and the book was also published in a number of foreign countries.
The need has arisen for a second edition of the textbook. In preparing this edition the authors have made it their task to strengthen the text with new propositions and facts reflecting the steady growth of the socialist economy of the U.S.S.R. and the countries of People's Democracy and also the further intensification of the general crisis of capitalism.
The authors have endeavoured to take into account as fully as possible the experience gained in using this textbook in higher educational institutions, in Party schools and study-groups and for purposes of individual study. During the past year the book has been discussed in many university departments of political economy, and these have sent in their comments and requests. The authors have also received a large number of letters from readers, containing suggestions regarding the text. Broad conferences of economists were held in March and April 1955 to discuss thoroughly the first edition of the book, these being attended by research workers, teachers and business executives in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Riga, Tallinn, Vilnius, Tbilisi, Erevan, Baku, Tashkent, Ashkhabad, Stalinabad, Alma-Ata and Sverdlovsk.
The authors have carefully studied all the critical observations and proposals regarding the textbook which have been made at conferences of university departments of political economy, at meetings of economists and in readers' letters, and have tried to use all of these that made for improving the book. At the same time they have maintained as their point of departure the need to keep to the present type of textbook, intended for the general reader, and not to allow its size to be enlarged to any considerable extent.
The authors express their thanks to all the comrades who helped in the preparation of the second edition of this textbook through their critical comments and suggestions. The authors intend to continue to work on the improvement of the textbook, and in this connection request readers to send their comments and suggestions to the following address:
Political economy belongs to the category of the social sciences.[1]. It studies the laws of the social production and distribution of material wealth at the various stages of development of human society.
The basis of the life of society is material production. In order to live, people must have food, clothing and other material means of life. In order to have these, people must produce them, they must work.
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