Karl Marx today in Our America

Abstract

This text aims to analyze the prevalence of Karl Marx for the analysis of capitalism in the present, even more so when the hegemonic Political Economy of our times takes for granted the exacerbated liberal tradition, promoting initial categories of the discipline, such as free trade. Capitalism is a commercial monetary social relationship and therefore the original research on the law of value acquired a specific weight with the contributions of the revolutionary theorist in his studies and socio-political protagonism in the 19th century. His conclusions about the origin of the economic surplus were the basis of support for an essential proposal for the revolution, so what interests us in this writing is to recover an imaginary for the revolution out of the criticism of capitalism in these times of capital’s offensive on labor, nature and society, a logic that has been going on for half a century. This liberal offensive, under the neoliberal label, has limits in the capitalist crisis of 2007/09 and therefore, a civilizational debate appears open about the direction of contemporary society. In a sense, the liberal direction is exacerbated, especially from the spokespersons of the Austrian School, who assumed the first criticism of Marx's conceptions after the publication of Volumes II and III of Capital, edited by Federico Engels upon Marx's death. On the other hand, a broad debate is reopened on alternative possibilities, some of which imagine the recreation of reformist conceptions and others, with nuances, to recreate in the path of Marx.