David Harvey on Reading Marx’s Capital, Volume 1, Class 02 (Updated)

David Harvey is a Professor of Anthropology and Geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He has produced a video series on Marx’s Capital, and is also the author of these relevant books:

Harvey, David. 2010. A Companion to Marx’s Capital. Verso, London and New York.

Harvey, David. 2013. A Companion to Marx’s Capital. Volume Two. Verso, London and New York.

Class 2 of his video series on Reading Marx’s Capital Volume 1 is below.



This video deals with sections 2, 3 and 4 of Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of volume 1 of Capital.

My critical comments:

(1) Even Harvey acknowledges that Marx’s attempt to reduce all heterogeneous types of labour to a simple, homogeneous socially-necessary labour time unit is problematic (from 16.46–18.09), as we can see in the clip below.



This is a far greater problem than Harvey is willing to admit, and is one of many major unresolved issues that destroy the labour theory of value.

(2) despite Harvey’s claims to the contrary (at 31.20 onwards), Marx’s explanation of the emergence of the “universal equivalent” as gold is just standard Classical and neoclassical theory and the “barter” origin theory of money;

(3) I think Harvey is largely unaware of the many other devastating problems with the labour theory of value, as outlined here.

(4) Harvey barely even addresses that issue of how Marx’s monetary theory is badly contradicted by the existence of fiat money. This also undermines Marx’s labour theory of value, as shown here and here.

My critique of Class 1 of the series is here.

Finally, my own critical review of the first three chapters of volume 1 of Capital are below:

“Marx’s Capital, Volume 1, Chapter 1: A Critical Summary, Part 1 (Updated),” June 21, 2015.

“Marx’s Capital, Volume 1, Chapter 1: A Critical Summary, Part 2,” June 26, 2015.

“Marx’s Capital, Volume 1, Chapter 2: A Critical Summary,” June 4, 2015.

“Marx’s Capital, Volume 1, Chapter 3: A Critical Summary,” June 12, 2015.