The Origins of Marxist Economics

This recording is from the World School of Communism 2026, an international event translated into many languages in real time.

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Marx and Engels did not develop their ideas – the ideas of scientific socialism – in a vacuum. Rather, their theoretical conclusions were a synthesis of the most advanced ideas of their time. This included the revolutionary kernel contained within Hegel’s dialectical philosophy; the bold visions of the French socialists; and the scientific approach of the ‘classical’ economists – including, first and foremost, figures like Adam Smith and David Ricardo in Britain.

Marx’s magnum opus, Capital, was in many respects a reply to his bourgeois economic predecessors; a critique of ‘political economy’, as the science of economics was known at the time. Many of the key, foundational ideas and axioms within this work were first expounded by Smith and Ricardo – most notably, the labour theory of value, which Marx took up and developed as the basis for his analysis of the capitalist mode of production.

In this talk, Adam Booth – co-author of Understanding Marx’s Capital – explores the pre-history and evolution of Marx’s economic thought; discusses the ideas of his economic predecessors, including their limits and contradictions; and explains the fundamentals of Marxist economic theory, which has never been more relevant and necessary, in this time of deepening capitalist crisis.

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