The basic laws of the capitalist mode of production and the evolution of central capitalist formations

Abstract

The genesis of capitalism provided the first manifestation of the law of uneven development of social formations» We shall now examine its second manifestation: the superseding of capitalism and the genesis of socialism. In fact, the present study is cantered on this second manifestation of the law of uneven development. In the chapters which follow, wo propose to show that capitalism must be superseded, to begin with at the periphery although capitalism can only be complete on the world-scale. We also intend to demonstrate that this process is not the inexplicable result of a series of coincidences but the manifestation of a law. In Chapter II, we shall attempt to throw light on the preliminary theoretical factors underlying the essential laws of the capitalist mode of production. It is not simply that Marxism has made very little progress since the time of MARX; Das Kapital itself is not widely read and is often reduced to an over-simple piece of dogmatism. Therefore we must first re-establish the meaning of the essential laws of the capitalist mode : the meaning of the law of value and of the mechanisms of accumulation.