UC Santa Barbara

This article is an attempt to clarify the meaning of ‘critique’ in Marx’s Capital: A critique of political economy. I argue that critique does not mean criticism, nor does it simply refer to a detailed analysis of a text. Rather critique is Marx’s distinctive method whereby social reality is explained by revealing social relations of domination that hide behind ideological abstractions. By tracing Marx’s critique, from theory of alienation in 1848 to his value theory in 1867, I show that Marx’s life work forms a single project of exposing the historically specific nature of capitalist relations of domination. Furthermore, by delineating the historically specific nature of capitalist relations of domination, Marx’s theory of value opens up the space for imagining the possibility of human emancipation.