MARXIAN POLITICAL ECONOMY 57 and later^ the working class). In Capital, Marx speaks of free competition which ^brings out the inherent laws of capitalist production, in the shape of an external coercive power, over every individual capitalist."28 Enough has been said to indicate the importance of Marx's analysis of commodity fetishism. It only needs to be emphasized that, in vie w of the existence of such fetishism, a scientific analysis of capitalist society must necessarily proceed beyond the level of appearance and manifestation to that of the essence, the underlying level of reality that determines the appearance. This way, both essence and manifestation, and the contradiction between them that constitutes fetishism come to be understood. Marx's concept of value, and his analysis of value relations (which we shall go into in detail later on) are to be seen as ''scientific instruments' (that are the theoretical representations of a specific social reality) which facilitate such a process of study. A V BALU (To be continued) x Karl Marx, Capital, vol I, Moscow 1967, p 42. 2 Ibid., p 35. 8 Ibid. 4 Ibid., p 38. e 'Ibid., "the common substance that manifests itself in the exchange value of commodities...is valued (Emphasis added) 6 Ibid., p 39. 7 Ibid. 8 Karl Marx, Capital, vol III, pp 178. 9 Ibid.,?? 178-199. 10 See N I Bukharin, The Economic Theory of the Leisure Class, Monthly Review Press, 1973 and M H Dobb, Political Economy and Capitalism, Routledgc and Kcgan Paul, J940: also Dobb, in E K Hint andjcsse Schwartz(cd«.) Critique of Economic Theory, Penguin 1974. 11 Karl Marx, Grundrisse, Pelican, 1973. p 101. j a "In our capitalist society, a given portion of human labour is, in accordance with the varying demand, at one time supplied in the form of tailoring, at another in the form of weaving." Capital, vol I, p 43. ' 8 Grundtisse, p 105. 14 Ibid. 18 Capital, vol I, p 43 (Emphasis added). 16 /6u7..p6l. t7 Ibid.,? 47. * 8 Ibid , p 60. ) 9 Thus, when one goes to the market, one is concerned with the question of how much of various things one can buy with a certain sum of money. One docs not at the level of surface phenomena reflect on the underlying system of property relations and social division of labour that makes these things into commodities. 2VO Capital, vol I, p 72. 21 Ibid.,? 77. 22 N Geras, "Marx and the Critique of Political Economy", in R Blackburn (ed.) Ideology in Social Science, New York 1973. a8 Capital, vol I, p 75. ^ Ibid. &s Ibid., p 270; The concept of domination discussed here is closely related to another concept in Marx, that of'alienation*. We shall deal with the concept of alienation in some detail later on.