Summary Of "The Marxist Thought" By Osvaldo Sunkel & Pedro Paz (UNIVERSITY SUMMARIES) / UNIVERSITY SUMMARIES (ePub)

We have summarized here the essential of this book by the author.

THE MARXIST THOUGHT

Method

Sunkel and Paz define that the MARXIST METHOD has the following CHARACTERISTICS:

It is a CRITICAL method. This means that Marxism starts from the knowledge obtained by previous schools of thought but submits them to historical criticism. That is to say, to the verification of whether the propositions of the other theorists resist the test of the historical facts as they have occurred. Marxism selects those aspects of other theories that it considers correct and that can be useful to it (Ricardo's theory of value, for example) and incorporates them into a new synthesis.
It is a HISTORICAL method. Marxism pays special attention to the ORIGIN AND GENESIS OF THE DIFFERENT SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS AND STRUCTURES. Sunkel and Paz exemplify this with mercantile exchange. Marxism differentiates between social structures in which mercantile exchange occurs through the exchange of two products (barter) or merchandise, when the exchange is processed through payment in money (simple mercantile production) and, finally, when to the mercantile exchange carried out in money is added the purchase of machinery and labor power (capitalism). In summary, without failing to see the common characteristics that exist between these phenomena, Marxism is concerned not to mix and jumble all these structures, since what is important is what distinguishes them from one another. Finally, the differentiation between social structures made by Marxism has another very important feature. When studying the exchange process, it is verified that the three detailed structures follow a NECESSARY HISTORICAL SEQUENCE.