The society of commodities and its spectral objectivity: a review of the work Introduction to Karl Marx's Capital, by Michael Heinrich

Abstract

The recently published work in Brazil, authored by the German Marxist scholar Michael Heinrich, was first published in 2021. Translated by César Mortari Barreira and with translation revision by Guilherme Leite Gonçalves, and developed within the framework of the "New Reading of Marx" (neue Marx-Lektüre), the work provides an important contribution to new interpretations of Marx's thought. Its author confronts both the historicist interpretations of *Capital*, those influenced by Engels' reading, and the "economic" interpretations of those authors who see Marx only as an economist who undertook to promote the critique of bourgeois economics. He calls both conceptions traditional Marxism. To this end, Heinrich recovers a method of expounding Marx's thought inaugurated by authors of the early 20th century, such as Isaac Rubin, for whom the exchange process plays a crucial role, namely that of allowing the products of different labors to be equalized.