| This question <15|15> overall <16|18> Hans: <14|18>. |
| Question 18: Would it have been possible to start the book Capital with a more common sense definition of capitalism, such as, capitalist production is production for profit? |
| [17] Hans: Capitalism is not about printing money. Eastwood writes in [15]: |
| Why would he open with the word profit, when profit has to do with “monetary wealth” which does not account for non-monetary kinds of wealth in societies? |
| This was meant as a rhetorical question, but it has a plausible answer: because Marx is trying to characterize capitalist society, which pays much more attention to those kinds of wealth that can be measured in money than to non-monetary wealth. |
| Also profit measures monetary gains of individuals or firms and rarely is used when talking about societies. |
| In Marx's view of capitalism, the profit motive is not just something individual but the whole society is organized around profit-making. |
| By not adding the term commodities to the sentence it almost makes it sound as if Capitalists are producing profit, or in other words printing money in factories. |
| This is the right answer. Before using the word “profit” Marx must explain what profits are and how they can be made. This is why he has to start with the commodity. |
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