This book is a must, a companion guide, for anyone taking up a serious study of Marx’s masterwork Capital.
Published in 1967, it focuses on an analysis of the Grundrisse, not available in English translation at that time, which was the “rough draft” of what was to become Capital.
Rosdolsky takes the reader through a detailed analysis of the major points of Marxist political economy, from analysis of the commodity and money through to the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. He felt compelled to write the book, even though he considered himself ill-equipped for the task because there was no one to undertake the task.
While he does not refer to it, another consideration would have been his extreme dissatisfaction with the two-volume work by Ernest Mandel Marxist Economic Theory because it did not elaborate the theory of capitalist breakdown which Rosdolsky considered to be at the heart of Marx’s analysis.
Pages: 454