ABSTRACT
In developing his critique of political economy, Marx was influenced to varying degrees by particular political economists and other antecedent intellectuals. For Marx, political economy represented the formal intellectual manifestation of the socially and politically dominant vision of early nineteenth century capitalism. He found this vision to be distorted and misleading and he sought to expose the essential, as distinct from the apparent, structure and nature of capitalism as a human social and economic system. That is, Marx’s concern was with the ability and capacity of the system to deliver the material and non-material requirements of human fulfilment to the totality of the members of society. On these criteria, capitalism had failed except in its aggregate physical capacity to produce material things.
