INVESTIGATION OF THE KEY CONCEPTS IN THE WORKS OF KARL MARX: a review of Jorge Grespan's book: Marx: an introduction

Abstract

This review analyzes the book 'Marx: An Introduction' by Jorge Grespan (2021), which provides an accessible synthesis of Karl Marx's key concepts. The material highlights how the author demystifies fundamental concepts such as alienation, commodity, surplus-value, fetishism, and the inherent crises of capitalism. Alienation is presented as the worker's detachment from the fruit of their labor, while surplus-value is explained as the basis of capitalist exploitation, originating from the difference between the value produced by labor and the wage paid. The text also explores the notion of commodity fetishism, in which social relations are obscured by relations between material factors. Jorge Grespan argues, in accordance with the Marxian perspective, that economic crises are endemic to the system, resulting from its internal contradictions, such as the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Finally, the work emphasizes class struggle as the driving force of history and revolution as the necessary means to overcome the capitalist system and establish a communist society, where the ownership of the means of production is socialized.