Marx’s Theory on the Dialectical Function of Capitalism

ABSTRACT This article analyses Marx’s conviction that the expansion of the capitalist mode of production was a basic prerequisite for the birth of communist society. It overviews this idea through the whole of Marx’s oeuvre, from his early political writings to the studies of the last decade. Particular relevance is given to the analysis of Capital and its preparatory manuscripts, where Marx highlighted in depth the fundamental relationship between the productive growth generated by the capitalist mode of production and the preconditions for the communist society for which the workers’ movement must struggle. Finally, the article shows that in the end of his life—for example when he studied the possible developments of the rural commune (obshchina) in Russia—Marx did not change his basic ideas about the profile of future communist society, as he sketched it from the Grundrisse on. Guided by hostility to schematism he thought it might be possible that the revolution would break out in forms and conditions that had never been considered before.