The critique of ideology in the critique of political economy: The German Ideology and Theories of Surplus Value

• Grant number: 24/23754-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: June 01, 2025
• End date: June 30, 2028
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - History of Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Luiz Sérgio Repa
• Grantee: Gisele Zanola Carvalho
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research project aims to understand the persistence of the critique of ideology developed in the manuscripts of The German Ideology, by Marx and Engels, in the critique of political economy in Marx's maturity, in which the manuscripts from 1861 to 1863 known as Theories of Surplus Value play a fundamental role. Since the critique of ideology in the manuscripts of 1845 and 1846 seems to point to a correspondence between two inversions, namely, the real inversion in which the power arising from cooperation between individuals appears to them as an alien power, and the ideological inversion, according to which ideas appear as endowed with power over individuals and with their own reality, the question arises as to whether the critique of ideology survives in the critique of political economy in Marx's mature years, precisely in Theories of Surplus Value, in the relationship established between the "inverted vision" of Smith and Ricardo, in which value, determined by labor time, comes to be determined independently of labor, and the real inversion, in which surplus value, arising from production, appears as the result of circulation. (AU)