Critique of Political Economy as a Problematic of Emancipation

The question where should the reality of the categories of political economy be looked for requires a conceptual analysis. One of the immediate results of such an analysis is universalization of the categories of political economy and dismissing the specificity of the historical conditions that create them. Thus, the production relations that constitute the subject of political economy are taken to be the sole social form. The critique by Marx of political economy delineates the historical character of these categories on the basis of a conceptual analysis. However, Marx, on a broader context, handles the issue within the dialectics of essenceform relationship and analyses the production relations that give rise to these categories. Thus, he aims to determine the essence that these forms express by giving an answer to the question whose forms these categories are. To Marx, social categories are not things in themselves and presuppose a certain subjectivity, with the production relations that give rise to such a subjectivity. Linking these categories, whose existence is defined in terms of their relation to this subjectivity, with social processes allows one to free her/himself from the circumstances determined by these subjectivities. This critical approach, thus, opens the way for surpassing the historically determined limits of such subjectivities.