How Did Marx’s Economics Surmount Classical Economics?

Reading Capital is an important book about Althusser study Marx’s Economics, where Althusser deeply researches and discusses the theme about how Marx’s Economics surmounts classical economics from philosophical perspective.There were two basic clues for Althusser’s study on Marx’s Economics. The first one is investing on the “epistemological rapture” between Marx’s Economics and classical economics. The second one is studying on the philosophy contained in Marx’s Economics, which means to discover Marx’s Philosophy in Marx’s Economics.By reading Marx’s Economics with the unique “symptomatic reading” and the doubly cycled reading method by philosophy and economics, Althusser make the conclude that Marx’s Economics surmounts classical economics both in terms of economics and philosophy. According to Althusser, Marx’s Economics surmounts the classical economics from the object and theoretical problem. Meanwhile, the philosophical revolution contained in Marx’s Economics surpasses the classical philosophy, this is the second superiority of Marx’s Economics over the classical economics. In Althusser’s opinion, the second superiority of Marx’s Economics over the classical economics is basic and important. The ultimate goal of Althusser’s research was to formulate dialectical materialistic epistemology.Undoubtedly, Althusser’s survey and analysis on the theme about how Marx’s Economics surmounted the classical economics shows an important academic value and theoretical significance, as well as put forward a series of insights. However, Althusser’s philosophical interpretation of Marx’s Economics is characterized by strong structuralism and metaphysics, it is in some way involuntarily deviating from the original intention of “protecting Marx”.