That single, unconscionable freedom':Reflections on Marx's 'Speech on the Question of Free Trade

Bret Benjamin's essay, "That single, unconscionable freedom': Reflections on Marx's 'Speech on the Question of Free Trade,"' places Marx's 1848 "Speech on the Question of Free Trade" within the broader corpus of Marx's writing. Benjamin argues, first, that the speech critiques bourgeois self-interest and celebrates worker acumen, fostering a proletarian standpoint of critique. Further, he reads the speech in line with Marx's historical writings as an account of the transition to a fully-realized industrial capitalism, distinct from a prior period of monopoly protectionism. Third, he contends that the emerging category, relative surplus value, makes visible capital's tendency to both absorb and displace labor. Finally, Benjamin argues that the speech posits a worker's internationalism by viewing the plight of English workers in relation to the deprivations of weavers in India and slaves in the West Indies. The platitudes of free trade, then, mask the agonies of an ever-solidifying world market increasingly determined by the contradictions of the value-form.