Internationalism No. 73, March 2025 Page 7 From the series Principles of Marxism The method of exposition in Marx’s economic analysis, which he summarised on various occasions, adopts the progression from the simplest to the most complex concepts. It is a method that, at first glance, appears to correspond to common sense — from easy to difficult — but which Marx explains by contradicting common sense. Common sense distorts knowledge, starting right from the elementary building blocks of the representation of reality, which requires scientific abstraction to understand. Opportunism will always set the prejudices of common sense against the science-party . Marx writes, introducing Volume I of Capital : “The value-form , whose fully developed shape is the money-form , is very elementary and simple. Nevertheless, the human mind has for more than 2,000 years sought in vain to get to the bottom of it, whilst on the other hand, to the successful analysis of ...