For a long time, the capitalist order has become the most important principle of economic and social organization in the world and in Iran. Labor, nature, and money in this order have increasingly turned into commodities, to the extent that today the commodification of social life has penetrated every corner of our lives.
The commodification of social life unveils the pervasiveness of the capitalist order, its social relations, the manifestation of the laws of its motion on a historical level, and its contradictions. Now, the logic of capital and the maximization of profit have become the most important basis of our social existence.
In such a space, understanding economic and social life requires, above all, understanding the commodifying logic governing the relations of a market society. Surrendering to such a logic, which turns human beings and nature into marketable commodities, has paved the way for modern barbarism. Thus, going beyond such a logic has been deemed impossible by many claimants of yesterday and today.
In contrast, "Critique of Political Economy" signifies resistance against these relations, a resistance that refuses to settle into the false festival of market relations, but instead seeks to go beyond it. For this very reason, rather than becoming a decorative commodity to fill the display cases of various neoliberal publications and media outlets—and serving as proof of their false claim to pluralism—we prefer to provide a space for critique and rethinking, however limited yet independent.
By critique, we do not mean evaluating viewpoints and replacing worse economic and social theories with better ones, but rather dispelling the myths promoted in the guise of social sciences, particularly in the garb of "economics." We seek to tear away the veil that conceals social reality. Within this framework, we show under what conditions and through what mechanisms the laws of motion of capitalism impose themselves as if they were natural laws and forces external to society. The strength of capital in contemporary history is partly due to this misunderstanding of the mechanisms of capital and its appearance as "natural."
We believe that if we have risen to change the world, we must also be equipped with a knowledge to interpret the world—a knowledge that tells us about power relations, explains commodity relations, sees classes and contradictions, and amidst all this, opens our eyes to analyzing, explaining, and changing the world. This knowledge is precisely the "Critique of Political Economy" in the classical sense of the word.
Finally, we are hopeful; because we firmly believe that "All that is solid melts into air."