Planning to review the overview of Political Economy. I will post any questions in this thread.
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Chapter 1, Section 1
This section discusses that the study of the laws of capitalist economy should start from commodities, and explains why it begins with commodities. I can understand that commodities and commodity exchange are the simplest and most universal economic phenomena in capitalist society, while other categories such as capital and wage labor are built upon commodity exchange relationships. Therefore, starting from commodities and commodity exchange, observing the essence through phenomena, understanding this simplest thing, and then further analyzing other complex situations.
However, when I see this paragraph “Just as the organism of plants and animals is composed of cells, the complex organism of the capitalist economy is made up of commodities as its economic cells. Within commodities lie the embryonic seeds of all contradictions in capitalist society. We can only begin with the simplest and most abstract category of commodities, and then gradually ascend to those more complex and specific categories. Only through such a process of analysis from simple to complex, from abstract to concrete, can the true nature and contradictions of capitalism, as well as the entire complex content of this economic system, be revealed.” (p3) I see it says “from abstract to concrete,” but I don’t understand why it is “from abstract to concrete”? Also, I am not very clear about what kind of “scientific abstraction” research method this is.
I think it’s because product manufacturing is most developed under capitalist economic relations 
, never mind, same question.
It can be understood this way: the more concrete categories manifested in capitalist society are paper money, interest, profit, production prices, circulation costs, and so on. Even commodity exchange is conducted using paper money according to marked prices. The category of commodity itself is the unity of use value and value, which is more abstract.
Starting from the category of commodity, one can gradually arrive at capital, exploitation, surplus value, wages (both time wages and piece wages), the reproduction and accumulation of capital, capital circulation and turnover, economic crises, and so forth — that is, from simple, abstract categories to complex, concrete categories.
Scientific abstraction is an abstract method that reflects the essence of things; it is the method used in any scientific research. Just as mechanical motion abstracts the object of study into bodies, physical motion abstracts into particles and waves, chemical motion abstracts into various specific chemical elements and molecules, biological motion abstracts into cells, and so on — no science can do without scientific abstraction. Science is not a pile of phenomena.
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Chapter 1, Section 2
The value of a commodity is the condensation of human labor, so all human labor products are condensed human labor, such as the products produced by slaves that are freely owned by slave owners, or the vegetables grown in some rural families’ small vegetable gardens for their own consumption. But is it because not all these labor activities occur under the condition of commodity production that their human labor condensations are not also considered value? Is value a concept unique to commodity production?
Exactly, the value mentioned here refers to the value in commodity exchange. All labor products have use value, but if the products are not in a relationship of commodity exchange, there is no need for exchange value to determine the exchange ratio. As in cases like slave economies, slave owners can directly and gratuitously possess labor products without needing to exchange. Since slave owners do not need to pay, there is no exchange, and of course, no value.