critique of political economy Critique of political economy or critique of economy is a form of social critique that rejects the various social categories and structures that constitute the mainstream discourse concerning the forms and modalities of resource allocation and ...

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' Karl Kautsky. ''Das Kapital'' is the most cited book published before 1950 in the social sciences.

Themes

In ''Das Kapital'' (1867), Marx proposes that the motivating force of

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...

is in the exploitation of

labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the la ...

, whose unpaid work is the ultimate source of surplus value. The owner of the means of production is able to claim the right to this surplus value because they are legally protected by the ruling regime through

property rights The right to property, or the right to own property (cf. ownership) is often classified as a human right for natural persons regarding their possessions. A general recognition of a right to private property is found more rarely and is typically h ...

and the legally established distribution of shares which are by law distributed only to company owners and their board members. The historical section shows how these rights were acquired in the first place chiefly through plunder and conquest and the activity of the merchant and "middle-man". In producing capital, the workers continually reproduce the economic conditions by which they labour. ''Das Kapital'' proposes an explanation of the "laws of motion" of the capitalist economic system from its origins to its future by describing the dynamics of the accumulation of capital, the growth of

wage labour Wage labour (also wage labor in American English), usually referred to as paid work, paid employment, or paid labour, refers to the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer in which the worker sells their labour power under a ...

, the transformation of the workplace, the concentration of capital, commercial competition, the

banking A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Becau ...

system, the decline of the profit rate, land-rents, ''et cetera''. The critique of the political economy of capitalism proposes: * Wage-labour is the basic "cell-form" (trade unit) of a capitalist society. Moreover, because commerce as a human activity implied no

morality Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of co ...

beyond that required to buy and sell goods and services, the growth of the market system made discrete entities of the economic, the moral, and the legal spheres of human activity in society; hence, subjective moral value is separate from objective economic value. Subsequently, political economy (the just distribution of wealth) and "political arithmetic" (about taxes) were reorganized into three discrete fields of human activity, namely

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes ...

,

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

and

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concer ...

—politics and economics were divorced. * "The economic formation of society sa process of natural history". Thus, it is possible for a

political economist Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour m ...

to objectively study the scientific laws of capitalism, given that its expansion of the market system of commerce had

objectified ''Objectified'' is a feature-length documentary film examining the role of everyday non-living objects, and the people who design them, in our daily lives. The film is directed by Gary Hustwit. ''Objectified'' premiered at the South By Southwest ...

human economic relations. The use of

money Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are as ...

(cash nexus) voided religious and political illusions about its

economic value In economics, economic value is a measure of the benefit provided by a good or service to an economic agent. It is generally measured through units of currency, and the interpretation is therefore "what is the maximum amount of money a speci ...

and replaced them with

commodity fetishism In Marxist philosophy, the term commodity fetishism describes the economic relationships of production and exchange as being social relationships that exist among things (money and merchandise) and not as relationships that exist among people ...

, the belief that an object (commodity) has inherent economic value. Because societal economic formation is a historical process, no one person could control or direct it, thereby creating a global complex of social connections among capitalists. The economic formation (individual commerce) of a society thus precedes the human administration of an economy (organised commerce). * The structural contradictions of a capitalist economy (German: ''gegensätzliche Bewegung)'' describe the contradictory movement originating from the two-fold character of labour and so the class struggle between labour and capital, the

wage labour Wage labour (also wage labor in American English), usually referred to as paid work, paid employment, or paid labour, refers to the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer in which the worker sells their labour power under a ...

er and the

owner Ownership is the state or fact of legal possession and control over property, which may be any asset, tangible or intangible. Ownership can involve multiple rights, collectively referred to as title, which may be separated and held by different ...

of the

means of production The means of production is a term which describes land, labor and capital that can be used to produce products (such as goods or services); however, the term can also refer to anything that is used to produce products. It can also be used as an ...

. These capitalist economic contradictions operate "behind the backs" of the capitalists and the workers as a result of their activities and yet remain beyond their immediate

perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...

s as men and women and as social classes. * The economic crises (

recession In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction when there is a general decline in economic activity. Recessions generally occur when there is a widespread drop in spending (an adverse demand shock). This may be triggered by various ...

, depression, ''et cetera'') that are rooted in the contradictory character of the economic value of the commodity (cell-unit) of a capitalist society are the conditions that propitiate

proletarian The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philoso ...

revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...

—which ''

The Communist Manifesto ''The Communist Manifesto'', originally the ''Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (german: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), is a political pamphlet written by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Commu ...

'' (1848) collectively identified as a weapon forged by the capitalists which the working class "turned against the bourgeoisie itself". * In a capitalist economy,

technological Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

improvement and its consequent increased production augment the amount of

material wealth Wealth is the abundance of valuable financial assets or physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the originating Old English word , which is from an I ...

(

use value Use value (german: Gebrauchswert) or value in use is a concept in classical political economy and Marxist economics. It refers to the tangible features of a commodity (a tradeable object) which can satisfy some human requirement, want or need, or ...

) in society while simultaneously diminishing the

economic value In economics, economic value is a measure of the benefit provided by a good or service to an economic agent. It is generally measured through units of currency, and the interpretation is therefore "what is the maximum amount of money a speci ...

of the same wealth, thereby diminishing the rate of profit—a

paradox A paradox is a logically self-contradictory statement or a statement that runs contrary to one's expectation. It is a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictory or a logically u ...

characteristic of economic crisis in a capitalist economy. "Poverty in the midst of plenty" consequent to over-production and under-consumption. After two decades of economic study and preparatory work (especially regarding the theory of surplus value), the first volume appeared in 1867 as ''The Production Process of Capital''. After Marx's death in 1883, Engels introduced Volume II: ''The Circulation Process of Capital'' in 1885; and Volume III: ''The Overall Process of Capitalist Production'' in 1894 from manuscripts and the first volume. These three volumes are collectively known as ''Das Kapital''.

Synopsis

''Capital, Volume I''

''

Capital, Volume I ''Capital. A Critique of Political Economy. Volume I: The Process of Production of Capital'' (german: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie Erster Band. Buch I: Der Produktionsprocess des Kapitals) is the first of three treatises that ma ...

'' (1867) is a critical analysis of political economy, meant to reveal the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production, how it was the precursor of the

socialist mode of production The socialist mode of production, sometimes referred to as the communist mode of production, or simply (Marxian) socialism or communism as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels used the terms ''communism'' and ''socialism'' interchangeably, is a specif ...

and of the class struggle rooted in the capitalist social relations of production. The first of three volumes of ''Das Kapital'' was published on 14 September 1867, dedicated to Wilhelm Wolff and was the sole volume published in Marx's lifetime.

''Capital, Volume II''

'' Capital, Volume II'', subtitled ''The Process of Circulation of Capital'', was prepared by Engels from notes left by Marx and published in 1885. It is divided into three parts: # The Metamorphoses of Capital and Their Circuits # The Turnover of Capital # The Reproduction and Circulation of the Aggregate Social Capital. In ''Volume II'', the main ideas behind the marketplace are to be found, namely how value and surplus-value are realized. Its dramatis personae, not so much the worker and the industrialist (as in Volume I), but rather the money owner and money lender, the wholesale merchant, the trader and the entrepreneur or functioning capitalist. Moreover, workers appear in Volume II essentially as buyers of consumer goods and therefore as sellers of the commodity

labour power Labour power (in german: Arbeitskraft; in french: force de travail) is a key concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of capitalist political economy. Marx distinguished between the capacity to do work, labour power, from the physical act of w ...

, rather than producers of value and

surplus-value In Marxian economics, surplus value is the difference between the amount raised through a sale of a product and the amount it cost to the owner of that product to manufacture it: i.e. the amount raised through sale of the product minus the cost ...

, although this latter quality established in Volume I remains the solid foundation on which the whole of the unfolding analysis is based. Marx wrote in a letter sent to Engels on 30 April 1868: "In Book 1 ..we content ourselves with the assumption that if in the self-expansion process £100 becomes £110, the latter will find ''already in existence in the market'' the elements into which it will change once more. But now we investigate the conditions under which these elements are found at hand, namely the social intertwining of the different capitals, of the component parts of capital and of revenue (= s)". This intertwining, conceived as a movement of commodities and of money, enabled Marx to work out at least the essential elements, if not the definitive form of a coherent theory of the trade cycle, based upon the inevitability of periodic disequilibrium between supply and demand under the capitalist mode of production (

Ernest Mandel Ernest Ezra Mandel (; also known by various pseudonyms such as Ernest Germain, Pierre Gousset, Henri Vallin, Walter (5 April 1923 – 20 July 1995), was a Belgian Marxian economist, Trotskyist activist and theorist, and Holocaust survivor. He f ...

, Intro to Volume II of ''Capital'', 1978). Part 3 is the point of departure for the topic of capital accumulation which was given its Marxist treatment later in detail by Rosa Luxemburg, among others.

''Capital, Volume III''

'' Capital, Volume III'', subtitled ''The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole'', was prepared by Engels from notes left by Marx and published in 1894. It is divided into seven parts: #The conversion of Surplus Value into Profit and the rate of Surplus Value into the rate of Profit #Conversion of Profit into Average Profit #The Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall #Conversion of Commodity Capital and Money Capital into Commercial Capital and Money-Dealing Capital (Merchant's Capital) #Division of Profit Into Interest and Profit of Enterprise, Interest Bearing Capital. #Transformation of Surplus-Profit into Ground Rent. #Revenues and Their Sources The work is best known today for Part 3 which in summary says that as the organic fixed capital requirements of production rise as a result of advancements in production generally, the rate of profit tends to fall. This result which orthodox Marxists believe is a principal contradictory characteristic leading to an inevitable collapse of the capitalist order was held by Marx and Engels to—as a result of various contradictions in the capitalist

mode of production In the Marxist theory of historical materialism, a mode of production (German: ''Produktionsweise'', "the way of producing") is a specific combination of the: * Productive forces: these include human labour power and means of production (tools, ...

—result in

crises A crisis ( : crises; : critical) is either any event or period that will (or might) lead to an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, or all of society. Crises are negative changes in the human or environmental affair ...

whose resolution necessitates the emergence of an entirely new mode of production as the culmination of the same historical dialectic that led to the emergence of capitalism from prior forms.

Intellectual influences

The purpose of ''Das Kapital'' (1867) was a scientific foundation for the politics of the modern labour movement. The analyses were meant "to bring a

science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...

, by criticism, to the point where it can be dialectically represented" and so "reveal the law of motion of modern society" to describe how the capitalist mode of production was the precursor of the

socialist mode of production The socialist mode of production, sometimes referred to as the communist mode of production, or simply (Marxian) socialism or communism as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels used the terms ''communism'' and ''socialism'' interchangeably, is a specif ...

. The argument is a critique of the classical economics of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill and Benjamin Franklin, drawing on the dialectical method that

G. W. F. Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends a ...

developed in '' Science of Logic'' and '' The Phenomenology of Spirit''. Other intellectual influences on ''Capital'' were the French socialists

Charles Fourier François Marie Charles Fourier (;; 7 April 1772 – 10 October 1837) was a French philosopher, an influential early socialist thinker and one of the founders of utopian socialism. Some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical ...

,

Henri de Saint-Simon Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon (17 October 1760 – 19 May 1825), often referred to as Henri de Saint-Simon (), was a French political, economic and socialist theorist and businessman whose thought had a substantial influence on p ...

,

Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi (also known as Jean Charles Leonard Simonde de Sismondi) (; 9 May 1773 – 25 June 1842), whose real name was Simonde, was a Swiss historian and political economist, who is best known for his works on French and ...

and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. At university, Marx wrote a dissertation comparing the

philosophy of nature Nature has two inter-related meanings in philosophy and natural philosophy. On the one hand, it means the set of all things which are natural, or subject to the normal working of the laws of nature. On the other hand, it means the essential prope ...

in the works of the philosophers Democritus (circa 460–370 BC) and Epicurus (341–270 BC). The logical architecture of ''Das Kapital'' is derived in part from the ''

Politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...

'' and the '' Nicomachean Ethics'' by Aristotle, including the fundamental distinction between

use value Use value (german: Gebrauchswert) or value in use is a concept in classical political economy and Marxist economics. It refers to the tangible features of a commodity (a tradeable object) which can satisfy some human requirement, want or need, or ...

and exchange value, the

syllogisms A syllogism ( grc-gre, συλλογισμός, ''syllogismos'', 'conclusion, inference') is a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion based on two propositions that are asserted or assumed to be true. ...

( C-M-C' and

M-C-M' In classical political economy and especially Karl Marx's critique of political economy, a commodity is any good or service ("products" or "activities") produced by human labour and offered as a product for general sale on the market. Some other p ...

) for simple commodity circulation and the circulation of value as capital. Moreover, the description of machinery under capitalist relations of production as "self-acting

automata An automaton (; plural: automata or automatons) is a relatively self-operating machine, or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions.Automaton – Definition and More ...

" derives from Aristotle's speculations about inanimate instruments capable of obeying commands as the condition for the abolition of

slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

. In the 19th century, Marx's research of the available politico-economic literature required twelve years, usually in the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

in London.

''Capital, Volume IV''

At the time of his death (1883), Marx had prepared the manuscript for ''Das Kapital, Volume IV'', a critical history of theories of surplus value of his time, the 19th century, based on the earlier manuscript ''

Theories of Surplus Value ''Theories of Surplus Value'' (german: Theorien über den Mehrwert) is a draft manuscript written by Karl Marx between January 1862 and July 1863. It is mainly concerned with the Western European theorizing about ''Mehrwert'' (added value or sur ...

'' (1862–63). The philosopher Karl Kautsky (1854–1938) published a partial edition of Marx's surplus-value critique and later published a full, three-volume edition as ''Theorien über den Mehrwert'' (''

Theories of Surplus Value ''Theories of Surplus Value'' (german: Theorien über den Mehrwert) is a draft manuscript written by Karl Marx between January 1862 and July 1863. It is mainly concerned with the Western European theorizing about ''Mehrwert'' (added value or sur ...

'', 1905–1910). The first volume was published in English as ''A History of Economic Theories'' (1952).

Publication

''

Capital, Volume I ''Capital. A Critique of Political Economy. Volume I: The Process of Production of Capital'' (german: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie Erster Band. Buch I: Der Produktionsprocess des Kapitals) is the first of three treatises that ma ...

'' (1867) was published in Marx's lifetime. The marginal utility principle came out in 1870. By that time, Marx already had the other two volumes done, and he believed that in order to publish the other two volumes, he had to first debunk the marginal utility principle. Marx tried to debunk it, but he died in 1883 before he could do so to his satisfaction. After his death, Friedrich Engels had possession of the remaining two volumes. Engels edited and published volume II (1885) and ''Capital, Volume III'' (1894) as the work of Marx.

Translations

The first translated publication of ''Das Kapital'' was in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

in March 1872. It was the first foreign publication and the English edition appeared in 1887. Despite Russian censorship proscribing "the harmful doctrines of

socialism Socialism is a left-wing Economic ideology, economic philosophy and Political movement, movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to Private prop ...

and

communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a ...

", the Russian censors considered ''Das Kapital'' as a "strictly scientific work" of political economy, the content of which did not apply to monarchic Russia, where "capitalist exploitation" had never occurred and was officially dismissed, given "that very few people in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

will read it, and even fewer will understand it". Nonetheless, Marx acknowledged that Russia was the country where ''Das Kapital'' "was read and valued more than anywhere". For instance, the Russian edition was the fastest selling as 3,000 copies were sold in one year while the German edition took five years to sell 1,000, therefore the Russian translation sold fifteen times faster than the German original.Figes, Orlando. ''A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924'' (1996). London. p. 139. The foreign editions of ''Capital. Critique of Political Economy'' (1867) by

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

include a Russian translation by the revolutionary socialist

Mikhail Bakunin Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (; 1814–1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist, socialist and founder of collectivist anarchism. He is considered among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major founder of the revolutionary s ...

(1814–1876). Eventually, Marx's work was translated into all major languages. The English translation of volume 1 by Samuel Moore and Eleanor Marx's partner

Edward Aveling Edward Bibbins Aveling (29 November 1849 – 2 August 1898) was an English comparative anatomist and popular spokesman for Darwinian evolution, atheism and socialism. He was also a playwright and actor. Aveling was the author of numer ...

, overseen by Engels, was published in 1887 as ''Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production'' by Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey, & Co. This was reissued in the 1970s by Progress Publishers in Moscow, while a more recent English translation was made by Ben Fowkes and David Fernbach (the Penguin edition). The definitive critical edition of Marx's works, known as MEGA II ('' Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe'') , includes ''Das Kapital'' in German (only the first volume is in French) and shows all the versions and alterations made to the text as well as a very extensive apparatus of footnotes and cross-references. The first unabridged translation of Das Kapital to Bengali was done by professor Piyush Dasgupta. It was published in six volumes by Baniprakash, Kolkata, India between 1974 and 1983. In 2012,

Red Quill Books Red Quill Books was founded in 2009 by a group of scholars led by professor George S. Rigakos, based out of Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. The press, however, has no formal association with Carleton University. The primary mission of ...

released ''Capital: In Manga!'', a comic book version of Volume I which is an expanded English translation of the successful 2008 Japanese pocket version ''Das Kapital'' known as ''

Manga de Dokuha is a series of manga versions of classic literature. Published by East Press, the aim of the series is to introduce average manga readers to important literary works they would otherwise not be aware of or willing to read. The series received press ...

''.

Reviews

In 2017, the historian

Gareth Stedman Jones Gareth Stedman Jones (born 17 December 1942) is an English academic and historian. As Professor of the History of Ideas at Queen Mary, University of London, he deals particularly with working-class history and Marxism. Career Educated at St ...

wrote in the Books and Arts section of the scientific journal ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

'': Positive reception also cited the soundness of the methodology used in producing the book, which is called immanent critique. This approach, which starts from simple category and gradually unfolds into complex categories, employed "internal" criticism that finds contradiction within and between categories while discovering aspects of reality that the categories cannot explain. This meant that Marx had to build his arguments on historical narratives and empirical evidence rather than the arbitrary application of his ideas in his evaluation of capitalism. On the other hand, ''Das Kapital'' has also received criticism. There are theorists who claimed that this text was unable to reconcile capitalist exploitation with prices dependent upon subjective wants in exchange relations. Marxists generally reply that only socially necessary labor time, that is, labor which is spent on commodities for which there is market-demand, can be considered productive labour and therefore exploited on Marx's account. There are also those who argued that Marx's so-called

immiseration thesis In Marxist theory and Marxian economics, the immiseration thesis, also referred to as emiseration thesis, is derived from Karl Marx's analysis of economic development in capitalism, implying that the nature of capitalist production stabilizes real ...

is presumed to mean that the proletariat is absolutely immiserated. The existing scholarly consensus tends towards the opposite view that Marx believed that only relative immiseration would occur, that is, a fall in labor's share of output. Marx himself frequently polemicized against the view "that the amount of real wages ... is a fixed amount."

Footnotes

External links

*

Althusser, Louis Louis Pierre Althusser (, ; ; 16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990) was a French Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the École normale supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy. Althusser w ...

(21 April 1969)
"How to Read Marx's Capital"

An earlier work by Marx that deals with many of the ideas later expanded in ''Das Kapital''. * Engels, Friedrich (1867
"Synopsis of Capital"
*

Harvey, David David W. Harvey (born 31 October 1935) is a British-born Marxist economic geographer, podcaster and Distinguished Professor of anthropology and geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He received his PhD ...

"Reading Marx's Capital"
University open courses. * Liberation School. (2021)
"Reading Capital with Comrades"
podcast class series * Ehrbar, Hans G

It helps with understanding the early concepts. * Choonara, Joseph
"Capital"
''

Socialist Worker ''Socialist Worker'' is the name of several far-left newspapers currently or formerly associated with the International Socialist Tendency (IST). It is a weekly newspaper published by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in the United Kingdom since ...

''. First in a series of accessible columns on ''Das Kapital''.
"PolyluxMarx—A ''Capital'' Workbook in Slides"
(covers Volume I of ''Das Capital'' in PowerPoint slides) . * Harvey, David (12 July 2018)
"Why Marx's Capital Still Matters"
'' Jacobin''. Retrieved 24 April 2019. * Segrillo, Angelo.
Karl Marx's Capital (Vols. 1, 2, 3) Abridged
'. São Paulo: FFLCH/USP, 2020. ; Online editions * ''Capital, Volume I'' (1867); published in Marx's lifetime: *

' from the

Marxists Internet Archive Marxists Internet Archive (also known as MIA or Marxists.org) is a non-profit online encyclopedia that hosts a multilingual library (created in 1990) of the works of communist, anarchist, and socialist writers, such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Eng ...

. ** . **
Capital, Volume I
' 1974 Progress Publishers edition, downloadable PDF from the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

. * ''Capital, Volume II'' (1885); manuscript not completed by Marx before his death in 1883; subsequently edited and published, by friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels as the work of Marx: **
Capital Volume II: The Process of Circulation of Capital
' from the

Marxists Internet Archive Marxists Internet Archive (also known as MIA or Marxists.org) is a non-profit online encyclopedia that hosts a multilingual library (created in 1990) of the works of communist, anarchist, and socialist writers, such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Eng ...

. **
Capital, Volume II
' 1974 Progress Publishers edition, downloadable PDF from the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

. * ''Capital, Volume III'' (1894); manuscript not completed by Marx before his death in 1883; subsequently edited and published, by friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels as the work of Marx: **
Capital Volume III: The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole
' at the Marxists Internet Archive. **
Capital, Volume III
' 1974 Progress Publishers edition, downloadable PDF from the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

. * ''Capital, Volume IV'' (1905–1910); critical history of theories of surplus value; manuscript written by Marx; partial edition edited and published after Marx's death by Karl Kautsky as ''

Theories of Surplus Value ''Theories of Surplus Value'' (german: Theorien über den Mehrwert) is a draft manuscript written by Karl Marx between January 1862 and July 1863. It is mainly concerned with the Western European theorizing about ''Mehrwert'' (added value or sur ...

''; other editions published later: **
Capital, Volume IV: Theories of Surplus Value
' at Marxists Internet Archive. *
Part IPart IIPart III
1975 Progress Publishers editions, downloadable PDF from the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

. ; Synopses
"Reading Marx's Capital"
Series of video lectures by professor

David Harvey David W. Harvey (born 31 October 1935) is a British-born Marxist economic geographer, podcaster and Distinguished Professor of anthropology and geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He received his P ...

. * Includes Engels' Synopsis of ''Capital''. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kapital, Das 1867 non-fiction books 1885 non-fiction books 1894 non-fiction books Books critical of capitalism Marxism Political books Unfinished books Communist books Books about capitalism Books by Karl Marx Books in political philosophy Stage theories 1867 in economics Books published posthumously Historical materialism Political textbooks Critique of political economy

Themes

Synopsis

''Capital, Volume I''

''Capital, Volume II''

''Capital, Volume III''

Intellectual influences

''Capital, Volume IV''

Publication

Translations

Reviews

See also

Footnotes

Further reading

External links