''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' (), also known as ''Capital'' or (), is the most significant work by
Karl Marx
Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
and the cornerstone of
Marxian economics
Marxian economics, or the Marxian school of economics, is a heterodox school of political economic thought. Its foundations can be traced back to Karl Marx's critique of political economy. However, unlike critics of political economy, Marxian ...
, published in three volumes in 1867, 1885, and 1894. The culmination of his life's work, the text contains Marx's analysis of
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...
, to which he sought to apply his theory of
historical materialism
Historical materialism is Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx located historical change in the rise of Class society, class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods.
Karl Marx stated that Productive forces, techno ...
in a
critique of classical political economy. 's second and third volumes were completed from manuscripts after Marx's death in 1883 and published by
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ;["Engels"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.[Adam Smith
Adam Smith (baptised 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the field of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as the "father of economics"——— or ...]
and
David Ricardo
David Ricardo (18 April 1772 – 11 September 1823) was a British political economist, politician, and member of Parliament. He is recognized as one of the most influential classical economists, alongside figures such as Thomas Malthus, Ada ...
. His earlier works, including ''
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844'' and ''
The German Ideology
''The German Ideology'' (German: ''Die deutsche Ideologie''), also known as ''A Critique of the German Ideology'', is a set of manuscripts written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels around April or early May 1846. Marx and Engels did not find a p ...
'' (1846, with Engels), laid the groundwork for his theory of historical materialism, which posits that the
economic structures of a society (in particular, the
forces
In physics, a force is an influence that can cause an object to change its velocity unless counterbalanced by other forces. In mechanics, force makes ideas like 'pushing' or 'pulling' mathematically precise. Because the magnitude and directi ...
and
relations of production
Relations of production () is a concept frequently used by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their theory of historical materialism and in ''Das Kapital''. It is first explicitly used in Marx's published book '' The Poverty of Philosophy'', al ...
) are the most crucial factors in shaping its nature. Rather than a simple description of capitalism as an
economic model
An economic model is a theoretical construct representing economic processes by a set of variables and a set of logical and/or quantitative relationships between them. The economic model is a simplified, often mathematical, framework designed ...
, instead examines the system as a historical epoch and a
mode of production, and seeks to trace its origins, development, and decline. Marx argues that capitalism is not
transhistorical, but a form of economic organization which has arisen and developed in a specific historical context, and which contains contradictions which will inevitably lead to its decline and collapse.
Central to Marx's analysis of capitalism in is his theory of
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 manufacture it: i.e. the amount raised through sale of the product minus the cost of the materials, plant and ...
, the unpaid labor which capitalists extract from workers in order to generate
profit
Profit may refer to:
Business and law
* Profit (accounting), the difference between the purchase price and the costs of bringing to market
* Profit (economics), normal profit and economic profit
* Profit (real property), a nonpossessory inter ...
. He also introduces the concept of
commodity fetishism
In Marxist philosophy, commodity fetishism is the perception of the economic relationships of production and exchange as relationships among things (money and merchandise) rather than among people. As a form of Reification (Marxism), reificati ...
, describing how capitalist markets obscure the social relationships behind economic transactions, and argues that capitalism is inherently unstable due to the
tendency of the rate of profit to fall
The tendency of the rate of profit to fall (TRPF) is a theory in the crisis theory of political economy, according to which the rate of profit—the ratio of the profit to the amount of invested capital—decreases over time. This hypothesis ...
, which leads to cyclical
economic crises
A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and ma ...
.
Volume I focuses on production and labor exploitation, Volume II examines capital circulation and economic crises, and Volume III explores the distribution of surplus value among economic actors. According to Marx, is a
scientific
Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...
work based on extensive research, and a critique of both capitalism and the
bourgeois
The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and Aristocracy (class), aristocracy. They are tradition ...
political economists who argue that it is efficient and stable.
initially attracted little mainstream attention, but gained prominence as socialist and labor movements expanded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Beyond these movements, has profoundly influenced economic thought and political science, and today is the most cited book in the
social science
Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the ...
s published before 1950. Even
critics of Marxism acknowledge its significance in the development of theories of labor dynamics, economic cycles, and the effects of industrial capitalism. Scholars continue to engage with its themes, particularly in analyses of global capitalism, inequality, and labor exploitation.
Background and influences
Karl Marx
Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
's emerged from his lifelong project of developing a comprehensive "
critique of political economy
Critique of political economy or simply the first critique of economy is a form of social critique that rejects the conventional ways of distributing resources. The critique also rejects what its advocates believe are unrealistic axioms, flawe ...
". His work was a synthesis and critical engagement with three major intellectual and political traditions:
classical political economy,
German critical philosophy, and
utopian socialism
Utopian socialism is the term often used to describe the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen. Utopian socialism is often de ...
.
Marx meticulously studied classical political economists from the seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century. This included British thinkers like
William Petty
Sir William Petty (26 May 1623 – 16 December 1687) was an English economist, physician, scientist and philosopher. He first became prominent serving Oliver Cromwell and the Commonwealth of England, Commonwealth in Cromwellian conquest of I ...
,
John Locke
John Locke (; 29 August 1632 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.) – 28 October 1704 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.)) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of the Enlightenment thi ...
,
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679) was an English philosopher, best known for his 1651 book ''Leviathan (Hobbes book), Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influential formulation of social contract theory. He is considered t ...
,
David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist who was best known for his highly influential system of empiricism, philosophical scepticism and metaphysical naturalism. Beg ...
,
Adam Smith
Adam Smith (baptised 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the field of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as the "father of economics"——— or ...
,
Thomas Malthus
Thomas Robert Malthus (; 13/14 February 1766 – 29 December 1834) was an English economist, cleric, and scholar influential in the fields of political economy and demography.
In his 1798 book ''An Essay on the Principle of Population'', Mal ...
, and
David Ricardo
David Ricardo (18 April 1772 – 11 September 1823) was a British political economist, politician, and member of Parliament. He is recognized as one of the most influential classical economists, alongside figures such as Thomas Malthus, Ada ...
, as well as
James Steuart. He also engaged with the French tradition of
Physiocrats
Physiocracy (; from the Greek for "government of nature") is an economic theory developed by a group of 18th-century Age of Enlightenment French economists. They believed that the wealth of nations derived solely from the value of "land agricult ...
like
François Quesnay
François Quesnay (; ; 4 June 1694 – 16 December 1774) was a French economist and physician of the Physiocratic school. He is known for publishing the " Tableau économique" (Economic Table) in 1758, which provided the foundations of the ideas ...
and
Anne Robert Jacques Turgot
Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de l'Aulne ( ; ; 10 May 172718 March 1781), commonly known as Turgot, was a French economist and statesman. Sometimes considered a physiocrat, he is today best remembered as an early advocate for economic lib ...
, and later economists such as
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 surname was Simonde, was a Swiss historian and political economist, who is best known for his works on French ...
and
Jean-Baptiste Say
Jean-Baptiste () is a male French name, originating with Saint John the Baptist, and sometimes shortened to Baptiste. The name may refer to any of the following:
Persons
* Charles XIV John of Sweden, born Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte, was K ...
. Marx's extensive notes on these thinkers, published as ''
Theories of Surplus Value
''Theories of Surplus Value'' () is a draft manuscript written by Karl Marx between January 1862 and July 1863. It is mainly concerned with the Western Europe, Western European theorizing about ''Mehrwert'' (added value or surplus value) from abo ...
'', demonstrate his method of deconstructing their arguments, accepting certain insights while identifying gaps and contradictions to transform their theories. His critique aimed not just at specific theories but at the categorical presuppositions of the entire field, challenging the way political economy posed its questions and what it accepted as self-evident.
Philosophical reflection, originating with
Greek thought (Marx wrote his dissertation on
Epicurus
Epicurus (, ; ; 341–270 BC) was an Greek philosophy, ancient Greek philosopher who founded Epicureanism, a highly influential school of philosophy that asserted that philosophy's purpose is to attain as well as to help others attain tranqui ...
and was familiar with
Aristotle
Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...
), formed another crucial foundation. He was thoroughly trained in the German philosophical tradition, particularly the works of
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch (de) Spinoza (24 November 163221 February 1677), also known under his Latinized pen name Benedictus de Spinoza, was a philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, who was born in the Dutch Republic. A forerunner of the Age of Enlightenmen ...
,
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to ...
,
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German Philosophy, philosopher and one of the central Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works ...
, and, most significantly,
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political philosophy and t ...
. The critical climate generated by the
Young Hegelians in the 1830s and 1840s, and Marx's engagement with thinkers like
Ludwig Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach (; ; 28 July 1804 – 13 September 1872) was a German anthropologist and philosopher, best known for his book '' The Essence of Christianity'', which provided a critique of Christianity that strongly influenced ge ...
, profoundly influenced his early development and his conception of
alienation. Marx sought to reconfigure
Hegelian dialectics
Dialectic (; ), also known as the dialectical method, refers originally to dialogue between people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to arrive at the truth through reasoned argument. Dialectic resembles debate, but the ...
to grasp the "transient aspect" of society and understand processes of motion, change, and transformation.
The third major influence was utopian socialism, primarily French in Marx's time, though with English precursors like
Thomas More
Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, theologian, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VII ...
and
Robert Owen
Robert Owen (; 14 May 1771 – 17 November 1858) was a Welsh textile manufacturer, philanthropist, political philosopher and social reformer, and a founder of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement, co-operative movement. He strove to ...
. Thinkers such as
Henri de Saint-Simon
Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon (; ; 17 October 1760 – 19 May 1825), better known as Henri de Saint-Simon (), was a French political, economic and socialist theorist and businessman whose thought had a substantial influence on po ...
,
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 his views, held to be radical in his lifetime, have be ...
, and
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, ; ; 1809 – 19 January 1865) was a French anarchist, socialist, philosopher, and economist who founded mutualist philosophy and is considered by many to be the "father of anarchism". He was the first person to ca ...
, as well as figures like
Étienne Cabet
Étienne Cabet (; January 1, 1788 – November 9, 1856) was a philosopher and utopian socialist who founded the Icarian movement. Cabet became the most popular socialist advocate of his day, with a special appeal to artisans who were being under ...
and
Louis Auguste Blanqui
Louis Auguste Blanqui (; 8 February 1805 – 1 January 1881) was a French socialist, political philosopher and political activist, notable for his revolutionary theory of Blanquism.
Biography Early life, political activity and first impris ...
, contributed to a vibrant utopian discourse in the 1830s and 1840s. Marx was familiar with this tradition, particularly during his time in Paris before 1844. While he sought to distance himself from what he saw as the shallow utopianism that failed to provide a practical path to a new society, he often proceeded in his arguments by way of a critical negation of their ideas, particularly those of Fourier and Proudhon. His aim was to convert what he considered a rather superficial utopian socialism into a "
scientific communism", by interrogating classical political economy with the tools of German critical philosophy, all applied to illuminate the French utopian impulse.
Marx's aims and method
Marx's central aim in was to understand and critique the
capitalist mode of production. He intended to lay bare the "economic law of motion of modern society" by examining its essential determinants and internal organization, presenting it in its "ideal average". This was not merely an academic exercise; Marx's work was driven by a commitment to
critical theory
Critical theory is a social, historical, and political school of thought and philosophical perspective which centers on analyzing and challenging systemic power relations in society, arguing that knowledge, truth, and social structures are ...
and the
revolutionary transformation of society. He sought to provide a scientific basis for the workers' movement by revealing the inherent contradictions and exploitative nature of capitalism.
Marx's method of presentation in , as he explained in the postface to the second German edition, differed from his method of inquiry. The inquiry involved appropriating the material in detail, analyzing its different forms of development, and tracking down their inner connections. Only after this work was done could the "real movement be appropriately presented". Consequently, begins by laying out foundational concepts—such as the commodity, value, and money—which are the results of his prior inquiry. These concepts are presented in a somewhat ''a priori'' fashion in the opening chapters, making the initial reading particularly arduous. Marx's argument unfolds not in a linear, brick-by-brick manner, but more like an "onion", starting from surface appearances, moving to a conceptual core, and then growing outward again, with concepts becoming richer and more meaningful as the analysis progresses.
A key aspect of Marx's method is the use of
abstraction
Abstraction is a process where general rules and concepts are derived from the use and classifying of specific examples, literal (reality, real or Abstract and concrete, concrete) signifiers, first principles, or other methods.
"An abstraction" ...
. Recognizing that social science cannot conduct controlled experiments in a laboratory, Marx employed the power of abstraction to isolate and analyze the fundamental dynamics of capitalism. His analysis focuses on the capitalist mode of production in its "pure" form, often abstracting from historical contingencies or specific empirical variations to reveal underlying structures and tendencies.
The
dialectical method is central to Marx's approach, though he never wrote a separate treatise on it. Derived from Hegel but "exactly opposite to it" in its foundations, Marx's dialectic aims to understand "every historically developed form as being in a fluid state, in motion", grasping the "transient aspect" of society. It involves examining concepts in their interrelations and contradictions, understanding them as codependent parts of a totality. Rather than a closed system of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, Marx's dialectic is an "expansionary logic", where contradictions are internalized and lead to further development of the argument, revealing a "perpetual expansion of the contradictions".
The starting point of with the
commodity
In economics, a commodity is an economic goods, good, usually a resource, that specifically has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the Market (economics), market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to w ...
appears somewhat arbitrary to many readers. Marx had struggled for decades with where to begin his critique. His "method of descent"—proceeding from immediate reality to deeper, fundamental concepts—led him to the commodity as the elementary form of wealth in capitalist societies. From this starting point, Marx unfolds his analysis, examining the dual character of the commodity (use-value and exchange-value), which leads to the concept of value, and then to money as the necessary form of appearance of value. This progression through dualities and their (often contradictory) unities is characteristic of his dialectical presentation.
Marx's critique of political economy is not simply a refutation of previous theories but a critique of the very categories and presuppositions of bourgeois economic thought. He challenges the "naturalization" and "
reification" of social relations, whereby historically specific capitalist relations are presented as eternal and natural properties of things. A central example is the
fetishism of commodities, where the social relations between producers appear as relations between things (the products of their labor), obscuring the underlying social reality. Marx aims to penetrate this "enchanted, distorted and upside-down world" to reveal the "religion of everyday life" that underpins both everyday consciousness and the categories of political economy.
Writing process
The writing of was a long and arduous process, spanning several decades. Marx began intensive economic studies in the 1840s, particularly during his exile in Paris and later in London. His ''
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844'' represent an early, rough draft of ideas that would eventually mature into . Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, Marx filled numerous notebooks with research, excerpts from economic texts, and his own developing theories. The , a series of notebooks written in 1857–1858, represents a significant milestone in the development of , containing extensive discussions on alienation, dialectics, and the theory of value, and serving as a missing link between his earlier manuscripts and the final published work. A preliminary version, ''
A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
''A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy'' () is a book by Karl Marx, first published in 1859. The book is mainly a critique of political economy achieved by critiquing the writings of the leading theoretical exponents of capitalism ...
'', was published in 1859 but covered only a fraction of Marx's planned work and received little attention. Marx continued to revise and expand his manuscript, driven by new research and his engagement with events like the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...
and the rise of the
International Working Men's Association, of which he became a leading figure.
Marx's perfectionism and his tendency to get sidetracked by polemics and contemporary political events significantly delayed the book's completion. He often complained of ill health, particularly liver problems and
carbuncles, which he attributed to the stress of his work and dire financial circumstances. His friend and collaborator
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ;["Engels"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.[Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac ( , more commonly ; ; born Honoré Balzac; 20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. The novel sequence ''La Comédie humaine'', which presents a panorama of post-Napoleonic French life, is ...]
's ''
The Unknown Masterpiece''. He saw a parallel between the story's protagonist, a painter who endlessly reworks his masterpiece to the point where nothing remains, and his own protracted struggle with . This anecdote reveals Marx's anxieties about the intelligibility and reception of his complex work, as well as his self-perception as a creative artist engaged in a monumental task.
Ultimately, Marx's project extends beyond the three published volumes of . His preparatory writings, such as the , indicate a much larger plan encompassing the state, foreign trade, and the world market. The conceptual apparatus developed in , particularly in its opening chapters, was intended to lay the foundation for this broader, though incomplete, project.
Synopsis
Volume I: ''The Process of Production of Capital''
Volume I, published in 1867, is Marx's most extensive and historically detailed work, focusing on the immediate process of production of
capital
Capital and its variations may refer to:
Common uses
* Capital city, a municipality of primary status
** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital
** List of national capitals
* Capital letter, an upper-case letter
Econom ...
. It lays out the foundational categories of his critique of political economy and traces the ways in which
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 manufacture it: i.e. the amount raised through sale of the product minus the cost of the materials, plant and ...
is generated through the
exploitation of labor.
Part I: Commodities and Money
Marx begins his analysis with the
commodity
In economics, a commodity is an economic goods, good, usually a resource, that specifically has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the Market (economics), market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to w ...
as the elementary form of wealth in capitalist societies. He establishes its dual character: it has a "
use-value
Use value () or value in use is a concept in classical political economy and Marxist economics. It refers to the tangible features of a Commodity (Marxism), commodity (a tradeable object) which can satisfy some human requirement, want or need, o ...
", satisfying some human want or need, and an "
exchange-value", the proportion in which it exchanges for other commodities. This commensurability in exchange, Marx argues, points to an underlying common element: "
value", which he defines as congealed "
human labour in the abstract", measured by "
socially necessary labour time
Socially necessary labour time in Marx's critique of political economy is what regulates the exchange value of commodities in trade. In short, socially necessary labour time refers to the average quantity of labour time that must be performed unde ...
" – the average time required to produce a commodity under normal conditions of production with the average degree of skill and intensity prevalent in that society. For a commodity to have value, its labor must be useful, meaning it must produce a use-value that someone wants, needs, or desires. This section introduces the concept of the "
fetishism of commodities", where the social relations between producers "assume... the fantastic form of a relation between things". The
market
Market is a term used to describe concepts such as:
*Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand
*Market economy
*Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market
*Marketing, the act of sat ...
system and
money-forms disguise these real social relations, making them appear as objective properties of the commodities themselves.

The exchange process itself necessitates a universal equivalent, a "
money commodity" (historically
gold
Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...
and
silver
Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...
), which functions as the "measure of value" and the "
medium of circulation". Marx traces the development of the form of value from the simple or accidental form, through the expanded and general forms, to the money form. Money serves as a measure of value (allowing commodities to express their values as
price
A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or compensation expected, required, or given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In some situations, especially when the product is a service rather than a ph ...
) and as a medium of circulation (facilitating the exchange of commodities, C-M-C). These two functions are contradictory: as a measure of value, money should be stable (like gold), but as a means of circulation, it needs to be efficient and adaptable, leading to the use of
tokens and
credit money. The circulation of commodities C-M-C (selling in order to buy) contains the formal possibility of crises, as the sale (C-M) and the purchase (M-C) are separated in time and space, meaning there is no automatic guarantee that a sale will be followed by a purchase. Money also functions as a
hoard
A hoard or "wealth deposit" is an archaeological term for a collection of valuable objects or artifacts, sometimes purposely buried in the ground, in which case it is sometimes also known as a cache. This would usually be with the intention of ...
(a store of value), as a means of
payment
A payment is the tender of something of value, such as money or its equivalent, by one party (such as a person or company) to another in exchange for goods or services provided by them, or to fulfill a legal obligation or philanthropy desir ...
(for settling
debts
Debt is an obligation that requires one party, the debtor, to pay money Loan, borrowed or otherwise withheld from another party, the creditor. Debt may be owed by a sovereign state or country, local government, company, or an individual. Co ...
, introducing the creditor-debtor relation), and as "
world money" in
international trade
International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories because there is a need or want of goods or services. (See: World economy.)
In most countries, such trade represents a significan ...
.
Part II: The Transformation of Money into Capital

Marx then examines how money is transformed into
capital
Capital and its variations may refer to:
Common uses
* Capital city, a municipality of primary status
** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital
** List of national capitals
* Capital letter, an upper-case letter
Econom ...
. The simple circulation of commodities is C-M-C (selling in order to buy another commodity of equivalent value). Capital, however, circulates as M-C-M' (buying in order to sell dearer), where M' is M + ΔM, the increment ΔM being "
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 manufacture it: i.e. the amount raised through sale of the product minus the cost of the materials, plant and ...
". Capital is thus defined not as a thing (like money or machines) but as a process: "value in motion", specifically "self-valorizing value". The capitalist, as the "conscious bearer" of this movement, is driven by the "unceasing movement of profit-making".
Marx argues that surplus value cannot arise from the sphere of circulation if equivalents are exchanged (M-C and C-M both adhering to value equivalence). While individual capitalists might cheat by buying cheap or selling dear, this merely redistributes existing value. The problem is to explain how the capitalist class as a whole can extract surplus value while adhering to the laws of commodity exchange. The solution lies in finding a unique commodity whose use-value is itself a source of more value than it costs. This commodity is "
labor power
Labour power (; ) is the capacity to work, a key concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of capitalist political economy. Marx distinguished between the capacity to do the work, i.e. labour power, and the physical act of working, i.e. labour ...
", the capacity to labor. For labor-power to be available as a commodity, two conditions must be met: the laborer must be a "free proprietor" of their labor-power, able to sell it for a definite period; and the laborer must be "free" in the double sense of not possessing the
means of production
In political philosophy, the means of production refers to the generally necessary assets and resources that enable a society to engage in production. While the exact resources encompassed in the term may vary, it is widely agreed to include the ...
, thus having no other commodity to sell and being compelled to sell their labor-power to survive. This "double freedom" is the result of a historical process of
primitive accumulation which divorces the producers from the means of production.
The "value of labor-power" is determined, like that of any other commodity, by the labor-time necessary for its reproduction. This includes the means of subsistence required to maintain the laborer in their normal state as a working individual and to reproduce the
working class
The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...
. Marx emphasizes that this value contains a "historical and moral element", varying according to the level of civilization, the habits and expectations of the working class, and the outcomes of
class struggle
In political science, the term class conflict, class struggle, or class war refers to the economic antagonism and political tension that exist among social classes because of clashing interests, competition for limited resources, and inequali ...
. The capitalist purchases labor-power at its value, and then consumes its use-value in the labor process. The "secret of profit-making" is that the value created by the laborer in the production process is greater than the value of their own labor-power.
Part III: The Production of Absolute Surplus-Value

Marx moves from the sphere of circulation ("a very Eden of the innate rights of man") into the "hidden abode of production". The capitalist production process is a unity of the "
labor process" (the purposeful activity of producing use-values) and the "
valorization process" (the process of creating value and surplus-value).
In the labor process, the capitalist controls the work and owns the product. Capital advanced is divided into "
constant capital
Constant or The Constant may refer to:
Mathematics
* Constant (mathematics), a non-varying value
* Mathematical constant, a special number that arises naturally in mathematics, such as or
Other concepts
* Control variable or scientific co ...
" (c) – the value of the means of production (raw materials, auxiliary materials, and instruments of labor) – and "
variable capital
Constant capital (c; ), is a concept created by Karl Marx and used in Marxian political economy. It refers to one of the forms of capital invested in production, which contrasts with variable capital (v; ). The distinction between constant an ...
" (v) – the value laid out in purchasing labor-power. Constant capital merely transfers its existing value to the new product, while variable capital, through the expenditure of living labor, creates new value. The new value created is greater than the value of the variable capital (v); this excess is surplus value (s). The total value of the commodity is thus c + v + s.
The "rate of surplus value" (s/v) is the measure of the
exploitation of labor-power. It expresses the ratio of
surplus labor-time (the time the worker labors beyond what is necessary to reproduce the value of their labor-power) to necessary labor-time (the time required to reproduce the value of labor-power).
The
working day
A business day normally means any day except a legal holiday. It may also mean a business day of operation, any of the days an organization operates. It depends on the local workweek which is dictated by local customs, religions, and business ...
is the site of a struggle between the capitalist class (seeking to maximize its length) and the working class (seeking to limit it). Capital, as "dead labour which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour", has an inherent drive to extend the working day beyond its physical and social limits. This struggle is not resolvable by appeals to the "rights" of commodity exchange, as both capitalist and worker can claim their rights as buyer and seller respectively. "Between equal rights, force decides", leading to a historical struggle, exemplified by the fight for the
Factory Acts
The Factory Acts were a series of acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom beginning in 1802 to regulate and improve the conditions of industrial employment.
The early acts concentrated on regulating the hours of work and moral wel ...
in Britain. Marx details the often brutal conditions and excessive hours imposed on workers, particularly women and children, in various industries. The establishment of a "normal working day" is thus a product of protracted class struggle and state intervention, influenced by factors such as the need for a healthy workforce and military conscripts. "Absolute surplus-value" is produced by prolonging the working day, thus extending surplus labor-time, given a constant necessary labor-time. The "mass of surplus-value" is the rate of surplus-value multiplied by the number of laborers employed.
Part IV: The Production of Relative Surplus-Value

"Relative surplus-value" is produced by shortening necessary labor-time, typically through increases in the
productivity of labor in those industries that produce wage goods. If the value of the means of subsistence falls, the value of labor-power also falls, allowing the capitalist to appropriate a larger share of the working day as surplus labor-time, even if the length of the working day remains constant or is shortened.
Individual capitalists are driven by the coercive laws of competition to seek an "extra surplus-value" (or extra profit) by introducing new technologies or organizational methods that make their individual value of production lower than the social average. This extra surplus-value is ephemeral, disappearing once the new methods become generalized. This constant hunt for ephemeral extra surplus-value is the immanent drive within capitalism for perpetual technological and organizational dynamism. Marx notes that a rise in the physical standard of living of workers (more use-values) can be compatible with a rising rate of exploitation if productivity increases sufficiently.
Marx then examines the specific methods of producing relative surplus-value:
* Cooperation: The bringing together of many workers under the command of a single capitalist creates a new "social productive power of labour", a collective force greater than the sum of individual powers. This collective power appears as a productive power of capital itself. The capitalist's function of direction and supervision becomes necessary, but it is also a function of exploitation, a "despotic" command.
*
Division of labour
The division of labour is the separation of the tasks in any economic system or organisation so that participants may specialise ( specialisation). Individuals, organisations, and nations are endowed with or acquire specialised capabilities, a ...
and manufacture: Manufacture, based on handicraft skills, involves breaking down the production process into specialized, partial operations performed by "detail laborers". This increases productivity but "converts the worker into a crippled monstrosity" by suppressing a "whole world of productive drives and inclinations". A hierarchical structure of labor-powers emerges, and the intellectual potentialities of production become concentrated in capital. Marx distinguishes the division of labor in the workshop (despotic and planned) from the division of labor in society (anarchic, mediated by market exchange).
* Machinery and large-scale industry: The introduction of machinery revolutionizes the technical basis of production. The machine, as a tool taken out of the worker's hands and incorporated into a mechanism, confronts the worker as "capital, dead labour, that dominates, and pumps dry, living labour-power". The skill of the worker passes over to the machine, and the worker becomes a mere appendage to the "automatic system of machinery". Machinery cheapens commodities (and thus labor-power) and is a powerful weapon in the hands of capital for prolonging the working day (to recoup its value before
obsolescence
Obsolescence is the process of becoming antiquated, out of date, old-fashioned, no longer in general use, or no longer useful, or the condition of being in such a state. When used in a biological sense, it means imperfect or rudimentary when comp ...
), intensifying labor, and suppressing worker resistance. Marx discusses the
struggle between worker and machine, noting that workers eventually learn to distinguish between machinery itself and its capitalist employment. The
Factory Acts
The Factory Acts were a series of acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom beginning in 1802 to regulate and improve the conditions of industrial employment.
The early acts concentrated on regulating the hours of work and moral wel ...
, while limiting hours and regulating conditions, also accelerate the concentration of capital and the generalization of the factory system. Large-scale industry creates the material conditions for a "new and higher synthesis" of agriculture and industry, but under capitalism, this often leads to the ruining of the soil and the worker. Marx notes the contradiction that capitalism requires an increasingly flexible, adaptable, and educated workforce ("the totally developed individual") while simultaneously degrading and stultifying labor.
Part V: The Production of Absolute and Relative Surplus-Value
In this part, Marx synthesizes the discussions on absolute and relative surplus-value. Capitalists employ a variety of strategies to increase the rate and mass of surplus-value, often combining methods. For example, increases in productivity (relative surplus-value) can be used to intensify labor (a form of absolute surplus-value if the working day remains constant). The "form-giving fire" of living labor is the ultimate source of surplus-value, and capital's drive is to appropriate as much of this unpaid labor as possible. Marx revisits the idea of the "collective laborer", emphasizing that as the scale and cooperation of production increase, the concept of productive labor expands to include not only those directly working on the material but also those involved in the general coordination and scientific application within the production process. However, he narrows the definition from capital's perspective: "the only worker who is productive is one who produces surplus-value for the capitalist".
Part VI: Wages
Marx analyzes the various forms of
wage
A wage is payment made by an employer to an employee for work (human activity), work done in a specific period of time. Some examples of wage payments include wiktionary:compensatory, compensatory payments such as ''minimum wage'', ''prevailin ...
s, arguing that they obscure the underlying reality of exploitation.
* Time wages: Wages appear as the price of labor for a certain period (e.g., per hour or day). This creates the illusion that all labor is paid labor, concealing the distinction between necessary and surplus labor-time.
*
Piece wages: Wages are paid per piece produced. This form is well-suited to capitalist exploitation, as it intensifies labor and encourages workers to overwork themselves, while making supervision less necessary. It fosters competition among workers and obscures the fact that the price per piece is ultimately determined by what the average worker can produce in a given time.
* National differences in wages: Marx briefly considers how wage levels differ between countries, influenced by factors such as historical development, the cost of subsistence, the intensity of labor, and the value of money. He notes that higher wages in one country might correspond to a higher rate of surplus-value if productivity is also much higher.
Part VII: The Process of Accumulation of Capital

This part examines how surplus-value is reconverted into capital, leading to
capital accumulation
Capital accumulation is the dynamic that motivates the pursuit of profit, involving the investment of money or any financial asset with the goal of increasing the initial monetary value of said asset as a financial return whether in the form ...
on an ever-expanding scale. Marx's analysis here operates under specific assumptions: a closed system (no foreign trade), no problems of realizing commodities at their values, and the exclusion of the division of surplus-value into
rent,
interest
In finance and economics, interest is payment from a debtor or deposit-taking financial institution to a lender or depositor of an amount above repayment of the principal sum (that is, the amount borrowed), at a particular rate. It is distinct f ...
, and industrial profit.
* Simple reproduction: Marx first considers a hypothetical scenario where the entire surplus-value is consumed by the capitalist as revenue, meaning capital is merely reproduced on the same scale. Even under these conditions, he argues, the continuity of the production process means that all capital eventually becomes capitalized surplus-value. The worker constantly produces the capital that exploits them, and the capital relation itself is reproduced.
* Expanded reproduction (accumulation): Capitalists are driven by the "historical mission" of "accumulation for accumulation's sake, production for production's sake". Part of the surplus-value is capitalized, i.e., used to purchase additional means of production and labor-power, leading to production on an expanded scale. Marx critiques classical political economy's "erroneous conceptions" of accumulation, particularly its neglect of the need to produce additional means of production (constant capital) alongside additional means of subsistence for an expanded workforce. The capitalist's drive to accumulate is presented as an objective necessity imposed by competition, rather than mere subjective greed.
* The general law of capitalist accumulation: Accumulation affects the demand for labor. If the "
organic composition of capital
The organic composition of capital (OCC) is a concept created by Karl Marx in his theory of capitalism, which was simultaneously his critique of the political economy of his time. It is derived from his more basic concepts of 'value composition ...
" (c/v, the ratio of constant to variable capital, reflecting productivity) remains constant, accumulation leads to increased demand for labor-power, potentially raising wages. However, the general tendency of capitalist accumulation is towards a "rising organic composition of capital", as capitalists introduce labor-saving machinery in pursuit of relative surplus-value and to gain competitive advantage. This means that the demand for labor falls relative to the magnitude of the total capital.
Capitalist accumulation "constantly produces... a relatively redundant working population, i.e. a population which is superfluous to capital's average requirements for its own valorization, and is therefore a surplus population". This "
industrial reserve army" (or relative surplus population) is a necessary product of accumulation and a condition for its existence, providing a readily available supply of labor for expansion and exerting downward pressure on wages. Marx identifies different forms of the reserve army: the "floating" (e.g., temporarily unemployed factory workers), the "latent" (e.g., agricultural populations being drawn into industry, or women and children entering the workforce), and the "stagnant" (e.g., irregularly employed workers, including those in the "sphere of pauperism" like
vagabonds and criminals).
The "absolute general law of capitalist accumulation" is that "in proportion as capital accumulates, the situation of the worker, be his payment high or low, must grow worse". This means an "
accumulation of misery, the torment of labour, slavery, ignorance, brutalization and moral degradation at the opposite pole" to the accumulation of wealth. Marx emphasizes that this is a tendency within the specific model of Volume I, which abstracts from factors like the realization of value and the distribution of surplus-value which are addressed in Volumes II and III.
Part VIII: So-Called Primitive Accumulation

In the final part of Volume I, Marx addresses the historical origins of the capital relation, a process he terms "
primitive accumulation". This process is "primitive" because it forms the pre-history of capital and the capitalist mode of production, establishing the fundamental conditions for capitalist accumulation to begin. Marx contrasts his historical account with the "idyllic methods" portrayed by classical political economy, which depicted the emergence of capital and wage-labor as a gradual and peaceful result of diligence and frugality. For Marx, "in actual history, it is notorious that conquest, enslavement, robbery, murder, in short, force, play the greatest part".
Primitive accumulation is fundamentally the historical process of "divorcing the producer from the means of production". This involves two transformations: the social means of subsistence and production are turned into capital, and the immediate producers are turned into wage-laborers.
Key aspects of primitive accumulation include:
* Expropriation of the agricultural population from the land: Marx details the
enclosure
Enclosure or inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land", enclosing it, and by doing so depriving commoners of their traditional rights of access and usage. Agreements to enc ...
of common lands, the dissolution of feudal bands of
retainers, and the forcible eviction of peasants, particularly in England from the late 15th to the 19th century. This created a "free and rightless"
proletariat
The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian or a . Marxist ph ...
for urban industries. The "law itself now becomes the instrument by which the people's land is stolen".
* Bloody legislation against the expropriated: Those driven off the land were often criminalized as vagabonds and beggars, subjected to "grotesquely terroristic laws" that whipped, branded, and tortured them into accepting the discipline of the wage-labor system.
* Genesis of the capitalist farmer and the industrial capitalist: Marx traces the emergence of the capitalist
tenant farmer
A tenant farmer is a farmer or farmworker who resides and works on land owned by a landlord, while tenant farming is an agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating capital and ma ...
and the rise of industrial capital, often aided by state power,
colonialism
Colonialism is the control of another territory, natural resources and people by a foreign group. Colonizers control the political and tribal power of the colonised territory. While frequently an Imperialism, imperialist project, colonialism c ...
, the
public debt
A country's gross government debt (also called public debt or sovereign debt) is the financial liabilities of the government sector. Changes in government debt over time reflect primarily borrowing due to past government deficits. A deficit occu ...
system,
protectionist
Protectionism, sometimes referred to as trade protectionism, is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government regulations. ...
policies, and the
slave trade Slave trade may refer to:
* History of slavery - overview of slavery
It may also refer to slave trades in specific countries, areas:
* Al-Andalus slave trade
* Atlantic slave trade
** Brazilian slave trade
** Bristol slave trade
** Danish sl ...
. "Force is the midwife of every old society which is pregnant with a new one. It is itself an economic power."
* The "secret" of primitive accumulation and colonialism: Marx concludes with a discussion of
Edward Gibbon Wakefield
Edward Gibbon Wakefield (20 March 179616 May 1862) was an English politician in colonial Canada and New Zealand. He is considered a key figure in the establishment of the colonies of South Australia and New Zealand (where he later served as a ...
's theory of colonization. Wakefield "discovered" that capital is not a thing but a social relation between persons mediated through things. In colonies like
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
, where land was cheap and laborers could easily become independent producers, capital could not function. The "great secret" was the necessity of the state to artificially raise the price of land or otherwise restrict access to it, to ensure a supply of wage-laborers for capital. This, for Marx, revealed the artificial and historically constructed nature of the capital relation, dependent on the expropriation of the worker.
Marx argues that the "expropriation of the great mass of the people" by a few usurpers is eventually superseded by the expropriation of a few usurpers by the great mass of the people, as the contradictions of capitalism and the organization of the working class lead to the "knell of capitalist private property".
Volume II: ''The Process of Circulation of Capital''
Volume II, published by Engels in 1885, shifts the focus from the immediate production process to the process of circulation of capital. While Volume I assumed that commodities could be sold at their values without difficulty, Volume II examines the conditions and contradictions involved in realizing the value and surplus-value produced. Marx's analysis here is highly abstract and technical, often abstracting from technological change and assuming commodities exchange at their values to isolate the specific problems of circulation.
Part I: The Metamorphoses of Capital and their Circuits

Marx analyzes the circulation of industrial capital as a unity of three intertwined circuits, corresponding to the different forms capital takes:
* Circuit of money capital (M-C...P...C'-M'): Capital begins as money (M), is transformed into commodities (C) (labor-power and means of production), passes through the production process (P) to create new commodities (C') impregnated with surplus-value, which are then sold for more money (M'). This circuit emphasizes the role of money as the starting and end point, highlighting capital's aim of "money making".
* Circuit of productive capital (P...C'-M'-C...P): This circuit begins and ends with capital in its productive form (P). It emphasizes the necessity of continuous production and the reconversion of realized commodity capital (M') back into the elements of productive capital (C – labor-power and means of production).
* Circuit of commodity capital (C'-M'-C...P...C'): Starting and ending with commodity capital (C'), this circuit highlights the aggregate flow of commodities in the economy as a whole, including both means of production and means of consumption. It is from this perspective that Marx later develops his reproduction schemas.
Marx stresses that these are not independent types of capital but functional forms that industrial capital successively assumes and sheds. The continuity of capital flow through these metamorphoses is crucial, and any interruption or blockage in one phase (e.g., unsaleable commodities, lack of money, or disruptions in production) affects the entire process. The time capital spends in the sphere of circulation (buying and selling) is circulation time, and the time spent in production is production time. Reducing circulation time is crucial for accelerating the turnover of capital. This section also considers the costs of circulation (e.g., transport, storage, bookkeeping), which are necessary but unproductive of value.
Part II: The Turnover of Capital

This part examines the "turnover of capital", defined as the sum of its production time and circulation time. The speed of turnover influences the annual rate of surplus-value and the mass of surplus-value produced by a given capital.
Marx distinguishes between "fixed capital" and "circulating capital".
* Circulating capital includes raw materials, auxiliary materials, and the part of capital laid out in wages (variable capital). These components transfer their value entirely to the product in a single turnover period and must be constantly renewed.
* Fixed capital comprises the instruments of labor (machines, buildings, etc.) which transfer their value to the product gradually, bit by bit, over multiple turnover periods corresponding to their average lifetime. The circulation of fixed capital involves peculiar problems, such as the need to accumulate a
sinking fund
A sinking fund is a fund established by an economic entity by setting aside revenue over a period of time to fund a future capital expense, or repayment of a long-term debt.
In North America and elsewhere where it is common for government entiti ...
for its eventual replacement and the issue of "moral depreciation" (obsolescence due to new, more efficient machinery being introduced before the old is physically worn out). Marx discusses how the development of transport and communications shortens circulation time and how the credit system can help to overcome the rigidities imposed by fixed capital and differential turnover times.
Part III: The Reproduction and Circulation of the Aggregate Social Capital

In the final part, Marx analyzes the reproduction of the total social capital, using his famous "reproduction schemas". He divides the entire economy into two major departments:
* Department I: Produces means of production.
* Department II: Produces means of consumption.
For simple reproduction (where all surplus-value is consumed as revenue and there is no net accumulation), an equilibrium condition must be met: the constant capital of Department II (c2) must be equal to the sum of the variable capital and surplus-value of Department I (v1 + s1). This means that the demand for means of production from Department II must match the demand for means of consumption from the workers and capitalists in Department I.
For "expanded reproduction" (accumulation), a portion of the surplus-value in both departments must be capitalized, i.e., reinvested to purchase additional means of production and labor-power. This requires a different set of equilibrium conditions. Marx demonstrates arithmetically how such balanced growth is theoretically possible, but also highlights the numerous points at which disproportionalities and crises can arise due to the "anarchic" nature of capitalist production and the complexities of interdepartmental exchanges, particularly concerning the replacement of fixed capital. He emphasizes the crucial role of money capital and the "virtual money capital" (hoarded savings) in mediating these exchanges and facilitating accumulation, hinting at the necessity of a credit system which is largely abstracted from in Volume II. The "ultimate reason for all real crises", Marx notes, "always remains the poverty and restricted consumption of the masses, in the face of the drive of capitalist production to develop the productive forces as if only the absolute consumption capacity of society set a limit to them".
Volume III: ''The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole''
Volume III, published by Engels in 1894, aims to depict the capitalist mode of production in its totality, as it appears on the surface of society, involving competition between capitals and the distribution of surplus-value into various forms of revenue. It integrates the analyses of production (Volume I) and circulation (Volume II) to explain the "concrete forms which grow out of the process of capital's movement considered as a whole".
Part I: The Transformation of Surplus-Value into Profit and of the Rate of Surplus-Value into the Rate of Profit
Marx begins by examining how surplus-value appears to the individual capitalist as "
profit
Profit may refer to:
Business and law
* Profit (accounting), the difference between the purchase price and the costs of bringing to market
* Profit (economics), normal profit and economic profit
* Profit (real property), a nonpossessory inter ...
". While surplus-value is calculated on variable capital alone (s/v), profit is calculated on the total capital advanced (constant + variable capital, or C = c + v). The "
rate of profit
In economics and finance, the profit rate is the relative profitability of an investment project, a capitalist enterprise or a whole capitalist economy. It is similar to the concept of rate of return on investment.
Historical cost ''vs.'' mark ...
" is therefore s/C or s/(c+v). This form of appearance mystifies the origin of surplus-value in the exploitation of labor, making it seem as if profit arises from the total capital advanced. The capitalist is primarily concerned with the rate of profit, not the rate of surplus-value. Marx discusses various factors that can affect the rate of profit, including the economization in the use of constant capital and the acceleration of capital turnover.
Part II: Transformation of Profit into Average Profit
Competition between capitals in different spheres of production, with varying organic compositions (c/v), leads to the formation of a "general rate of profit" or "average profit". Capitals tend to flow from spheres with lower rates of profit to those with higher rates, leading to an equalization of profit rates across the economy. This means that individual capitals do not appropriate the surplus-value produced directly within their own sphere but rather a share of the total social surplus-value proportional to their share of the total social capital.
Consequently, commodities do not exchange at their individual values (c+v+s) but at "prices of production", which are equal to their cost-price (c+v) plus the average profit. This "transformation of values into prices of production" represents a further mystification of the source of profit and the nature of exploitation. Marx's quantitative method for this transformation has been a subject of extensive debate (the "
transformation problem
In 20th-century discussions of Karl Marx's economics, the transformation problem is the problem of finding a general rule by which to transform the "values" of commodities (based on their socially necessary labour content, according to his labo ...
").
Part III: The Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall

Marx argues that there is an inherent
tendency for the general rate of profit to fall in the long run. This tendency arises from the typically capitalist method of increasing productivity, which involves a rising organic composition of capital (c/v) – meaning more constant capital (machinery, raw materials) is used relative to variable capital (labor-power). Since only variable capital produces surplus-value, a rising c/v (even with an increasing rate of surplus-value s/v) will tend to depress the rate of profit s/(c+v).
Marx presents this "law" as "the most important law of modern political economy". However, he also outlines several "counteracting tendencies" that can offset or temporarily reverse the fall in the rate of profit. These include: increasing the intensity of exploitation, depression of wages below the value of labor-power, cheapening of the elements of constant capital, relative overpopulation, foreign trade, and the increase of stock capital. The law operates as a tendency, subject to these countervailing forces, and its actual manifestation is complex and can lead to crises. The validity and precise formulation of this law have been among the most debated aspects of Marx's theory.
Part IV: Transformation of Commodity Capital and Money Capital into Commercial Capital and Financial Capital (Merchant's Capital)
This part, which Marx also refers to as dealing with "merchant's capital" or "trading capital", examines forms of capital that operate exclusively within the sphere of circulation.
* Commercial capital (commodity-dealing capital) undertakes the functions of buying and selling commodities (C-M and M-C). While it creates no value or surplus-value itself, it helps to reduce the circulation time of industrial capital and facilitate the realization of surplus-value. Commercial capital obtains a share of the total surplus-value in the form of commercial profit, which is equalized with the average rate of profit. The labor employed by commercial capitalists (e.g., clerks) is unproductive of surplus-value, though it is exploited.
* Money-dealing capital specializes in the technical operations of handling money (payments, collections, bookkeeping, etc.) for the capitalist class as a whole.
Part V: Division of Profit into Interest and Profit of Enterprise. Interest-Bearing Capital
Here, Marx analyzes "
interest
In finance and economics, interest is payment from a debtor or deposit-taking financial institution to a lender or depositor of an amount above repayment of the principal sum (that is, the amount borrowed), at a particular rate. It is distinct f ...
-bearing capital", where money itself appears to beget more money (M-M'). The owner of money capital (the money-capitalist or
financier
An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital the investor usually purchases some species of property. Types of in ...
) lends it to a functioning capitalist (industrial or commercial), who employs it to produce surplus-value. The surplus-value (gross profit) is then divided between the functioning capitalist, who receives "profit of enterprise", and the money-capitalist, who receives interest.
Interest is the price paid for the use-value of money capital – its capacity to function as capital and produce profit. The
rate of interest is determined by supply and demand for money capital and by competition between lenders and borrowers; there is no "natural" rate of interest. This division makes profit of enterprise appear as the "wages of superintendence" for the functioning capitalist, while interest appears as the fruit of mere ownership of capital. This is the "most superficial and fetishized form" of the capital relation, where capital appears as an automatic, self-valorizing source, "money breeding money".
The development of the credit system and
banking
A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, 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 m ...
centralizes money capital and transforms it into social capital, available to all capitalists. This accelerates accumulation but also intensifies contradictions and crises. Marx discusses the role of banks in concentrating loanable capital and creating "credit money" (e.g.,
banknotes
A banknote or bank notealso called a bill (North American English) or simply a noteis a type of paper money that is made and distributed ("issued") by a bank of issue, payable to the bearer on demand. Banknotes were originally issued by commer ...
,
bills of exchange
A negotiable instrument is a document guaranteeing the payment of a specific amount of money, either on demand, or at a set time, whose payer is usually named on the document. More specifically, it is a document contemplated by or consisting of a ...
).
Fictitious capital
Fictitious capital (German: ''fiktives Kapital'') is a concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. It is introduced in chapter 25 of the third volume of Capital. Fictitious capital contrasts with what Marx calls "real capita ...
arises with the development of tradable
securities
A security is a tradable financial asset. The term commonly refers to any form of financial instrument, but its legal definition varies by jurisdiction. In some countries and languages people commonly use the term "security" to refer to any for ...
like
government bonds
A government bond or sovereign bond is a form of bond issued by a government to support public spending. It generally includes a commitment to pay periodic interest, called coupon payments'','' and to repay the face value on the maturity da ...
and
company shares. These represent titles to a stream of future revenue (interest or
dividends
A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders, after which the stock exchange decreases the price of the stock by the dividend to remove volatility. The market has no control over the stock price on open on the ex ...
) and their market price (capitalized value) can fluctuate independently of the real capital they supposedly represent, leading to
speculation
In finance, speculation is the purchase of an asset (a commodity, good (economics), goods, or real estate) with the hope that it will become more valuable in a brief amount of time. It can also refer to short sales in which the speculator hope ...
and
financial crises
A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with Bank run#Systemic banki ...
. Marx examines the dynamics of the
industrial cycle (boom, crisis, stagnation, recovery), highlighting the role of credit and fictitious capital in both fueling speculation and precipitating crashes. He critiques the "currency principle" and the
Bank Act of 1844 in Britain, arguing that such legislation cannot abolish crises, which are inherent in the capitalist mode of production.
Part VI: Transformation of Surplus Profit into Ground Rent
This part examines "
ground rent
As a legal term, ground rent specifically refers to regular payments made by a holder of a leasehold property to the freeholder or a superior leaseholder, as required under a lease. In this sense, a ground rent is created when a freehold piece of ...
", the portion of surplus-value paid to landowners for the use of land. Marx distinguishes between different forms of rent:
* "Differential rent" arises from differences in the fertility or location of land. More fertile or better-located land yields a surplus profit for the capitalists cultivating it, which is then appropriated by the landowner as differential rent.
* "Absolute rent" arises from the monopoly of private landownership, which allows landowners to extract a rent even from the least fertile land, independent of its productive qualities. This is possible because capital invested in agriculture typically has a lower organic composition than the social average, thus producing more surplus-value, a part of which can be siphoned off as absolute rent by landowners without violating the general tendency towards the equalization of profit rates.
Marx also discusses the price of land, which is the capitalized ground rent, and the historical development of capitalist relations in agriculture.
Part VII: The Revenues and their Sources
In the final part, Marx critiques the "trinity formula" (Capital–Profit/Interest, Land–Rent, Labour–Wages), which represents the three main classes of
bourgeois
The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and Aristocracy (class), aristocracy. They are tradition ...
society and their respective sources of revenue as naturally arising from three independent factors of production. This formula, Marx argues, is the consummate expression of the mystification inherent in the capitalist mode of production. It presents capital, land, and labor as coequal, independent sources of wealth, obscuring the fact that profit and rent are derived from the surplus-value created by labor. It
reifies social relations, making it appear as if things (capital, land) have the inherent power to produce value, while labor is merely one factor among others. This "bewitched, distorted and upside-down world" is the basis of everyday consciousness and the categories of vulgar political economy.
Marx concludes Volume III, and effectively as a whole (as he left it), with a very brief, unfinished chapter on "Classes", where he begins to define classes based on their ownership of the means of production and their sources of revenue before the manuscript breaks off.
Themes
explores a wide range of themes central to the critique of political economy. These themes are interwoven throughout the three volumes, often introduced in one context and then further developed or re-examined in others.
Commodity, value, and money
Marx's analysis begins with the
commodity
In economics, a commodity is an economic goods, good, usually a resource, that specifically has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the Market (economics), market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to w ...
as the "elementary form" of wealth in capitalist societies. A commodity possesses a dual character: it is a
use-value
Use value () or value in use is a concept in classical political economy and Marxist economics. It refers to the tangible features of a Commodity (Marxism), commodity (a tradeable object) which can satisfy some human requirement, want or need, o ...
, satisfying a human need or want, and an
exchange-value, the quantitative proportion in which it exchanges for other commodities. Marx argues that underlying exchange-value is
value, an immaterial social substance representing "congealed"
abstract human labor. The magnitude of value is determined by the
socially necessary labour time
Socially necessary labour time in Marx's critique of political economy is what regulates the exchange value of commodities in trade. In short, socially necessary labour time refers to the average quantity of labour time that must be performed unde ...
required for a commodity's production under average social conditions of skill and intensity. This
labor theory of value
The labor theory of value (LTV) is a theory of value that argues that the exchange value of a good or service is determined by the total amount of " socially necessary labor" required to produce it. The contrasting system is typically known as ...
is foundational to Marx's critique, though it differs significantly from classical formulations by emphasizing the historically specific, social character of value-producing labor in capitalism. Labor itself, as the expenditure of human labor-power, creates value but does not itself possess value.
The exchange of commodities necessitates a
money commodity (historically gold or silver) to serve as a universal equivalent, expressing the values of all other commodities. Money functions as a
measure of value (allowing values to be expressed as prices), a
medium of circulation (facilitating C-M-C), a hoard (store of value), a means of
payment
A payment is the tender of something of value, such as money or its equivalent, by one party (such as a person or company) to another in exchange for goods or services provided by them, or to fulfill a legal obligation or philanthropy desir ...
(settling
debts
Debt is an obligation that requires one party, the debtor, to pay money Loan, borrowed or otherwise withheld from another party, the creditor. Debt may be owed by a sovereign state or country, local government, company, or an individual. Co ...
), and
world money. Marx's theory of value is thus a monetary theory of value; value cannot be expressed or realized without money. The development of the money form, including
credit money, is crucial for the circulation of capital.
Capital and surplus-value
Capital
Capital and its variations may refer to:
Common uses
* Capital city, a municipality of primary status
** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital
** List of national capitals
* Capital letter, an upper-case letter
Econom ...
is not a thing (like money or machines) but a process: "value in motion", specifically "self-valorizing value". It follows the circuit M-C-M', where money (M) is advanced to purchase commodities (C – labor-power and means of production) in order to produce new commodities which are sold for a greater sum of money (M'). The increment (ΔM) is
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 manufacture it: i.e. the amount raised through sale of the product minus the cost of the materials, plant and ...
. The capitalist, as the "conscious bearer" of this movement, is driven by the relentless pursuit of surplus-value and accumulation.
Surplus-value originates from the
exploitation of
labor power
Labour power (; ) is the capacity to work, a key concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of capitalist political economy. Marx distinguished between the capacity to do the work, i.e. labour power, and the physical act of working, i.e. labour ...
, the unique commodity whose use-value is the capacity to create more value than it itself costs. The capitalist purchases labor-power at its value (determined by the socially necessary labor-time required for its reproduction) and, in the production process, compels the laborer to work for a longer period than is necessary to reproduce the value of their labor-power. This unpaid
surplus labor
Surplus labor () is a concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. It means labor performed in excess of the labor necessary to produce the means of livelihood of the worker ("necessary labor"). The "surplus" in this context mea ...
is the source of surplus-value. The rate of surplus-value (s/v, the ratio of surplus labor to necessary labor) is the measure of this exploitation.
Marx distinguishes between absolute surplus-value (produced by prolonging the
working day
A business day normally means any day except a legal holiday. It may also mean a business day of operation, any of the days an organization operates. It depends on the local workweek which is dictated by local customs, religions, and business ...
) and relative surplus-value (produced by shortening necessary labor-time, typically through increases in productivity that cheapen wage goods).
Fetishism and mystification
A pervasive theme in is the concept of
fetishism
A fetish is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular, a human-made object that has power over others. Essentially, fetishism is the attribution of inherent non-material value, or powers, to an object. Talismans and amulet ...
, which describes how, under capitalism, social relations between people appear as relations between things. The products of labor, as commodities, seem to possess intrinsic value, and market exchanges appear to be governed by objective properties of these things, rather than by the underlying social relations of production between private producers. This "enchanted, distorted and upside-down world" is not merely a subjective illusion or "
false consciousness
In Marxist theory, false consciousness is a term describing the ways in which material, ideological, and institutional processes are said to mislead members of the proletariat and other class actors within capitalist societies, concealing the ...
" but an objective appearance that arises from the very structure of commodity production and exchange.
This fetishism extends to money (the "money fetish", where money appears to have its own inherent power to create more money) and to capital itself (the "capital fetish", where capital appears as an automatic, self-expanding entity, and machines seem to be productive of value). The wage form, for example, mystifies exploitation by making it appear that the worker is paid for all their labor, concealing the distinction between paid (necessary) and unpaid (surplus) labor. The trinity formula (Capital–Profit, Land–Rent, Labour–Wages) represents the ultimate mystification, presenting the sources of revenue as naturally arising from independent factors of production, obscuring their common origin in surplus-value extracted from labor. Marx's critique aims to penetrate these fetishized appearances to reveal the underlying social relations and contradictions of capitalism.
Process of accumulation and its contradictions
Capitalism is driven by the "historical mission" of
accumulation for accumulation's sake, production for production's sake. Surplus-value is reconverted into new capital, leading to production on an ever-expanding scale. This process, however, is fraught with contradictions.
The "general law of capitalist accumulation" posits that accumulation, by fostering a rising
organic composition of capital
The organic composition of capital (OCC) is a concept created by Karl Marx in his theory of capitalism, which was simultaneously his critique of the political economy of his time. It is derived from his more basic concepts of 'value composition ...
(more machinery relative to labor), tends to create a
relative surplus population (unemployment). This reserve army serves to depress wages and discipline the employed working class, but it also leads to the "accumulation of misery" at one pole corresponding to the accumulation of wealth at the other.
Marx also identifies a
tendency of the rate of profit to fall
The tendency of the rate of profit to fall (TRPF) is a theory in the crisis theory of political economy, according to which the rate of profit—the ratio of the profit to the amount of invested capital—decreases over time. This hypothesis ...
(TRPF) in Volume III. As the organic composition of capital rises with technological progress, and since only living labor (variable capital) produces surplus-value, the rate of profit (s/
+v tends to decline, even if the rate of surplus-value (s/v) increases. Marx outlines several counteracting tendencies, making the law's actual manifestation complex and a source of crises.
The reproduction of the total social capital, examined through Marx's reproduction schemas in Volume II, reveals the complex interdependencies between Department I (producing means of production) and Department II (producing means of consumption). Maintaining equilibrium (proportionality) between these departments is crucial for smooth accumulation, but the "anarchic" nature of capitalist production and the separation of sale and purchase mean that crises of disproportionality (
overproduction
In economics, overproduction, oversupply, excess of supply, or glut refers to excess of supply over demand of products being offered to the market. This leads to lower prices and/or unsold goods along with the possibility of unemployment.
T ...
or
underconsumption
Underconsumption is a theory in economics that recessions and stagnation arise from an inadequate consumer demand, relative to the amount produced. In other words, there is a problem of overproduction and overinvestment during a demand crisis. The ...
) are constant possibilities. The credit system becomes essential to mediate these flows and overcome temporal and spatial gaps in circulation, but it also introduces new forms of instability and the potential for
financial crises
A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with Bank run#Systemic banki ...
.
Class struggle and historical transformation

While is primarily a theoretical analysis of the economic laws of motion of capitalism,
class struggle
In political science, the term class conflict, class struggle, or class war refers to the economic antagonism and political tension that exist among social classes because of clashing interests, competition for limited resources, and inequali ...
is an immanent and recurring theme. The capital-labor relation is inherently antagonistic, centered on the extraction of surplus-value. The length of the working day, the intensity of labor, the level of wages (value of labor-power), and the introduction of machinery are all sites of ongoing struggle between the capitalist class and the working class. The
Factory Acts
The Factory Acts were a series of acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom beginning in 1802 to regulate and improve the conditions of industrial employment.
The early acts concentrated on regulating the hours of work and moral wel ...
, for example, are presented as a product of this struggle, a "modest
Magna Carta
(Medieval Latin for "Great Charter"), sometimes spelled Magna Charta, is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardin ...
" for the working class.
Marx views capitalism as a historically specific and transitory mode of production. Its internal contradictions – between the social character of production and private appropriation, between the development of productive forces and existing relations of production, between use-value and exchange-value – create the conditions for its eventual supersession. The process of accumulation itself, by concentrating capital and socializing labor, creates the material prerequisites and the social agent (the proletariat) for a
revolutionary transformation towards a "higher form of society", an "association of free men" where production is consciously regulated by the associated producers. While Marx offers few details about the nature of
communist
Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...
society, he emphasizes the abolition of private property in the means of production, commodity exchange, money, and the state, and the overcoming of fetishism and alienation.
Publication and translation
Marx delivered the German manuscript for Volume I to his publisher Otto Meissner in
Hamburg
Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...
in April 1867, and it was published in September. Meissner expected the next two volumes before the end of that year, a timeline Marx was initially optimistic about, though his meticulous approach often led to delays that frustrated his associates, including his lifelong collaborator and friend
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ;["Engels"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.[Tsarist
Tsarist autocracy (), also called Tsarism, was an autocracy, a form of absolute monarchy in the Grand Duchy of Moscow and its successor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire. In it, the Tsar possessed in principle authority and ...]
censors passing it on the grounds that its complex arguments had "no application to Russia" and thus "couldn't be subversive", most of the 3,000-copy print run sold out within a year. Marx, who had "fought for twenty-five years" against Russian influence, found it an "irony of fate" that "the Russians... always want to be my patrons". This led Marx, who had previously paid little attention to Russia, to reconsider its revolutionary potential and engage with
Narodnik
The Narodniks were members of a movement of the Russian Empire intelligentsia in the 1860s and 1870s, some of whom became involved in revolutionary agitation against tsarism. Their ideology, known as Narodism, Narodnism or ,; , similar to the ...
thinkers like his translator
Nikolai Danielson. In correspondence with
Vera Zasulich
Vera Ivanovna Zasulich (; – 8 May 1919) was a Russian socialist activist, Menshevik writer and revolutionary. She is widely known for her correspondence with Karl Marx, in which she put into question the necessity of a capitalist industriali ...
in 1881, Marx clarified that his theory of the historical inevitability of the bourgeois phase was "expressly limited to the countries of Western Europe", suggesting Russia's
rural commune might follow a different path. The architects of the 1917
Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...
, including
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...
and
Leon Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Bronstein ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky,; ; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky'' was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and political theorist. He was a key figure ...
, would later cite as a key theoretical foundation.
The French edition proved more problematic; after work began in 1867, five translators were tried and rejected before Marx approved Joseph Roy, a
Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...
schoolteacher. Marx found Roy's translation often too literal and was "compelled to rewrite whole passages in French, to make them palatable". A French translation of Volume I was published in installments between 1872 and 1875 to make it "more easily accessible to the working class".
The first English translation of Volume I, by
Samuel Moore and
Edward Aveling (Marx's son-in-law) and edited by Engels, was published in Britain in 1887. The publisher
Macmillan & Co. had previously declined to publish an English translation during Marx's lifetime. Subsequent English translations of all three volumes have appeared, most notably the Ben Fowkes translation of Volume I (1976) and the David Fernbach translations of Volume II (1978) and Volume III (1981), published by
Penguin Books
Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...
in association with
New Left Review
The ''New Left Review'' is a British bimonthly journal, established in 1960, which analyses international politics, the global economy, social theory, and cultural topics from a leftist perspective.
History Background
As part of the emergin ...
. These translations are widely used in English-speaking academia. The (MEGA), an ongoing scholarly project, aims to publish all of Marx's and Engels's writings in their original languages, including the various manuscript versions of , providing an invaluable resource for detailed textual analysis.
''
Theories of Surplus Value
''Theories of Surplus Value'' () is a draft manuscript written by Karl Marx between January 1862 and July 1863. It is mainly concerned with the Western Europe, Western European theorizing about ''Mehrwert'' (added value or surplus value) from abo ...
'', often considered the fourth volume of , was edited by
Karl Kautsky
Karl Johann Kautsky (; ; 16 October 1854 – 17 October 1938) was a Czech-Austrian Marxism, Marxist theorist. A leading theorist of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Second International, Kautsky advocated orthodox Marxism, a ...
from notes Marx made in the mid-1860s and published between 1905 and 1910.
Reception and influence
has had a profound and far-reaching influence on subsequent intellectual, political, and social history. Its impact extends across numerous disciplines, including economics, sociology, political science, philosophy, history, literary criticism, and cultural studies.
Within the
workers' movement
The labour movement is the collective organisation of Working class, working people to further their shared political and economic interests. It consists of the trade union or labour union movement, as well as political parties of labour. It ca ...
and socialist political parties of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, (often in simplified or popularized forms) became a foundational text, providing a theoretical basis for the critique of capitalism and the struggle for socialism. In Britain,
Henry Hyndman
Henry Mayers Hyndman (; 7 March 1842 – 22 November 1921) was an English writer, politician and socialist.
Originally a conservative, he was converted to socialism by Karl Marx's ''Communist Manifesto'' and launched Britain's first socialist p ...
, after reading the French translation in 1880, became a fervent disciple and later founded the explicitly Marxist
Social Democratic Federation
The Social Democratic Federation (SDF) was established as Britain's first organised socialist political party by H. M. Hyndman, and had its first meeting on 7 June 1881. Those joining the SDF included William Morris, George Lansbury, James ...
(SDF). Members of the SDF included
Ernest Belfort Bax
Ernest Belfort Bax (; 23 July 1854 – 26 November 1926) was an English people, English barrister, journalism, journalist, philosophy, philosopher, Men's rights movement, men's rights advocate, Socialism, socialist, and historian.
Biography
Er ...
,
William Morris
William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was an English textile designer, poet, artist, writer, and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditiona ...
, and Marx's daughter
Eleanor Marx
Jenny Julia Eleanor Marx (16 January 1855 – 31 March 1898), sometimes called Eleanor Aveling and known to her family as Tussy, was the English-born youngest daughter of Karl Marx. She was herself a Socialism, socialist activist who sometimes ...
. Hyndman's advocacy prompted the young
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 188 ...
to study in 1883, an experience Shaw described as a "revelation" that "gave me an entirely fresh conception of the universe, provided me with a purpose and a mission in life." However, Shaw had little success in converting fellow members of the
Fabian Society
The Fabian Society () is a History of the socialist movement in the United Kingdom, British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in ...
, like
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...
, to his enthusiasm, and the Fabians, under
Sidney Webb
Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield, (13 July 1859 – 13 October 1947) was a British socialist, economist and reformer, who co-founded the London School of Economics. He was an early member of the Fabian Society in 1884, joining, like Geo ...
, largely steered British socialism away from Marxist ideas of class war. The British
Labour Party, formed in 1900, was often said to owe more to
Methodism
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...
than to Marx, though it did acknowledge a debt to Marx and Engels in a 1947 reprint of ''
The Communist Manifesto
''The Communist Manifesto'' (), originally the ''Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (), is a political pamphlet written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, commissioned by the Communist League and originally published in London in 1848. The ...
''.
In Germany, Marx's ideas became the ruling ideology of the
Social Democratic Party
The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology.
Active parties
Form ...
(SPD) at its 1891 Erfurt Congress. However, the
Erfurt Program
The Erfurt Program was adopted by the Social Democratic Party of Germany during the SPD Congress at Erfurt in 1891. Drafted by theorists Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein, the program set out a Marxist view and superseded the party's Gotha P ...
itself reflected a tension: one section, drafted by Marx's disciple
Karl Kautsky
Karl Johann Kautsky (; ; 16 October 1854 – 17 October 1938) was a Czech-Austrian Marxism, Marxist theorist. A leading theorist of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Second International, Kautsky advocated orthodox Marxism, a ...
, restated theories from , while another, by
Eduard Bernstein
Eduard Bernstein (; 6 January 1850 – 18 December 1932) was a German Marxist theorist and politician. A prominent member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), he has been both condemned and praised as a "Revisionism (Marxism), revisi ...
(influenced by Fabianism), focused on immediate,
reformist
Reformism is a political tendency advocating the reform of an existing system or institution – often a political or religious establishment – as opposed to its abolition and replacement via revolution.
Within the socialist movement, ref ...
political objectives. Bernstein later openly repudiated much of Marx's legacy, arguing that capitalism could endure and bring increased prosperity if properly regulated. Kautsky played a significant role in disseminating what became known as "
orthodox Marxism
Orthodox Marxism is the body of Marxist thought which emerged after the deaths of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the late 19th century, expressed in its primary form by Karl Kautsky. Kautsky's views of Marxism dominated the European Marxis ...
", heavily influenced by Engels's interpretations and later works like ''
Anti-Dühring
''Anti-Dühring'' (, "Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science") is a book by Friedrich Engels, first published in German in 1877 in parts and then in 1878 in book form. It had previously been serialised in the newspaper '' Vorwärts.'' There ...
''. This "worldview Marxism" often presented Marx's theories as a comprehensive, scientific system that included a philosophy of nature (
dialectical materialism
Dialectical materialism is a materialist theory based upon the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels that has found widespread applications in a variety of philosophical disciplines ranging from philosophy of history to philosophy of scien ...
) and a deterministic theory of history (
historical materialism
Historical materialism is Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx located historical change in the rise of Class society, class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods.
Karl Marx stated that Productive forces, techno ...
), culminating in the inevitable collapse of capitalism and the triumph of the proletariat.
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...
's interpretation of Marx, particularly his theory of imperialism as the "
highest stage of capitalism", further shaped the development of
Marxism–Leninism
Marxism–Leninism () is a communist ideology that became the largest faction of the History of communism, communist movement in the world in the years following the October Revolution. It was the predominant ideology of most communist gov ...
, which became the official ideology of the
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
and many communist parties worldwide. This version of Marxism often served to legitimize the political domination of the party and presented a dogmatic system that discouraged open discussion and critical inquiry.

However, "worldview Marxism" was not the only interpretation. The 20th century also saw the emergence of
Western Marxism
Western Marxism is a current of Marxist theory that arose from Western and Central Europe in the aftermath of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the ascent of Leninism. The term denotes a loose collection of theorists who advanced an i ...
, a diverse range of theoretical currents that developed in opposition to or as a critique of orthodox Marxism–Leninism. Thinkers associated with Western Marxism, such as
Georg Lukács
Georg may refer to:
* ''Georg'' (film), 1997
*Georg (musical), Estonian musical
* Georg (given name)
* Georg (surname)
* , a Kriegsmarine coastal tanker
* Spiders Georg
"Spiders Georg" is an Internet meme that began circulating on the mic ...
,
Karl Korsch,
Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Francesco Gramsci ( , ; ; 22 January 1891 – 27 April 1937) was an Italian Marxist philosophy, Marxist philosopher, Linguistics, linguist, journalist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, Political philosophy, political the ...
, and the members of the
Frankfurt School
The Frankfurt School is a school of thought in sociology and critical theory. It is associated with the University of Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, Institute for Social Research founded in 1923 at the University of Frankfurt am Main ...
(e.g.,
Theodor W. Adorno
Theodor W. Adorno ( ; ; born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund; 11 September 1903 – 6 August 1969) was a German philosopher, musicologist, and social theorist. He was a leading member of the Frankfurt School of critical theory, whose work has com ...
,
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer ( ; ; 14 February 1895 – 7 July 1973) was a German philosopher and sociologist best known for his role in developing critical theory as director of the Institute for Social Research, commonly associated with the Frankfurt Schoo ...
,
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse ( ; ; July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a German–American philosopher, social critic, and Political philosophy, political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at ...
), often emphasized the philosophical and critical-cultural dimensions of Marx's thought, focusing on themes like
reification, alienation, ideology, and the critique of instrumental reason. While early Western Marxism often neglected a deep engagement with Marx's critique of political economy, a renewed focus on and its economic categories emerged from the 1960s onwards, partly spurred by the student movements and the resurgence of leftist thought outside traditional communist and social democratic parties. This led to new readings and interpretations of Marx's economic writings, often emphasizing the Hegelian philosophical underpinnings and the critique of
value-form
The value-form or form of value (''"Wertform"'' in German) is an important concept in Karl Marx's critique of political economy, discussed in the first chapter of ''Capital, Volume 1''. It refers to the ''social form'' of tradeable things as un ...
, sometimes referred to as the "
New Reading of Marx" ().
In academic economics, Marx's work has had a more ambivalent reception. While mainstream
neoclassical economics
Neoclassical economics is an approach to economics in which the production, consumption, and valuation (pricing) of goods and services are observed as driven by the supply and demand model. According to this line of thought, the value of a go ...
largely dismissed or ignored Marx, his theories have been influential in
heterodox economics
Heterodox economics is a broad, relative term referring to schools of economic thought which are not commonly perceived as belonging to mainstream economics. There is no absolute definition of what constitutes heterodox economic thought, as it i ...
, particularly in
Marxian economics
Marxian economics, or the Marxian school of economics, is a heterodox school of political economic thought. Its foundations can be traced back to Karl Marx's critique of political economy. However, unlike critics of political economy, Marxian ...
. Debates surrounding the
labor theory of value
The labor theory of value (LTV) is a theory of value that argues that the exchange value of a good or service is determined by the total amount of " socially necessary labor" required to produce it. The contrasting system is typically known as ...
, the
transformation problem
In 20th-century discussions of Karl Marx's economics, the transformation problem is the problem of finding a general rule by which to transform the "values" of commodities (based on their socially necessary labour content, according to his labo ...
,
crisis theory
Crisis theory, concerning the causes and consequences of the tendency for the rate of profit to fall in a capitalist system, is associated with Marxian critique of political economy, and was further popularised through Marxist economics.
His ...
(particularly the
tendency of the rate of profit to fall
The tendency of the rate of profit to fall (TRPF) is a theory in the crisis theory of political economy, according to which the rate of profit—the ratio of the profit to the amount of invested capital—decreases over time. This hypothesis ...
), and the nature of
capitalist accumulation have been central to Marxian economic thought. In sociology, has been a key source for theories of social class, class conflict, power, alienation, and the historical development of capitalism. While some sociological traditions have sought to refute or revise Marx's class analysis, his work remains a fundamental reference point for understanding social stratification and the dynamics of capitalist societies. The influence of has also extended to
post-structuralist
Post-structuralism is a philosophical movement that questions the objectivity or stability of the various interpretive structures that are posited by structuralism and considers them to be constituted by broader systems of Power (social and poli ...
and
post-modernist
Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting the worl ...
thought, with thinkers like
Michel Foucault
Paul-Michel Foucault ( , ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French History of ideas, historian of ideas and Philosophy, philosopher who was also an author, Literary criticism, literary critic, Activism, political activist, and teacher. Fo ...
and
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida;Peeters (2013), pp. 12–13. See also 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was a French Algerian philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in a number of his texts, ...
engaging with Marx's concepts, albeit often critically and in ways that depart significantly from traditional Marxist interpretations. Concepts such as fetishism, ideology, and the critique of power have resonated in these traditions.
Despite the
collapse of the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration No. 142-N of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Declaration No. 142-Н of ...
and the decline of traditional communist parties, Marx's critique of capitalism as articulated in has experienced periodic revivals, particularly during times of economic crisis. The
2008 financial crisis
The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...
, for instance, led to a renewed interest in Marx's analysis of the inherent contradictions and crisis tendencies of capitalism. Contemporary discussions on
globalization
Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...
, inequality, financialization, and environmental crisis often draw upon or engage with the themes and categories developed in .
Criticism
has been subject to extensive criticism from various perspectives since its publication. These criticisms target its foundational concepts, methods, empirical claims, and political implications.
One of the most persistent and fundamental criticisms concerns the
labor theory of value
The labor theory of value (LTV) is a theory of value that argues that the exchange value of a good or service is determined by the total amount of " socially necessary labor" required to produce it. The contrasting system is typically known as ...
(LTV). Mainstream
neoclassical economics
Neoclassical economics is an approach to economics in which the production, consumption, and valuation (pricing) of goods and services are observed as driven by the supply and demand model. According to this line of thought, the value of a go ...
, which emerged in the late 19th century, rejected the LTV in favor of a
subjective theory of value
The subjective theory of value (STV) is an theory of value (economics), economic theory for explaining how the value of goods and services are not only set but also how they can fluctuate over time. The contrasting system is typically known as the ...
based on
marginal utility
Marginal utility, in mainstream economics, describes the change in ''utility'' (pleasure or satisfaction resulting from the consumption) of one unit of a good or service. Marginal utility can be positive, negative, or zero. Negative marginal utilit ...
. Critics argue that value is determined by individual preferences and scarcity, not by the socially necessary labor-time embodied in commodities. They point to the difficulty of empirically measuring value as defined by Marx and argue that the LTV fails to adequately explain relative prices in a complex market economy. The "
transformation problem
In 20th-century discussions of Karl Marx's economics, the transformation problem is the problem of finding a general rule by which to transform the "values" of commodities (based on their socially necessary labour content, according to his labo ...
" – the issue of how abstract labor values are transformed into concrete market prices of production given different organic compositions of capital and the equalization of profit rates – has been a central focus of this critique, with many economists arguing that Marx failed to provide a logically consistent solution. Some Marxian economists have also critiqued or sought to revise the LTV.
The
tendency of the rate of profit to fall
The tendency of the rate of profit to fall (TRPF) is a theory in the crisis theory of political economy, according to which the rate of profit—the ratio of the profit to the amount of invested capital—decreases over time. This hypothesis ...
(TRPF) has been another major area of criticism. Economists have questioned both the theoretical derivation of the law and its empirical validity. Critics argue that Marx underestimated the strength and variety of counteracting tendencies, such as technological innovations that cheapen constant capital, increases in the rate of surplus-value, or the expansion of new, more profitable sectors. Empirical studies on long-term movements in the rate of profit have yielded mixed and often contradictory results, making it difficult to definitively confirm or refute Marx's "law".
Marx's
theory of crisis has also been challenged. While Marx identified several potential sources of crisis (
overproduction
In economics, overproduction, oversupply, excess of supply, or glut refers to excess of supply over demand of products being offered to the market. This leads to lower prices and/or unsold goods along with the possibility of unemployment.
T ...
,
underconsumption
Underconsumption is a theory in economics that recessions and stagnation arise from an inadequate consumer demand, relative to the amount produced. In other words, there is a problem of overproduction and overinvestment during a demand crisis. The ...
, falling rate of profit, financial instability), critics argue that he did not provide a single, coherent theory of why crises are inevitable under capitalism. Some, like
John Maynard Keynes
John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes ( ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist and philosopher whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originall ...
, while acknowledging capitalism's inherent instability, proposed solutions within a reformed capitalist framework, contrasting with Marx's revolutionary conclusions. The historical experience of post-war capitalism, particularly the
long boom of the 1950s and 1960s, was seen by some as a refutation of Marx's predictions of ever-deepening crises.
The empirical accuracy of Marx's predictions, particularly the
immiseration of the proletariat and the inevitable collapse of capitalism, has been widely contested. Critics point to the significant rise in the material
standard of living
Standard of living is the level of income, comforts and services available to an individual, community or society. A contributing factor to an individual's quality of life, standard of living is generally concerned with objective metrics outsid ...
of the working class in many advanced capitalist countries throughout the 20th century as evidence against the immiseration thesis. While some Marxists have reinterpreted immiseration in relative rather than absolute terms (i.e., a declining share of wealth for labor even if absolute living standards rise), the general predictive power of Marx's historical trajectory for capitalism has been questioned. The resilience and adaptability of capitalism, its capacity to overcome crises and reinvent itself, are often cited as undermining Marx's revolutionary prognosis.
Marx's methodology has also faced criticism. His use of dialectics is often dismissed by
analytical philosophers and mainstream social scientists as obscure, unscientific, or unfalsifiable. The high level of abstraction in , while intended by Marx to reveal underlying structures, is seen by some critics as detached from empirical reality and leading to overly general or untestable propositions. The unfinished nature of the work, particularly Volumes II and III, and the editorial role of Engels, have also led to debates about the consistency and coherence of Marx's overall argument.
Finally, the political implications of and its association with 20th-century
communist state
A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state in which the totality of the power belongs to a party adhering to some form of Marxism–Leninism, a branch of the communist ideology. Marxism–Leninism was ...
s have been a major source of criticism. The failures and atrocities of these regimes are often used to discredit Marx's theories, arguing that his ideas inevitably lead to
totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that prohibits opposition from political parties, disregards and outlaws the political claims of individual and group opposition to the state, and completely controls the public s ...
and economic inefficiency. While many Marxists distinguish between Marx's own thought and the practices of "
actually existing socialism", the historical legacy of Marxism–Leninism has undeniably affected the reception and critique of .
Legacy
stands as one of the most influential and controversial books ever written. Its legacy is multifaceted, shaping intellectual discourse, political movements, and the historical trajectory of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Its most direct impact has been on socialist and communist movements worldwide. provided a powerful theoretical framework for critiquing capitalism, explaining exploitation, and advocating for a revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeois order. It became a canonical text for numerous political parties and revolutionary leaders, inspiring struggles for workers' rights, national liberation, and the establishment of socialist states. The interpretation and application of Marx's ideas, however, varied widely and often became subjects of intense debate and sectarian division within these movements.
In academia, has had a profound and lasting influence on the social sciences and humanities.
Marxian economics
Marxian economics, or the Marxian school of economics, is a heterodox school of political economic thought. Its foundations can be traced back to Karl Marx's critique of political economy. However, unlike critics of political economy, Marxian ...
emerged as a distinct school of thought, engaging with and developing Marx's categories to analyze capitalist dynamics, crises, and long-term development. In sociology, Marx's work is foundational to conflict theory, class analysis, and the study of social stratification and historical change. Political science, history, philosophy, literary criticism, and cultural studies have all been significantly impacted by Marxist concepts such as ideology, hegemony, alienation, reification, and the critique of power. The
Frankfurt School
The Frankfurt School is a school of thought in sociology and critical theory. It is associated with the University of Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, Institute for Social Research founded in 1923 at the University of Frankfurt am Main ...
,
Western Marxism
Western Marxism is a current of Marxist theory that arose from Western and Central Europe in the aftermath of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the ascent of Leninism. The term denotes a loose collection of theorists who advanced an i ...
,
post-structuralism
Post-structuralism is a philosophical movement that questions the objectivity or stability of the various interpretive structures that are posited by structuralism and considers them to be constituted by broader systems of Power (social and poli ...
, and
post-colonial theory are among the many intellectual currents that have engaged deeply with Marx's legacy.
has also shaped the understanding of capitalism itself, even among its defenders. Marx's analysis of the inherent dynamism, contradictions, and crisis tendencies of the capitalist mode of production has forced subsequent economic and social thought to grapple with these issues. Concepts he pioneered, such as the reserve army of labor, the concentration and centralization of capital, and the role of technological change, remain relevant for understanding contemporary capitalism. His work highlighted the social and historical specificity of capitalism, challenging notions of its eternal or natural character.

The historical experience of the 20th century, particularly the rise and fall of Soviet-style communist states and the evolution of
welfare-state capitalism, has led to ongoing reinterpretations and revisions of Marx's theories. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was widely seen by some as the definitive failure of Marxism. However, subsequent economic crises, growing global inequality, and the challenges of globalization have led to periodic revivals of interest in as a tool for understanding the contemporary world.
The unfinished nature of Marx's project, particularly the incomplete state of Volumes II and III and the vast scope of his intended critique, has left a legacy of ongoing scholarly work to reconstruct, interpret, and extend his analysis. Debates continue over the precise meaning and contemporary relevance of key concepts, the internal consistency of his arguments, and the applicability of his 19th-century analysis to 21st-century capitalism. Despite these ongoing debates and criticisms, remains a vital and indispensable resource for anyone seeking to understand the historical dynamics, social consequences, and inherent contradictions of the capitalist mode of production. Its central message, that capitalism is a historically specific, exploitative, and crisis-prone system, continues to resonate with those critical of existing social and economic orders.
See also
*
Accumulation by dispossession
Accumulation by dispossession is a concept presented by the Marxist geographer David Harvey. It defines neoliberal capitalist policies that result in a centralization of wealth and power in the hands of a few by dispossessing the public and p ...
*
Analytical Marxism
Analytical Marxism is an academic school of Marxist theory which emerged in the late 1970s, largely prompted by G. A. Cohen's '' Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence'' (1978). In this book, Cohen drew on the Anglo–American tradition of an ...
* ''
Capital in the Twenty-First Century
''Capital in the Twenty-First Century'' () is a book written by French economist Thomas Piketty. It focuses on economic inequality, wealth and income inequality in Europe and the United States since the 18th century. It was first published in Fren ...
''
*
Cost of capital
In economics and accounting, the cost of capital is the cost of a company's funds (both debt and equity), or from an investor's point of view is "the required rate of return on a portfolio company's existing securities". It is used to evaluate ne ...
*
Creative destruction
Creative destruction (German: ''schöpferische Zerstörung'') is a concept in economics that describes a process in which new innovations replace and make obsolete older innovations.
The concept is usually identified with the economist Josep ...
*
Culture of capitalism
*
Economic determinism
Economic determinism is a socioeconomic theory that economic relationships (such as being an owner or capitalist or being a worker or proletarian) are the foundation upon which all other societal and political arrangements in society are based. T ...
*
History of economic thought
The history of economic thought is the study of the philosophies of the different thinkers and theories in the subjects that later became political economy and economics, from the ancient world to the present day.
This field encompasses many d ...
*
History of capitalist theory
*
Immanent critique
Immanent critique is a method of analyzing culture that identifies contradictions in society's rules and systems. Most importantly, it juxtaposes the ideals articulated by society against the inadequate realization of those ideals in society's ins ...
*
Return on capital
Return on capital (ROC), or return on invested capital (ROIC), is a ratio used in finance, valuation and accounting
Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the process of recording and processing information about economic entity, economi ...
*
Revisionism (Marxism)
In Marxist philosophy, revisionism, otherwise known as Marxist reformism, represents various ideas, principles, and theories that are based on a Reformism, reform or revision of Marxism. According to their critics, this involves a significant ...
*
Value added
Value added is a term in economics for calculating the difference between market value of a product or service, and the sum value of its constituents. It is relatively expressed by the supply-demand curve for specific units of sale. Value added ...
*
World-systems theory
World-systems theory (also known as world-systems analysis or the world-systems perspective)Immanuel Wallerstein, (2004), "World-systems Analysis." In ''World System History'', ed. George Modelski, in ''Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems'' (E ...
References
Works cited
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Further reading
*
Althusser, Louis;
Balibar, Étienne (2009). ''
Reading Capital''. London: Verso.
*
Althusser, Louis (October 1969)
"How to Read Marx's Capital". ''
Marxism Today''. pp. 302–305. Originally appeared in French in ''
L'Humanité
(; ) is a French daily newspaper. It was previously an organisation of the SFIO, ''de facto'', and thereafter of the French Communist Party (PCF), and maintains links to the party. Its slogan is "In an ideal world, would not exist."
History ...
'' on 21 April 1969.
*
Christopher J. Arthur and
Geert Reuten (1998) eds ''The Circulation of Capital: Essays on Volume Two of Marx's Capital, London & New York, Macmillan & St. Martin's Press
*
Eugen Böhm von Bawerk
Eugen is a masculine given name which may refer to:
* Archduke Eugen of Austria (1863–1954), last Habsburg Grandmaster of the Teutonic Order from 1894 to 1923
* Prince Eugen, Duke of Närke (1865–1947), Swedish painter, art collector, and pa ...
(1896), ''
Karl Marx and the Close of His System''
*
Bottomore, Thomas, ed. (1998). ''A Dictionary of Marxist Thought''. Oxford: Blackwell.
* Euchner, Walter;
Schmidt, Alfred, eds. (1968). ''Kritik der politischen Ökonomie heute. 100 Jahre "Kapital"'' . Frankfurt: Europäische Verlagsanstalt; Wien: Europa-Verlag
DNB 457299002
*
Fine, Ben (2010). ''Marx's Capital.'' 5th ed. London: Pluto.
*
Harvey, David (2006). ''The Limits of Capital''. London: Verso.
*
Mandel, Ernest. ''Marxist Economic Theory''. Vols. 1 and 2. New York: Monthly Review Press.
*
Marx, Karl
Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German Political philosophy, philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet ''The Communist Manifesto'' (written wi ...
;
McLellan, David, ed. (2008). ''Capital: An Abridged Edition''. Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks. Abridged edition. .
*
Postone, Moishe (1993). ''Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*
Morishima, Michio (1973). ''Marx's Economics, a dual theory of worth and growth''. Cambridge university Press.
* Variety Artworks (2012)
''Capital: In Manga!''. Ottawa
.
*
Cleaver, Harry (1979) ''Reading Capital Politically''. University of Texas Press 1st ed.,
AK Press
AK Press is a workers' self-management, worker-managed, independent publisher and book distributor that specializes in publishing books about anarchism and the Far-left politics, radical left. Operated out of Chico, California, United States, ...
2nd edition.
*
Wheen, Francis (2006). ''Marx's Das Kapital—A Biography''. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. .
*
Roberts, William Clare (2016). ''Marx's Inferno: The Political theory of Capital''. Princeton University Press.
External links
*
Althusser, Louis (21 April 1969)
"How to Read Marx's Capital"
*
* Choonara, Joseph
"Capital". ''
Socialist Worker
''Socialist Worker'' is the name of several 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 1968, a ...
''. First in a series of accessible columns on .
* Ehrbar, Hans G
"Annotations, Explanations and Clarifications to Capital" It helps with understanding the early concepts.
* Engels, Friedrich (1867
"Synopsis of Capital"
*
Harvey, David"Reading Marx's Capital" University open courses.
* Harvey, David (12 July 2018)
"Why Marx's Capital Still Matters" ''
Jacobin
The Society of the Friends of the Constitution (), renamed the Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and Equality () after 1792 and commonly known as the Jacobin Club () or simply the Jacobins (; ), was the most influential political cl ...
''. Retrieved 24 April 2019.
* Liberation School. (2021)
"Reading Capital with Comrades"podcast class series
"PolyluxMarx—A ''Capital'' Workbook in Slides"(covers Volume I of ''Das Capital'' in
PowerPoint slides) .
*
Segrillo, Angelo.
Karl Marx's Capital (Vols. 1, 2, 3) Abridged'. São Paulo: FFLCH/USP, 2020.
An earlier work by Marx that deals with many of the ideas later expanded in .
; 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 Enge ...
.
** .
**
Capital, Volume I' 1974
Progress Publishers
Progress Publishers was a Moscow-based Soviet Union, Soviet publisher founded in 1931.
Publishing program
Progress Publishers published books in a variety of languages: Russian, English, and many other European and Asian languages. They issued ma ...
edition, downloadable
PDF
Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...
from the
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...
.
* ''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 Enge ...
.
**
Capital, Volume II' 1974
Progress Publishers
Progress Publishers was a Moscow-based Soviet Union, Soviet publisher founded in 1931.
Publishing program
Progress Publishers published books in a variety of languages: Russian, English, and many other European and Asian languages. They issued ma ...
edition, downloadable
PDF
Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...
from the
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...
.
* ''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
Progress Publishers was a Moscow-based Soviet Union, Soviet publisher founded in 1931.
Publishing program
Progress Publishers published books in a variety of languages: Russian, English, and many other European and Asian languages. They issued ma ...
edition, downloadable
PDF
Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...
from the
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...
.
* ''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'' () is a draft manuscript written by Karl Marx between January 1862 and July 1863. It is mainly concerned with the Western Europe, Western European theorizing about ''Mehrwert'' (added value or surplus value) from abo ...
''; other editions published later:
**
Capital, Volume IV: Theories of Surplus Value' at Marxists Internet Archive.
*
Part IPart IIPart III
1975 Progress Publishers
Progress Publishers was a Moscow-based Soviet Union, Soviet publisher founded in 1931.
Publishing program
Progress Publishers published books in a variety of languages: Russian, English, and many other European and Asian languages. They issued ma ...
editions, downloadable PDF
Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...
from the Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...
.
; Synopses
"Reading Marx's Capital"
Series of video lectures by professor David Harvey.
* 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
1867 in economic history
Books published posthumously
Historical materialism
Political textbooks
Critique of political economy
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