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Capital
A classic of early modernism, Capital combines vivid historical detail with economic analysis to produce a bitter denunciation of mid-Victorian capitalist society. It has proved to be the most influential work in twentieth-century social science; Marx did for social science what Darwin had done for biology. This is the only abridged edition to take into account the whole of Capital. It offers virtually all of Volume 1, which Marx himself published in 1867; excerpts from a new translation of "The Result of the Immediate Process Production"; and a selection of key chapters from Volume 3, which Engels published in 1895.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
490 pages, Paperback
Published May 15, 2008
66 people are currently reading
816 people want to read
About the author
Karl Marx
3,235 books6,487 followersWith the help of Friedrich Engels, German philosopher and revolutionary Karl Marx wrote
The Communist Manifesto
(1848) and
Das Kapital
(1867-1894), works, which explain historical development in terms of the interaction of contradictory economic forces, form many regimes, and profoundly influenced the social sciences.
German social theorist Friedrich Engels collaborated with Karl Marx on The Communist Manifesto in 1848 and on numerous other works.
Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin in London opposed Communism of Karl Marx with his antithetical anarchy.
Works of Jacques Martin Barzun include Darwin, Marx, Wagner (1941).
The Prussian kingdom introduced a prohibition on Jews, practicing law; in response, a man converted to Protestantism and shortly afterward fathered Karl Marx.
Marx began co-operating with Bruno Bauer on editing Philosophy of Religion of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (see Democritus and Epicurus), doctoral thesis, also engaged Marx, who completed it in 1841. People described the controversial essay as "a daring and original piece... in which Marx set out to show that theology must yield to the superior wisdom." Marx decided to submit his thesis not to the particularly conservative professors at the University of Berlin but instead to the more liberal faculty of University of Jena, which for his contributed key theory awarded his Philosophiae Doctor in April 1841. Marx and Bauer, both atheists, in March 1841 began plans for a journal, entitled Archiv des Atheismus (Atheistic Archives), which never came to fruition.
Marx edited the newspaper Vorwärts! in 1844 in Paris. The urging of the Prussian government from France banished and expelled Marx in absentia; he then studied in Brussels. He joined the league in 1847 and published.
Marx participated the failure of 1848 and afterward eventually wound in London. Marx, a foreigner, corresponded for several publications of United States.
He came in three volumes. Marx organized the International and the social democratic party.
Marx in a letter to C. Schmidt once quipped, "All I know is that I am not a Marxist," as Warren Allen Smith related in Who's Who in Hell .
People describe Marx, who most figured among humans. They typically cite Marx with Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, the principal modern architects.
Bertrand Russell later remarked of non-religious Marx, "His belief that there is a cosmic ... called dialectical materialism, which governs ... independently of human volitions, is mere mythology" ( Portraits from Memory , 1956).
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bi...
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/...
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic...
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/...
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t...
German social theorist Friedrich Engels collaborated with Karl Marx on The Communist Manifesto in 1848 and on numerous other works.
Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin in London opposed Communism of Karl Marx with his antithetical anarchy.
Works of Jacques Martin Barzun include Darwin, Marx, Wagner (1941).
The Prussian kingdom introduced a prohibition on Jews, practicing law; in response, a man converted to Protestantism and shortly afterward fathered Karl Marx.
Marx began co-operating with Bruno Bauer on editing Philosophy of Religion of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (see Democritus and Epicurus), doctoral thesis, also engaged Marx, who completed it in 1841. People described the controversial essay as "a daring and original piece... in which Marx set out to show that theology must yield to the superior wisdom." Marx decided to submit his thesis not to the particularly conservative professors at the University of Berlin but instead to the more liberal faculty of University of Jena, which for his contributed key theory awarded his Philosophiae Doctor in April 1841. Marx and Bauer, both atheists, in March 1841 began plans for a journal, entitled Archiv des Atheismus (Atheistic Archives), which never came to fruition.
Marx edited the newspaper Vorwärts! in 1844 in Paris. The urging of the Prussian government from France banished and expelled Marx in absentia; he then studied in Brussels. He joined the league in 1847 and published.
Marx participated the failure of 1848 and afterward eventually wound in London. Marx, a foreigner, corresponded for several publications of United States.
He came in three volumes. Marx organized the International and the social democratic party.
Marx in a letter to C. Schmidt once quipped, "All I know is that I am not a Marxist," as Warren Allen Smith related in Who's Who in Hell .
People describe Marx, who most figured among humans. They typically cite Marx with Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, the principal modern architects.
Bertrand Russell later remarked of non-religious Marx, "His belief that there is a cosmic ... called dialectical materialism, which governs ... independently of human volitions, is mere mythology" ( Portraits from Memory , 1956).
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bi...
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/...
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic...
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/...
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t...
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
September 5, 2017
It’s shameful that it’s taken me so long to read 'Capital'. I should have done so when I was an undergrad, more than a decade ago. This is not my first attempt, though. I borrowed an aged hardback library edition of Volume 1 in 2011 and was defeated by the 8 (EIGHT) forewords and prefaces; I never made it to Marx’s actual words. This edition seemed more manageable, due to being abridged and having a mere four introductions and prefaces. Abridged or not, ‘Capital’ is undoubtedly hard work. I read it at a third or less of my usual rate. Marx’s sentences are long and often require reading twice to grasp what exactly he means. The sections recounting the development of the industrial revolution are easier, as they are more historical than theoretical. For the most part, however, this is theory and thus dense and demanding. Nonetheless, I found it highly rewarding to read.
If, like me, you have been mired in free market economic theory throughout your academic life, 'Capital' can be extremely satisfying. There were times when I could feel it rewiring my brain, as I’d hoped it might. It presents a fundamentally different approach to macroeconomics than the neoclassical economics I’ve been taught since 2001. Given Marx’s dismissal of the classical ('vulgar') economists, I can only imagine how scathing he would be of their heirs. Although I’ve read plenty of theory and academic work that refers to Marxism, none of it gave me more than the vaguest possible grounding in the actual content of 'Capital', because it says so many complex and nuanced things that require careful explanation.
There are number of ways in which Marx’s analysis of capitalism significantly differs from neoclassical macroeconomics that seemed important to me:
i) the assumption that change is always happening and that technological developments are not a magically exogenous factor (cf the frustrating Solow-Swan model of long term growth).
ii) The related disdain for any notion of equilibrium. It’s a non-existent mirage, I swear economics is only obsessed with it because it lends itself to tidy graphs.
iii) Assuming from the start that wages are set by how much the employer can get away with paying, not by individual contract negotiations in which employer and employee are somehow on a level playing field.
iv) Dismissal of the idea of full employment. Markets cannot achieve this and never have - why would they? Full employment only occurs with heavy government intervention, for example in the UK during WWII when much of the economy was nationalised. Marx’s concept of the reserve labour force remains extremely helpful and apposite today – which is why I’d come across it before.
v) Much fuller explanation than macroeconomics can manage of why and how production becomes progressively more capital-intensive, how rates of profit can fall while absolute profits rise, and how the labour-intensity of production can fall while longer hours and higher productivity are perpetually demanded from employees.
I have a mug with a picture of Marx in all his bearded glory and the caption, ‘I warned you that this would happen’. It’s true, he did. Although Capital is explicitly analysing relations between capital and labour at a specific point in time, there is an inevitable temptation to extrapolate to the present day (from this and his other work – the Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy is often cited in recent commentary, I should read that). I found a number of points that meaningfully echoed the structural economic problems of today:
I thought a lot about the service industries while reading 'Capital'. Of course, factory-based worker exploitation is still very much in existence in 2017; we in Britain just don’t have to look at it. Children and women still work for long hours in terrible conditions to make cheap garments, but in Asia rather than Europe. The impoverished employees of the developed world are now largely in service industry jobs, essentially replicating the work of 19th century domestic servants that has escaped mechanisation. Other than the very rich, most people do not have live-in servants anymore (in the UK housing market there’s no space for them, apart from anything else). Instead, we hire snippets of servitude when getting a house cleaned, or a child minded, or food delivered to our door. Generally such service workers are on insecure low-paid contracts, employed by large companies. This trend is by no means incompatible with Marx’s analysis.
Page 389 has a tidy explanation of how service work can become productive to capital: ‘The same labour (for example, that of a gardener, a tailor) can be performed by the same worker on behalf of a capitalist or on immediate uses. In the two cases, he is wage-earning or hired by the day, but, if he works for the capitalist, he is a productive worker, since he produces capital, whereas if he works for a direct user he is unproductive.’ This brought to mind the so-called disruptive platforms like Uber. Whereas a taxi driver working independently was not contributing to the accumulation of capital, an Uber driver is, as a parasitic firm skims off a portion of their takings. These misleadingly-termed ‘sharing economy’ service companies accumulate forms of capital that Marx would likely not recognise, though: personal data and algorithms for the most part.
One thing I was left wondering at the end of the book was: how exactly can we define the term ‘capital’ today? (Clearly I should read Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century soon.) A line from the HBO sitcom Silicon Valley sprang to mind: “Our product is our stock”. By some bizarre convolution, tech firms seem to accumulate capital in the form of their own stock valuation, an abstraction that should depend on their capital, profits, turnover, etc. Tech giants and social media companies either make massive losses or profit only by advertising products sold by other companies. Their capital has melted into air, or bytes.
This may be a function of the abridged edition I read, which contains almost all of Vol 1 but only extracts of 2 and 3, but I was surprised to find no speculation about the future path of capitalism. I knew that ‘Capital’ would be essentially a historic analysis. However I wonder if there is anything further about the ultimate results of the falling rate of profit relative to capital (‘The progressive tendency of the general rate of profit to fall is, therefore, just an expression peculiar to the capitalist mode of production.’) The current state of Late Capitalism raises the questions: what else can be commoditised? How much faster can the population be persuaded to consume? How much more of the day can be occupied by activities that generate revenue for businesses? Is there a point at which the credit system collapses under the weight of loans that can never be repaid? (In the latter case, 2007/8 could have been a false alarm or an early warning.) There was also less discussion of class than I’d expected. The division into working class, bourgeoisie, landowners, and capitalists was merely assumed as part of the context.
Something I did locate, however, was the seed of Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming on pages 231 and 267:
My only quibble with ‘Capital’ was occasional disagreement with the translator’s comma placement, although that must have been a real challenge to get right with such lengthy sentences in German. Marx’s occasional zingers were great, particularly the Bentham burns: 'The arch-philistine Jeremy Bentham, that insipid, pedantic, leather-tongued oracle of the ordinary bourgeois intelligence.' Likewise this description of the English parliament: 'a permanent Trade's Union of the capitalists'. In short, 'Capital' definitely did not disappoint. It’s always pleasing when a classic that is still widely read and hugely influential lives up to expectations.
If, like me, you have been mired in free market economic theory throughout your academic life, 'Capital' can be extremely satisfying. There were times when I could feel it rewiring my brain, as I’d hoped it might. It presents a fundamentally different approach to macroeconomics than the neoclassical economics I’ve been taught since 2001. Given Marx’s dismissal of the classical ('vulgar') economists, I can only imagine how scathing he would be of their heirs. Although I’ve read plenty of theory and academic work that refers to Marxism, none of it gave me more than the vaguest possible grounding in the actual content of 'Capital', because it says so many complex and nuanced things that require careful explanation.
There are number of ways in which Marx’s analysis of capitalism significantly differs from neoclassical macroeconomics that seemed important to me:
i) the assumption that change is always happening and that technological developments are not a magically exogenous factor (cf the frustrating Solow-Swan model of long term growth).
ii) The related disdain for any notion of equilibrium. It’s a non-existent mirage, I swear economics is only obsessed with it because it lends itself to tidy graphs.
iii) Assuming from the start that wages are set by how much the employer can get away with paying, not by individual contract negotiations in which employer and employee are somehow on a level playing field.
iv) Dismissal of the idea of full employment. Markets cannot achieve this and never have - why would they? Full employment only occurs with heavy government intervention, for example in the UK during WWII when much of the economy was nationalised. Marx’s concept of the reserve labour force remains extremely helpful and apposite today – which is why I’d come across it before.
v) Much fuller explanation than macroeconomics can manage of why and how production becomes progressively more capital-intensive, how rates of profit can fall while absolute profits rise, and how the labour-intensity of production can fall while longer hours and higher productivity are perpetually demanded from employees.
I have a mug with a picture of Marx in all his bearded glory and the caption, ‘I warned you that this would happen’. It’s true, he did. Although Capital is explicitly analysing relations between capital and labour at a specific point in time, there is an inevitable temptation to extrapolate to the present day (from this and his other work – the Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy is often cited in recent commentary, I should read that). I found a number of points that meaningfully echoed the structural economic problems of today:
The capitalist mode of production, while on the one hand, enforcing economy in each individual business, on the other hand, begets, by its anarchical system of competition, the most outrageous squandering of labour-power and of the social means of production, not to mention the creation of a vast number of employments, at present indispensable, but in themselves superfluous.
[...]
‘It is the absolute interest of every capitalist to press a given quantity of labour out of a smaller, rather than a greater number of labourers, if the cost is about the same. […] The more extended the scale of production, the stronger this motive. Its force increases with the accumulation of capital. […] We have further seen that the capitalist […] progressively replaces skilled labourers by less skilled, mature labour-power by immature, male by female, that of adults by that of young persons or children.
[...]
The over-work of the employed part of the working class swells the ranks of the reserve, whilst conversely the greater pressure that the latter by its competition exerts on the former, forces them to submit to over-work and to subjugation under the dictates of capital.
I thought a lot about the service industries while reading 'Capital'. Of course, factory-based worker exploitation is still very much in existence in 2017; we in Britain just don’t have to look at it. Children and women still work for long hours in terrible conditions to make cheap garments, but in Asia rather than Europe. The impoverished employees of the developed world are now largely in service industry jobs, essentially replicating the work of 19th century domestic servants that has escaped mechanisation. Other than the very rich, most people do not have live-in servants anymore (in the UK housing market there’s no space for them, apart from anything else). Instead, we hire snippets of servitude when getting a house cleaned, or a child minded, or food delivered to our door. Generally such service workers are on insecure low-paid contracts, employed by large companies. This trend is by no means incompatible with Marx’s analysis.
Page 389 has a tidy explanation of how service work can become productive to capital: ‘The same labour (for example, that of a gardener, a tailor) can be performed by the same worker on behalf of a capitalist or on immediate uses. In the two cases, he is wage-earning or hired by the day, but, if he works for the capitalist, he is a productive worker, since he produces capital, whereas if he works for a direct user he is unproductive.’ This brought to mind the so-called disruptive platforms like Uber. Whereas a taxi driver working independently was not contributing to the accumulation of capital, an Uber driver is, as a parasitic firm skims off a portion of their takings. These misleadingly-termed ‘sharing economy’ service companies accumulate forms of capital that Marx would likely not recognise, though: personal data and algorithms for the most part.
One thing I was left wondering at the end of the book was: how exactly can we define the term ‘capital’ today? (Clearly I should read Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century soon.) A line from the HBO sitcom Silicon Valley sprang to mind: “Our product is our stock”. By some bizarre convolution, tech firms seem to accumulate capital in the form of their own stock valuation, an abstraction that should depend on their capital, profits, turnover, etc. Tech giants and social media companies either make massive losses or profit only by advertising products sold by other companies. Their capital has melted into air, or bytes.
This may be a function of the abridged edition I read, which contains almost all of Vol 1 but only extracts of 2 and 3, but I was surprised to find no speculation about the future path of capitalism. I knew that ‘Capital’ would be essentially a historic analysis. However I wonder if there is anything further about the ultimate results of the falling rate of profit relative to capital (‘The progressive tendency of the general rate of profit to fall is, therefore, just an expression peculiar to the capitalist mode of production.’) The current state of Late Capitalism raises the questions: what else can be commoditised? How much faster can the population be persuaded to consume? How much more of the day can be occupied by activities that generate revenue for businesses? Is there a point at which the credit system collapses under the weight of loans that can never be repaid? (In the latter case, 2007/8 could have been a false alarm or an early warning.) There was also less discussion of class than I’d expected. The division into working class, bourgeoisie, landowners, and capitalists was merely assumed as part of the context.
Something I did locate, however, was the seed of Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming on pages 231 and 267:
‘Not until the invention of Watt’s second and so-called double-acting steam engine, was a prime mover found, that begot its own force by the consumption of coal and water, whose power was entirely under man’s control, that was mobile and a means of locomotion, that was urban and not, like the water-wheel, rural, that permitted production to be concentrated in towns instead of, like the water-wheels, being scattered up and down the country, that was of universal technical application, and, relatively speaking, little affected in its choice of residence by local circumstances.’
[...]
‘According to Gaskell, the steam engine was from the very first an antagonist of human power, an antagonist that enabled the capitalist to tread under the foot the growing claims of the workmen, who threatened the newly born factory system with a crisis.’
My only quibble with ‘Capital’ was occasional disagreement with the translator’s comma placement, although that must have been a real challenge to get right with such lengthy sentences in German. Marx’s occasional zingers were great, particularly the Bentham burns: 'The arch-philistine Jeremy Bentham, that insipid, pedantic, leather-tongued oracle of the ordinary bourgeois intelligence.' Likewise this description of the English parliament: 'a permanent Trade's Union of the capitalists'. In short, 'Capital' definitely did not disappoint. It’s always pleasing when a classic that is still widely read and hugely influential lives up to expectations.
July 26, 2016
Introduction
Note on the Text
Select Bibliography
A Chronology of Karl Marx
Preface to the First German Edition
Afterword to the Second German Edition
--Capital [Abridged]
Marx's Selected Footnotes
Explanatory Notes
Subject Index
Name Index
Note on the Text
Select Bibliography
A Chronology of Karl Marx
Preface to the First German Edition
Afterword to the Second German Edition
--Capital [Abridged]
Marx's Selected Footnotes
Explanatory Notes
Subject Index
Name Index
December 31, 2014
Granted I only read it the half way through. But it was still about 600 pages that I read over this summer. It's unlikely that I will return to this book. The experience of reading this book felt like taking a very difficult intellectual hike. The book was massive and very detailed. Maybe one day I can return to it and understand it better.
July 4, 2024
Edit: 11.06.2024
"There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion." This statement highlights that the presence of genuine emotion, regardless of its nature (positive or negative), is crucial for meaningful change and personal growth. Jung believed that emotional engagement is essential for transformation and that caring deeply about something is what truly matters, rather than the specific direction of one's feelings.
So this book has obviously caused a lot of emotion and stirred up a lot of chaos. In some sense, that makes it great. Now, in my understanding, and in my experience - Marx active (that is, positive, creative), philosophy, is completely wrong, even potentially destructive. But his reactive, critical philosophy, against capitalism, has obviously been creative, in the sense that is has caused an opposition, a friction between opposites - which is the essence of the creative force.
Applied marxism never ends well. But there is wisdom in this. By being totally wrong, diametrically wrong, precisely an anti-truth, Marx sheds lights on the good, the reasonable and the truthful. For this we should thank him, and be glad that he existed. For capitalism and freedom of trade would not have seen so good, had Marx not been there to draw out its inversion.
Also, a lot of thought that is downstream from Marx is of course very useful. It is fun to hate on Marx, and it is impossible to imagine what the world would look like without him. I just cannot get past what I consider to be false premises, upon which his whole philosophy is built.
When a book becomes this influential, it is undeniable that the author is in some sense a genius. Maybe an evil genius? Genius nonetheless. It is a 1-star book because I sense that Marx does not aim up. He aims down. Obvious speculation and arrogance on my side, but in my mapping of the world, this is how I see him.
We should be glad that we have enemies, without which we wouldn't know where we stand. Something to push against, that is a great privilege.
Original Review: 31.10.2024
Full disclosure: Have I done this book as much justice as most other books? No. Did I read a heavily abridged version? Yes. Did my skimming speed gradually increase throughout? Yes. Do I think I missed out on anything? No. Is there anything to be gained here? Truly, I think not.
When you study metaphysics, the frist technique you learn is to uncover implicit or explicit premises, the axioms on which the whole argument, paragraph, chapter, or in extreme cases, the whole book, hinges on. Marx is such a writer, that is to say, he bases his whole book on a few axiomatic assumption, which he, presumably, feels to be undeniable.
Before being exposed to Capital, I would often say things such as: "Marx's labour theory of value is wrong, but his criticism of capitalism is surely very valuable, and has largely colored capitalism as it manifests itself today." Now, after being exposed, I worry that I was being to conciliatory. As with the communist manifesto, I think the whole idea fails in the very first pages and never recovers from there.
I read three short introductions to Capital, I read the labour theory argument in full, as it is presented in the unabridged version of volume 1. I read the manifesto, I've seen debates, and I've been involved in debates. This is as much work as I will put into Marx, I don't think he deserves more.
One premise in Capital is the labour theory of value, which separates price from value, where value fully derives from the labour which went into it. In other words, what fundamentally underpins the value of something, is the amount of human work which went into it. This is the essence of Marx's thinking, this argument comes back on almost every page, and if it falls, it would be disastrous for marxism. I was never convinced of the legitimacy, nor the usefulness, of simply making a categorical differentation between price and value. It seems to me that Adam Smith, as far as I understand him, has the correct idea. Finding the value/price of something, is, computationally speaking, an infinite problem which can only be imperfectly solved by outsourcing pricing to the market, thereby letting the sum of all the interaction between economic agents decide what something is worth. Instead of, as Marx would have it, deciding the price a priory based on arbitrary levels of value projected into labour. Furthermore, Marx seems to be saying that labour is uniform, which must be wrong. Price/value is the samething, and it is fundamentally and essentially an intersubjective phenomenon, it cannot be further reduced. Value is simply what another person is willing to pay for it. That interaction includes within itself all relevant factors; co-operation, competition, labour, innovation.. There is no way of calculating beforehand what another person might be able to do with a certain commodity, how he or she might transform it, hence what it is, potentially, worth. Simply identifying labour with value seems intellectually lazy, and possibly worse, ideologically motivated.
Once again I'm likely being to careful in my wording, after having been exposed to Marx, I can no longer consider him a philosopher. He is a man with an agenda, he does not seem to be intellectually honest, all his arguments are soaked in normative flavour, instead of letting the reader decide on the basis of facts, most of his explanations are written with extreme one-sidedness, as if he is unable to regonize the simple, undeniable benefits of capitalist generative production.
Another premise that is prevalent and shows itself in different guises, similarly to the manifesto, is Marx's childish and blind incapacity of seeing two sides of the same coin. The capitalists are always characterised as exploitators, and only that. There is no awereness of the obvious benefits of capitalists; they take the risk, they are innovators, they provide work, they optimize production and so on and so forth. Would Marx include these obvious beneficial aspects in his reflection, reading him would be worthwile. But he does not. He removes one side of the conversation and lets us with the evil, fake characterisation that he cooks up in his own mind. Furthermore, with surplus-value, Marx thinks of as the capitalist simply taking more to themselves. What he, supposedly, doesn't see however, is that taking profit and be reinvested into the business, or another business, and that this is the generative force of capitalism which eventually trickles down and provides benefits for all.
One doesn't have to have a raging boner for capitalism in order to critique Marx, it simpy glows from every page, his extreme onesidedness, it blinds him, and it has blinded many many young readers, unable to consider the implicit counter-argument or implicit axiomatic (false) assumptions of his arguments.
One could continue in a similar vein for most of this book, the extreme one-sidedness is impossible to ignore, and as a consequence, it is impossible for me to consider Marx a serious philosopher or thinker. He is a clever, manipulative ideolog with an agenda. As an ex-communist, before I read anything at all, I do feel that marxist/communist ideas grows out of what Nietzsche would call a slave morality. That is, a sort of ideology that comes to be by one being subordinate, by one failing in the current system. In that light, marxism is more of a psychological self defence mechanism, as a consequence of one's own shortcomings, rather than rational philosophy honestly searching for truth.
I think Marx even admits this himself? Hegel was a brilliant thinker, creative and original, yet a horrible writer. Before reading either Hegel or Marx, I assumed Hegel to be the thief which Marx expanded upon. Not so. Marx famously took Hegel and "turned him on his head". But, if you take someone brilliant, and a brilliant set of ideas, and you negate them, turn them into their opposite, you turn gold into shit, do you not?
/rant over.
I truly do not know what to say. It is incomprehensible to me how so many people would refer to themselves as marxists or communists, AFTER having read. Before reading it is understandable, one is young, dumb and idealistic, one wants to be an anarchist and bring down the system, hence one becomes reactionary and takes whatever standpoint is opposite to the hegemonic. After having read him though? Red flag for sure.
As a scandinavian reading in the 21st century, nothing in Capital speaks to me. Hegel is fascinating and original, Marx is dishonest and nefarious. That's what I'm left with.
"There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion." This statement highlights that the presence of genuine emotion, regardless of its nature (positive or negative), is crucial for meaningful change and personal growth. Jung believed that emotional engagement is essential for transformation and that caring deeply about something is what truly matters, rather than the specific direction of one's feelings.
So this book has obviously caused a lot of emotion and stirred up a lot of chaos. In some sense, that makes it great. Now, in my understanding, and in my experience - Marx active (that is, positive, creative), philosophy, is completely wrong, even potentially destructive. But his reactive, critical philosophy, against capitalism, has obviously been creative, in the sense that is has caused an opposition, a friction between opposites - which is the essence of the creative force.
Applied marxism never ends well. But there is wisdom in this. By being totally wrong, diametrically wrong, precisely an anti-truth, Marx sheds lights on the good, the reasonable and the truthful. For this we should thank him, and be glad that he existed. For capitalism and freedom of trade would not have seen so good, had Marx not been there to draw out its inversion.
Also, a lot of thought that is downstream from Marx is of course very useful. It is fun to hate on Marx, and it is impossible to imagine what the world would look like without him. I just cannot get past what I consider to be false premises, upon which his whole philosophy is built.
When a book becomes this influential, it is undeniable that the author is in some sense a genius. Maybe an evil genius? Genius nonetheless. It is a 1-star book because I sense that Marx does not aim up. He aims down. Obvious speculation and arrogance on my side, but in my mapping of the world, this is how I see him.
We should be glad that we have enemies, without which we wouldn't know where we stand. Something to push against, that is a great privilege.
Original Review: 31.10.2024
Full disclosure: Have I done this book as much justice as most other books? No. Did I read a heavily abridged version? Yes. Did my skimming speed gradually increase throughout? Yes. Do I think I missed out on anything? No. Is there anything to be gained here? Truly, I think not.
When you study metaphysics, the frist technique you learn is to uncover implicit or explicit premises, the axioms on which the whole argument, paragraph, chapter, or in extreme cases, the whole book, hinges on. Marx is such a writer, that is to say, he bases his whole book on a few axiomatic assumption, which he, presumably, feels to be undeniable.
Before being exposed to Capital, I would often say things such as: "Marx's labour theory of value is wrong, but his criticism of capitalism is surely very valuable, and has largely colored capitalism as it manifests itself today." Now, after being exposed, I worry that I was being to conciliatory. As with the communist manifesto, I think the whole idea fails in the very first pages and never recovers from there.
I read three short introductions to Capital, I read the labour theory argument in full, as it is presented in the unabridged version of volume 1. I read the manifesto, I've seen debates, and I've been involved in debates. This is as much work as I will put into Marx, I don't think he deserves more.
One premise in Capital is the labour theory of value, which separates price from value, where value fully derives from the labour which went into it. In other words, what fundamentally underpins the value of something, is the amount of human work which went into it. This is the essence of Marx's thinking, this argument comes back on almost every page, and if it falls, it would be disastrous for marxism. I was never convinced of the legitimacy, nor the usefulness, of simply making a categorical differentation between price and value. It seems to me that Adam Smith, as far as I understand him, has the correct idea. Finding the value/price of something, is, computationally speaking, an infinite problem which can only be imperfectly solved by outsourcing pricing to the market, thereby letting the sum of all the interaction between economic agents decide what something is worth. Instead of, as Marx would have it, deciding the price a priory based on arbitrary levels of value projected into labour. Furthermore, Marx seems to be saying that labour is uniform, which must be wrong. Price/value is the samething, and it is fundamentally and essentially an intersubjective phenomenon, it cannot be further reduced. Value is simply what another person is willing to pay for it. That interaction includes within itself all relevant factors; co-operation, competition, labour, innovation.. There is no way of calculating beforehand what another person might be able to do with a certain commodity, how he or she might transform it, hence what it is, potentially, worth. Simply identifying labour with value seems intellectually lazy, and possibly worse, ideologically motivated.
Once again I'm likely being to careful in my wording, after having been exposed to Marx, I can no longer consider him a philosopher. He is a man with an agenda, he does not seem to be intellectually honest, all his arguments are soaked in normative flavour, instead of letting the reader decide on the basis of facts, most of his explanations are written with extreme one-sidedness, as if he is unable to regonize the simple, undeniable benefits of capitalist generative production.
Another premise that is prevalent and shows itself in different guises, similarly to the manifesto, is Marx's childish and blind incapacity of seeing two sides of the same coin. The capitalists are always characterised as exploitators, and only that. There is no awereness of the obvious benefits of capitalists; they take the risk, they are innovators, they provide work, they optimize production and so on and so forth. Would Marx include these obvious beneficial aspects in his reflection, reading him would be worthwile. But he does not. He removes one side of the conversation and lets us with the evil, fake characterisation that he cooks up in his own mind. Furthermore, with surplus-value, Marx thinks of as the capitalist simply taking more to themselves. What he, supposedly, doesn't see however, is that taking profit and be reinvested into the business, or another business, and that this is the generative force of capitalism which eventually trickles down and provides benefits for all.
One doesn't have to have a raging boner for capitalism in order to critique Marx, it simpy glows from every page, his extreme onesidedness, it blinds him, and it has blinded many many young readers, unable to consider the implicit counter-argument or implicit axiomatic (false) assumptions of his arguments.
One could continue in a similar vein for most of this book, the extreme one-sidedness is impossible to ignore, and as a consequence, it is impossible for me to consider Marx a serious philosopher or thinker. He is a clever, manipulative ideolog with an agenda. As an ex-communist, before I read anything at all, I do feel that marxist/communist ideas grows out of what Nietzsche would call a slave morality. That is, a sort of ideology that comes to be by one being subordinate, by one failing in the current system. In that light, marxism is more of a psychological self defence mechanism, as a consequence of one's own shortcomings, rather than rational philosophy honestly searching for truth.
I think Marx even admits this himself? Hegel was a brilliant thinker, creative and original, yet a horrible writer. Before reading either Hegel or Marx, I assumed Hegel to be the thief which Marx expanded upon. Not so. Marx famously took Hegel and "turned him on his head". But, if you take someone brilliant, and a brilliant set of ideas, and you negate them, turn them into their opposite, you turn gold into shit, do you not?
/rant over.
I truly do not know what to say. It is incomprehensible to me how so many people would refer to themselves as marxists or communists, AFTER having read. Before reading it is understandable, one is young, dumb and idealistic, one wants to be an anarchist and bring down the system, hence one becomes reactionary and takes whatever standpoint is opposite to the hegemonic. After having read him though? Red flag for sure.
As a scandinavian reading in the 21st century, nothing in Capital speaks to me. Hegel is fascinating and original, Marx is dishonest and nefarious. That's what I'm left with.
January 20, 2019
For a long time I've been troubled that, for all my reading, I have learnt nothing about the world or about people. If I am asked about my beliefs, be they political, religious or philosophical, I'd have a hard time giving a straight answer. I have to suspend my judgment on every topic until such time as I've read about it and come to my own conclusions. Yet despite my reading, I haven't really come to any conclusions. And for me to read something in a text and find it to be true says less about the truth of the text than about my propensity to believe. On one hand, I try to be open-minded, but perhaps my unconscious ideological biases are pushing me toward certain conclusions that betray that promise of neutrality.
I don't know anything about economics, never studied it in school. A lot of this book went over my head, and I'd have trouble explaining even what I thought I'd understood. Marx is, like Freud and Nietzsche, so influential on the big issues of society that it's hard to read him for himself, without the baggage of history's opinion. Luckily, he's almost as good a writer as he is an important one - I understand economic theory being necessarily dry, but he weaves in passages of great fervour around them, so the text is rarely a slog.
The emotive aspects of left-wing capitalist critique are what draw me in, if only because I am not learned enough to read about the labour theory of value and critique it - it's business enough getting my head around it. I didn't get the feeling he could be casually dismissed, that his argumentation was fatally flawed. I suppose one's experience of the text is highly influenced by any political notions before the book is opened.
I shouldn't overly chastise myself for being ideologically biased. Perhaps one's political or religious identity, or outlook on philosophical questions, is not based upon careful, labourious surveyance of the arguments presented and forming an ironclad, fully-formed worldview, but from continued dialectic between one's efforts to self-educate and from observation of life as it happens. I wanted to say I could read Capital and proclaim it Right, but I can't. Still kinda believe in Marx, though.
I don't know anything about economics, never studied it in school. A lot of this book went over my head, and I'd have trouble explaining even what I thought I'd understood. Marx is, like Freud and Nietzsche, so influential on the big issues of society that it's hard to read him for himself, without the baggage of history's opinion. Luckily, he's almost as good a writer as he is an important one - I understand economic theory being necessarily dry, but he weaves in passages of great fervour around them, so the text is rarely a slog.
The emotive aspects of left-wing capitalist critique are what draw me in, if only because I am not learned enough to read about the labour theory of value and critique it - it's business enough getting my head around it. I didn't get the feeling he could be casually dismissed, that his argumentation was fatally flawed. I suppose one's experience of the text is highly influenced by any political notions before the book is opened.
I shouldn't overly chastise myself for being ideologically biased. Perhaps one's political or religious identity, or outlook on philosophical questions, is not based upon careful, labourious surveyance of the arguments presented and forming an ironclad, fully-formed worldview, but from continued dialectic between one's efforts to self-educate and from observation of life as it happens. I wanted to say I could read Capital and proclaim it Right, but I can't. Still kinda believe in Marx, though.
May 24, 2015
I recommend accompanying this book with the open course lectures with David Harvey.
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=...
I had to skim past the last third of the book, but overall it gives you a good perspective on the hidden workings of capitalistic production. Parts One through Five were especially illuminating.
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=...
I had to skim past the last third of the book, but overall it gives you a good perspective on the hidden workings of capitalistic production. Parts One through Five were especially illuminating.
May 12, 2015
outstanding, thought provoking, life changing. The book seeks to explain how the capitalist system originated, works and the issues with it - mainly the exploitation of the working class. I highly recommend watching david harvey's lectures at the same time as reading. The first few chapters are tough but it gets a lot easier so stick with it. Only negative is that Marx has a tendancy to hammer the same points over and over.
November 22, 2017
Before writing this review, I have to admit something. I'm a liberal. I don't like communism - at all. For me, communism and socialism (which is essentially the same) are synonymous for radical oppression and terrorism-disguised-as-activism. I grew up in post-Soviet Western Europe, so I'm aware that my hatred for communism is, at least partly, the paradigm that I was born and raised in. Nevertheless, I am open minded and am always looking for the truth; so, I finally decided to pick up Karl Marx and judge for myself.
And before I start with this review, I have to admit something else. This edition of Capital is the abridged one: it comprises almost all of volume 1, while leaving out volume 2 (technical economics, mostly outdated) and only presenting snippets of volume 3. Yet, as the introduction clearly states: Marx only wrote volume 1 during his lifetime; volumes 2 and 3 were published posthumously by Friedrich Engels and hence cannot be viewed in the same light as the original work. So I read the abridged version, and not even all of it: I only read the important chapters of volume 1, to get a good impression on Marx's ideas. As some reviewers on Goodreads mention, Marx repeats himself endlessly, so if one gets the point of the chapter, one can easily skip the rest and move on to the next chapter.
---- So, I'm primed against Marx and I haven't even read all of Das Kapital. Thus, take this review for what it's worth (in your eyes). Having added these two caveats, let me proceed to the review. ----
Capital really suprised me. It is clear that Marx was disgusted by the developments of his day and age. The downfall of feudalism led to a new economic system, in which the middle class could build capital and put it to use in order to produce even more capital. In other words: capitalism meant the accumulation of the means of production in fewer and fewer hands. This was made possible by technological developments: the introduction of the steam engine and all other sorts of new machinery that could work more efficiently and cheaper than human labour.
These two trends - capitalism and the Industrial Revolution - had a major downside, though. The poor masses were brutally exploited by the capitalists. People had to work in terrible conditions and for ridiculously long hours (12-16 hours a day weren't all that rare). Because of the introduction of new machinery, even women and children were thrown unto the labour market. This led to inhumane conditions: children of 8 working 16 hours a day without even getting a break for food.
It is this environment that Marx criticizes and that he fulminates against. In his Communist Manifesto he uses agressive rhetoric, but in Capital he coldly analyzes the whole system. This latter method is much stronger and confronting. For example, in chapter 10 Marx describes the conditions of children and women working in factories, and how the English government failed to help these poor creatures by postponing changes in the law or making existing laws ineffective by removing the budget for inspectors. Marx uses reports of contemporaries - factory inspectors, doctors working in the slums, etc. - to illustrate his main thesis, and he does this superbly.
Besides the working conditions, Marx explains the workings of the capitalist system. The capitalist wants to maximize his surplus-value, and this he does by buying labour. The labourer has only one commodity to sell - his labour - and he only needs to sell a fraction of his time for subsistence. The capitalist wants it all, though: he forces the labour to work longer and longer hours, in order to maximize the surplus-value of the labourer. Because of industrial innovation, labourers are needed less and hence become cheaper. This leads to an ever-increasing mass of unemployed labourers - the reserve work force - which the capitalist can use to drastically cut wages and blackmail the individual labourer. You don't want to work for what I offer you? too bad for you! NEXT!
So, we have a system that is set up against the labourer, undermining his position on the labour market and leading to the obnoxious behaviour of capitalists, seeing the labour force as replacable tools. No matter how one views Marx or his theory of capitalism, one has to admit that this situation is problematic from a humanitarian point of view, and a direct consequence of capitalism gone wild.
Marx's theory of surplus-value of labour, leading to the feelings of alienation of the labourer (i.e. exploitation), to the accumulation of capital, and hence to a vicious cycle of exploitation and poverty, is a serious objection to radical liberalism. Marx really is the first economist who includes social conditions into economics. For this, he deserves our applause. Marx makes, for instance, a very serious objection to the idea of industrialization-leading-to-progress. Marx claims - and rightly so - that the machinery that is being developed is not meant to increase the well-being of labourers, but simply to increase labour productivity. So, the massive industrialization of Europe meant longer working hours, more intense work, and the introduction of women and children into the factories. Industrialization meant more suffering, not less. This is a serious claim, and, more importantly, we should heed Marx's warning in modern times. All the developments in artificial intelligence and the automation of the work processes are not meant to offer us better lives. The people investing in these fields only want more profit. If we want to put these developments to good use, we will have to legislate and to see to it that capitalists won't run us over with their new gadgets.
It is easy to see that Marx's view of economics is deterministic and materialistic. He views certain developments, for example competition on the labour market, as inevitable outcomes of capitalism. While valuing Marx's critique of the desastrous effects of capitalism and industrialization, we have to remind ourselves that nothing is inevitable if we ourselves won't allow it. If we don't buy these cheap t-shirts, children in Pakistan won't have these terrible working conditions. Marx's determinism quickly leeds to doom and gloom, which is entirely unnecessary and even counterproductive. Only when we realize that we can change things for the better, can we actually change things. Things won't change if we think (wrongly) that everything is the way it is because it is simply inevitable.
Yet, I have to admit that I was extremely shocked while reading these reports (especially about the conditions of young children) and it really made me view liberalism in another light. Marx is right in pointing out the fallacies in (then) mainstream political economic theories of scholars like John Stuart Mill. A system that is set up the way 19th century capitalism was, will only lead to human suffering - there is no political economic theory that can (or should) deny this. Accumulation of capital leads to human suffering, period.
I always try to learn from new insights, and Marx's analysis of capitalism has touched a nerve. I have always regarded myself as a liberal, but I have also always wondered what the liberal answer to the inevitable exploitation should be. It is undeniable that alternative systems all have led to even more suffering and exploitation (for example, Soviet Communism or Italian Fascism); but this is really no answer to the question. Liberalism will lead to have's and have not's; the have's will - by definition - have ever more. This is a serious objection to liberalism and I have no answer to it. Reading parts of volume one of Marx's Capital has rubbed this problem - once again - in my face. One always needs a just system of laws (and hence, democracry) and a form of protection against exploitation (and hence, a government that redistributes wealth). The question then remains: what is justified? and who will decide on this?
I am impressed by Marx's serious work - not his shoddy and activistic Communist Manifesto - and even though it raised more questions than it answered, I am glad I read some of his original work. I cannot really recommend this edition, though. Of course, one should not expect wonders from an abridged work, but still... Leaving out volume 2 entirely (without giving an explanation of its contents) and leaving out volume 3 almost entirely, is too much downsizing. Maybe in the future I will read his three volumes in their entirety.
And before I start with this review, I have to admit something else. This edition of Capital is the abridged one: it comprises almost all of volume 1, while leaving out volume 2 (technical economics, mostly outdated) and only presenting snippets of volume 3. Yet, as the introduction clearly states: Marx only wrote volume 1 during his lifetime; volumes 2 and 3 were published posthumously by Friedrich Engels and hence cannot be viewed in the same light as the original work. So I read the abridged version, and not even all of it: I only read the important chapters of volume 1, to get a good impression on Marx's ideas. As some reviewers on Goodreads mention, Marx repeats himself endlessly, so if one gets the point of the chapter, one can easily skip the rest and move on to the next chapter.
---- So, I'm primed against Marx and I haven't even read all of Das Kapital. Thus, take this review for what it's worth (in your eyes). Having added these two caveats, let me proceed to the review. ----
Capital really suprised me. It is clear that Marx was disgusted by the developments of his day and age. The downfall of feudalism led to a new economic system, in which the middle class could build capital and put it to use in order to produce even more capital. In other words: capitalism meant the accumulation of the means of production in fewer and fewer hands. This was made possible by technological developments: the introduction of the steam engine and all other sorts of new machinery that could work more efficiently and cheaper than human labour.
These two trends - capitalism and the Industrial Revolution - had a major downside, though. The poor masses were brutally exploited by the capitalists. People had to work in terrible conditions and for ridiculously long hours (12-16 hours a day weren't all that rare). Because of the introduction of new machinery, even women and children were thrown unto the labour market. This led to inhumane conditions: children of 8 working 16 hours a day without even getting a break for food.
It is this environment that Marx criticizes and that he fulminates against. In his Communist Manifesto he uses agressive rhetoric, but in Capital he coldly analyzes the whole system. This latter method is much stronger and confronting. For example, in chapter 10 Marx describes the conditions of children and women working in factories, and how the English government failed to help these poor creatures by postponing changes in the law or making existing laws ineffective by removing the budget for inspectors. Marx uses reports of contemporaries - factory inspectors, doctors working in the slums, etc. - to illustrate his main thesis, and he does this superbly.
Besides the working conditions, Marx explains the workings of the capitalist system. The capitalist wants to maximize his surplus-value, and this he does by buying labour. The labourer has only one commodity to sell - his labour - and he only needs to sell a fraction of his time for subsistence. The capitalist wants it all, though: he forces the labour to work longer and longer hours, in order to maximize the surplus-value of the labourer. Because of industrial innovation, labourers are needed less and hence become cheaper. This leads to an ever-increasing mass of unemployed labourers - the reserve work force - which the capitalist can use to drastically cut wages and blackmail the individual labourer. You don't want to work for what I offer you? too bad for you! NEXT!
So, we have a system that is set up against the labourer, undermining his position on the labour market and leading to the obnoxious behaviour of capitalists, seeing the labour force as replacable tools. No matter how one views Marx or his theory of capitalism, one has to admit that this situation is problematic from a humanitarian point of view, and a direct consequence of capitalism gone wild.
Marx's theory of surplus-value of labour, leading to the feelings of alienation of the labourer (i.e. exploitation), to the accumulation of capital, and hence to a vicious cycle of exploitation and poverty, is a serious objection to radical liberalism. Marx really is the first economist who includes social conditions into economics. For this, he deserves our applause. Marx makes, for instance, a very serious objection to the idea of industrialization-leading-to-progress. Marx claims - and rightly so - that the machinery that is being developed is not meant to increase the well-being of labourers, but simply to increase labour productivity. So, the massive industrialization of Europe meant longer working hours, more intense work, and the introduction of women and children into the factories. Industrialization meant more suffering, not less. This is a serious claim, and, more importantly, we should heed Marx's warning in modern times. All the developments in artificial intelligence and the automation of the work processes are not meant to offer us better lives. The people investing in these fields only want more profit. If we want to put these developments to good use, we will have to legislate and to see to it that capitalists won't run us over with their new gadgets.
It is easy to see that Marx's view of economics is deterministic and materialistic. He views certain developments, for example competition on the labour market, as inevitable outcomes of capitalism. While valuing Marx's critique of the desastrous effects of capitalism and industrialization, we have to remind ourselves that nothing is inevitable if we ourselves won't allow it. If we don't buy these cheap t-shirts, children in Pakistan won't have these terrible working conditions. Marx's determinism quickly leeds to doom and gloom, which is entirely unnecessary and even counterproductive. Only when we realize that we can change things for the better, can we actually change things. Things won't change if we think (wrongly) that everything is the way it is because it is simply inevitable.
Yet, I have to admit that I was extremely shocked while reading these reports (especially about the conditions of young children) and it really made me view liberalism in another light. Marx is right in pointing out the fallacies in (then) mainstream political economic theories of scholars like John Stuart Mill. A system that is set up the way 19th century capitalism was, will only lead to human suffering - there is no political economic theory that can (or should) deny this. Accumulation of capital leads to human suffering, period.
I always try to learn from new insights, and Marx's analysis of capitalism has touched a nerve. I have always regarded myself as a liberal, but I have also always wondered what the liberal answer to the inevitable exploitation should be. It is undeniable that alternative systems all have led to even more suffering and exploitation (for example, Soviet Communism or Italian Fascism); but this is really no answer to the question. Liberalism will lead to have's and have not's; the have's will - by definition - have ever more. This is a serious objection to liberalism and I have no answer to it. Reading parts of volume one of Marx's Capital has rubbed this problem - once again - in my face. One always needs a just system of laws (and hence, democracry) and a form of protection against exploitation (and hence, a government that redistributes wealth). The question then remains: what is justified? and who will decide on this?
I am impressed by Marx's serious work - not his shoddy and activistic Communist Manifesto - and even though it raised more questions than it answered, I am glad I read some of his original work. I cannot really recommend this edition, though. Of course, one should not expect wonders from an abridged work, but still... Leaving out volume 2 entirely (without giving an explanation of its contents) and leaving out volume 3 almost entirely, is too much downsizing. Maybe in the future I will read his three volumes in their entirety.
August 6, 2012
I just finished reading “Capital”, Karl Marx’s seminal work on political economy originally published in 1867 toward the end of the industrial revolution. The following is a summary of quotes from the book that I’ve been tweeting for the past few days along with my impressions and comments on each.
“The country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future.” #marx
Throughout the book Marx appears to me to be similar on tone to all the great development economists of his time. In taking an honest look at the status of England and it’s development up to this point he says that this process of development is inevitable.
“To appropriate labour during all the 24 hours of the day is, therefore, the inherent tendency of capitalist production.” #marx
Marx is clearly on the side of labour. His remarks on the role of the capitalist and the way in which labour is exploited are many and pointed. This is just one of many, this is another..
“The capitalist mode of production produces the premature exhaustion and death of the labour force itself.” #marx
Marx goes on to decry the lack of intellect and intiative required of the worker as mechanism increased and the division of labour continued to refine with comments like these;
“The workman’s repetition of the same act, teach him by experience how to attain the desired effect with the minimum of exertion.” #marx
“Manufacturers prosper most where the mind is least consulted, and where the workshop may be considered as an engine of men.” #marx
“In handicrafts and manufacture, the workman makes use of a tool, in the factory, the machine makes us of him.” #marx
What is lacking most in Marx’s critique of the industrial revolution is a clear understand of market forces. The way Marx explains it, it’s as if the entire economy is predicated on the relationship between the capitalist and the worker but the consumer is left completely out of the equation. Cost is measured in the amount of labour required for the worker to survive, profit a function of surplus labour that can be produced beyond that cost. The law of supply and demand and other market forces are completely absent from Marx’s theory of capital.
Finally at the end of the book Marx does pay lip service to the consumer when he states;
“That which comes directly face to face with the possessor of money on the market is in fact not labour, but the labourer.” #marx
Almost begrudgingly and without fan-fair Marx concludes that the surplus value of the labourer is, in the end spent on consumerism and without the consumer the entire system falls apart. But just who the consumer is and how much both the capitalist and the labourer depend on him is left un-explored.
It’s clear from this work that Marx is anti-capitalist in the sense that capitalists in his estimation were exploiting workers but the leap from there to traditional communism is far from direct. Labour advocate, yes, but that does not directly lead to communism. The Communist Manifesto notwithstanding, communism as a system of government was developed much later and much of the personal suffering and oppression associated with communist regimes of the 20th century has less to do with the economics of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels than they do with the politics of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin.
Indeed toward the end of his life, after seeing what some groups where doing with his work, Marx himself famously stated was NOT a Marxist.
“The country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future.” #marx
Throughout the book Marx appears to me to be similar on tone to all the great development economists of his time. In taking an honest look at the status of England and it’s development up to this point he says that this process of development is inevitable.
“To appropriate labour during all the 24 hours of the day is, therefore, the inherent tendency of capitalist production.” #marx
Marx is clearly on the side of labour. His remarks on the role of the capitalist and the way in which labour is exploited are many and pointed. This is just one of many, this is another..
“The capitalist mode of production produces the premature exhaustion and death of the labour force itself.” #marx
Marx goes on to decry the lack of intellect and intiative required of the worker as mechanism increased and the division of labour continued to refine with comments like these;
“The workman’s repetition of the same act, teach him by experience how to attain the desired effect with the minimum of exertion.” #marx
“Manufacturers prosper most where the mind is least consulted, and where the workshop may be considered as an engine of men.” #marx
“In handicrafts and manufacture, the workman makes use of a tool, in the factory, the machine makes us of him.” #marx
What is lacking most in Marx’s critique of the industrial revolution is a clear understand of market forces. The way Marx explains it, it’s as if the entire economy is predicated on the relationship between the capitalist and the worker but the consumer is left completely out of the equation. Cost is measured in the amount of labour required for the worker to survive, profit a function of surplus labour that can be produced beyond that cost. The law of supply and demand and other market forces are completely absent from Marx’s theory of capital.
Finally at the end of the book Marx does pay lip service to the consumer when he states;
“That which comes directly face to face with the possessor of money on the market is in fact not labour, but the labourer.” #marx
Almost begrudgingly and without fan-fair Marx concludes that the surplus value of the labourer is, in the end spent on consumerism and without the consumer the entire system falls apart. But just who the consumer is and how much both the capitalist and the labourer depend on him is left un-explored.
It’s clear from this work that Marx is anti-capitalist in the sense that capitalists in his estimation were exploiting workers but the leap from there to traditional communism is far from direct. Labour advocate, yes, but that does not directly lead to communism. The Communist Manifesto notwithstanding, communism as a system of government was developed much later and much of the personal suffering and oppression associated with communist regimes of the 20th century has less to do with the economics of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels than they do with the politics of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin.
Indeed toward the end of his life, after seeing what some groups where doing with his work, Marx himself famously stated was NOT a Marxist.
March 31, 2017
Reading Das Kapital by Marx was a month long struggle and, I must admit, that after I slogged through the first part I kept on reading only out of spite.
Marx's magnum opus didn't age well, in part because it is so atrociously written. The book is full of gratuitous use of Latin, French, Italian (and I assume that in the original - German - edition, English too), subtle literally call outs (e.g «Who fails here to call to mind our good friend, Dogberry, who informs neighbour Seacoal, that, “To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but reading and writing comes by Nature.») and dryness of language. I laugh every time when I think that the book written in part to the working class.
Capital, Volume 1 book is divided into 8 parts spanning 33 chapters. The first part goes to great lengths about Marx's underlying theory of commodities, surplus value and surplus labor.
It's fascinating to see what predictions can be made from a faulty model.
While it might not have been obvious at the time, Marx's assumptions about values, and transactions are now obviously wrong to anyone with even a modicum of knowledge of current economic theory.
First of all Marx assumes that commodities have a "natural" value, and that the price is not subjective. A second big assumption is that commodities gain their value via labor. If that would be true, countries in which people have to travel many miles for water, should undoubtedly, be the wealthiest ones.
Going further, Marx doesn't perceive the uniqueness of labor, skill or people. Everywhere he assumes "average labor" or "average time and skill". He also assumes that skilled labor loses its value compared to average labor. This is clearly not true in a world where premium skills or objects get premium prices.
The worst offender, is Marx' surplus labor theory. The only way for a capitalist to make money is (according to Marx) exploiting the free time of the laborer. While it is true that a capitalist won't hire anyone unless he can gain from his labor, Marx glosses over (or mocks?) the fact that "exchange is a transaction by which both sides gain" [Part 2, Chapter 5]. Selling labor for money is an example of such an exchange. People don't engage in transactions which don't benefit them (unless they're forced to).
Nevertheless, it's hard not to sympathize with Marx. The rest of the book goes into the history and the current state of the labor class and how it relates to Marx's theory of capitalist exploitation. The details of the exploitations of laborers and the analogues to the present day are hair raising.
How the rights of workers were dismissed in the name of profits for the few is as true now as it was then.
How, back in the day, the preferred method of placating the working population was by keeping it ignorant and dumb - the current day problems of education raises the question how we are kept in the dark.
And the statistics about child labor are simply scary - in part because there are plenty of countries left where that still is the norm.
Marx's ideas have since been proven not to have a basis in reality, and each implementation of communism ended in failure. It is therefore surprising to see Marx's and ideas and arguments (like the assumption that all work exploits the laborer) are parroted by people today.
I didn't like first volume of Capital. I'm not looking forward to reading the second one. Nevertheless it is an important book, one, which I wouldn't wish to have not read.
Marx's magnum opus didn't age well, in part because it is so atrociously written. The book is full of gratuitous use of Latin, French, Italian (and I assume that in the original - German - edition, English too), subtle literally call outs (e.g «Who fails here to call to mind our good friend, Dogberry, who informs neighbour Seacoal, that, “To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but reading and writing comes by Nature.») and dryness of language. I laugh every time when I think that the book written in part to the working class.
Capital, Volume 1 book is divided into 8 parts spanning 33 chapters. The first part goes to great lengths about Marx's underlying theory of commodities, surplus value and surplus labor.
It's fascinating to see what predictions can be made from a faulty model.
While it might not have been obvious at the time, Marx's assumptions about values, and transactions are now obviously wrong to anyone with even a modicum of knowledge of current economic theory.
First of all Marx assumes that commodities have a "natural" value, and that the price is not subjective. A second big assumption is that commodities gain their value via labor. If that would be true, countries in which people have to travel many miles for water, should undoubtedly, be the wealthiest ones.
Going further, Marx doesn't perceive the uniqueness of labor, skill or people. Everywhere he assumes "average labor" or "average time and skill". He also assumes that skilled labor loses its value compared to average labor. This is clearly not true in a world where premium skills or objects get premium prices.
The worst offender, is Marx' surplus labor theory. The only way for a capitalist to make money is (according to Marx) exploiting the free time of the laborer. While it is true that a capitalist won't hire anyone unless he can gain from his labor, Marx glosses over (or mocks?) the fact that "exchange is a transaction by which both sides gain" [Part 2, Chapter 5]. Selling labor for money is an example of such an exchange. People don't engage in transactions which don't benefit them (unless they're forced to).
Nevertheless, it's hard not to sympathize with Marx. The rest of the book goes into the history and the current state of the labor class and how it relates to Marx's theory of capitalist exploitation. The details of the exploitations of laborers and the analogues to the present day are hair raising.
How the rights of workers were dismissed in the name of profits for the few is as true now as it was then.
How, back in the day, the preferred method of placating the working population was by keeping it ignorant and dumb - the current day problems of education raises the question how we are kept in the dark.
And the statistics about child labor are simply scary - in part because there are plenty of countries left where that still is the norm.
Marx's ideas have since been proven not to have a basis in reality, and each implementation of communism ended in failure. It is therefore surprising to see Marx's and ideas and arguments (like the assumption that all work exploits the laborer) are parroted by people today.
I didn't like first volume of Capital. I'm not looking forward to reading the second one. Nevertheless it is an important book, one, which I wouldn't wish to have not read.
June 20, 2020
A titan of thought, an epic in detail. Even this abridged version could have been further distilled to around 200 pages of essential ideas that would suffice for the average reader to consider in relation to their own lives.
I read (and skimmed over parts of) the book as a supplement to a course and a podcast on Marxism, so I was familiar with the material from the start. Reading the book 'dry' (purely motivated by curiosity) would have required nightmarish determination. I'm also not sure how much can be gleaned independently, without at least casual live discussion on the topic.
That said, Marx's predictions of capitalism's demise have proved inaccurate so far, and we continue to live in advanced variations of the nineteenth century capitalism he described. His teasing apart of the system is instructive and forms the basis of further modern thought.
The star rating is somewhat arbitrary: the ideas are a 5 for their time; the writing style a 1 despite the occasional forays into Latin, French, and classical mythological references. Marx was an erudite—no doubt—and he produced a bestseller—surprisingly enough—but even I wouldn't call it a thriller. (And my definition stretches far: I have on occasion been know to call the likes of Bergson's 'Time and Free Will' and Camus's 'Myth of Sisyphus' thrillers.)
I read (and skimmed over parts of) the book as a supplement to a course and a podcast on Marxism, so I was familiar with the material from the start. Reading the book 'dry' (purely motivated by curiosity) would have required nightmarish determination. I'm also not sure how much can be gleaned independently, without at least casual live discussion on the topic.
That said, Marx's predictions of capitalism's demise have proved inaccurate so far, and we continue to live in advanced variations of the nineteenth century capitalism he described. His teasing apart of the system is instructive and forms the basis of further modern thought.
The star rating is somewhat arbitrary: the ideas are a 5 for their time; the writing style a 1 despite the occasional forays into Latin, French, and classical mythological references. Marx was an erudite—no doubt—and he produced a bestseller—surprisingly enough—but even I wouldn't call it a thriller. (And my definition stretches far: I have on occasion been know to call the likes of Bergson's 'Time and Free Will' and Camus's 'Myth of Sisyphus' thrillers.)
October 8, 2015
Αυτό το βιβλίο είναι το καλύτερο εργαλείο ανάλυσης του δυσλειτουργικού πολιτικού-οικονομικού συστήματος που ονομάζεται καπιταλισμός. Απλά νιώθω ρίγος για το μυαλό που το έγραψε!
January 13, 2025
«Capitalist production… reproduces the separation between labour-power and the means of labour. It thereby reproduces and perpetuates the condition for exploiting the labourer. It incessantly forces him, to sell his labour-power in order to live, and enables the capitalist to purchase labour-power in order that he may enrich himself. It is no longer a mere accident, that capitalists and labourer confront each other in the market as buyer and seller… In reality, the labourer belongs to capital before he has sold himself to capital. His economical bondage is both brought about and concealed by the periodic sale of himself, by his change of masters, and by the oscillations in the market price of labour-power.» - Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Chapter XXIII.
April 15, 2019
هذا الرجل يزعم في فلسفته أنه من لا يعمل لا يأكل . وإذا نظرنا إلى سيرة حياته وجدناه امرأً يكثر من الاستعانة بأبيه وأمه وصديقه في الحياة والمذهب ( أنجلز ) . وعائلته كلها ( لا يعلم بحالها إلا الله ) فهم جميعاً عصبة من ( الطُّفَيليين ) واللصوص والكذبة . ثم إن صاحب المذهب إذا لم يكن يعمل بمبادئ مذهبه لا يُقتَدى به .
March 14, 2011
Extraordinary in ambition, scope and coverage, but a really difficult read. I highly recommend David Harvey's lectures (http://davidharvey.org/reading-capital/) as a companion, if you plan to make the effort.
February 8, 2017
El Santo Grial de las finanzas, según sé.
Algunas cosas ya no son aplicables, pero te enseña desde la teoría de la práctica, hasta la psicología del trabajo y de las COSAS. Lo recomiendo como básico en esto del dinero, el trabajo, etc.
Algunas cosas ya no son aplicables, pero te enseña desde la teoría de la práctica, hasta la psicología del trabajo y de las COSAS. Lo recomiendo como básico en esto del dinero, el trabajo, etc.
October 10, 2018
La edición que leí no es aquella que aparece en mi revisión; entiendo que es una síntesis.
Ahora, si bien trata temas económicos con algún grado de complejidad, lo más memorable del trabajo de Marx es el haber identificado la crisis por la cual estaba atravesando la sociedad europea, luego de iniciada la revolución industrial. Muchos de sus postulados se tradujeron en limitantes al uso y abuso de la relación de los empleadores con sus trabajadores, lo cual fue recogido por el derecho laboral posterior. Ahora, independientemente de calificación política que pueda tener el texto, es sin duda un antecedente histórico relevante para la historia de la humanidad. No obstante, a mi juicio en la actualidad no puede tener la misma fuerza que en el pasado simplemente pro cuanto las relaciones laborales y la vinculación del ser humano con el capital han cambiado drásticamente, en especial por los derechos económicos, sociales y culturales y el rol tanto del Estado como de la empresa privada. Solo basta mirar a la China actual para darse cuenta de ello. Asimismo, y si bien este concepto no se trata directamente en esta obra (pero si de manera tangencial), todas esas necesidades de los trabajadores se vinculan con las denominadas “condiciones materiales de existencia”, las que subordinan sus anhelos, inquietudes y necesidades precisamente a la manera en las cuales estas estén o no cubiertas, lo que, de alguna forma, hizo que el comunismo no prosperará y desapareciera como forma de gobierno (salvo algunos casos), ya que las condiciones existentes en el siglo XIX han tenido un cambio sustancial en estos 150 años. Muy interesante.
Ahora, si bien trata temas económicos con algún grado de complejidad, lo más memorable del trabajo de Marx es el haber identificado la crisis por la cual estaba atravesando la sociedad europea, luego de iniciada la revolución industrial. Muchos de sus postulados se tradujeron en limitantes al uso y abuso de la relación de los empleadores con sus trabajadores, lo cual fue recogido por el derecho laboral posterior. Ahora, independientemente de calificación política que pueda tener el texto, es sin duda un antecedente histórico relevante para la historia de la humanidad. No obstante, a mi juicio en la actualidad no puede tener la misma fuerza que en el pasado simplemente pro cuanto las relaciones laborales y la vinculación del ser humano con el capital han cambiado drásticamente, en especial por los derechos económicos, sociales y culturales y el rol tanto del Estado como de la empresa privada. Solo basta mirar a la China actual para darse cuenta de ello. Asimismo, y si bien este concepto no se trata directamente en esta obra (pero si de manera tangencial), todas esas necesidades de los trabajadores se vinculan con las denominadas “condiciones materiales de existencia”, las que subordinan sus anhelos, inquietudes y necesidades precisamente a la manera en las cuales estas estén o no cubiertas, lo que, de alguna forma, hizo que el comunismo no prosperará y desapareciera como forma de gobierno (salvo algunos casos), ya que las condiciones existentes en el siglo XIX han tenido un cambio sustancial en estos 150 años. Muy interesante.
May 20, 2018
The historical significanse of this book is immense and the ideas are quite interesting and thought provoking, but the book is such a BORING piece of literature that i wanted to stop reading multiple times. The first half of the book is basically the explanation of the general economy in excrutiating detail and it's very hard to read. The second half dives down into the more interesting stuff about "capitalist class exploiting worker class" so that part was more interesting. So if your interest in this book was based on the question "hey i wonder what Marx had to say on communist ideas" read the wikipedia article of the book and you will get the jist of it without losing your time on a very VERY slow and technical read. So 2 stars from me.
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March 20, 2018This is a fairly neat abridgment (as far as I can tell, not having read any other). The layout is clear and well-annotated, and the selections from non-Vol.1 materials are helpful in elucidating the prior content. I do feel that the chapter on primitive accumulation was cut down a little more than necessary, but this is specifically in relation to my own reasons for reading Capital, which may not be applicable to the majority of readers.
January 10, 2022
Abandoning this abridged version in favour of the audiobooks...
March 30, 2023
3.5
probs right but kinda boring
probs right but kinda boring
February 17, 2024
DNF. Poorly written, dull as dirt, and Marx is dripping with contempt for those superior to him (which is nearly everyone, honestly). Let's leave this in the past where it belongs.
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