Product Description

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 also proved to be the most influential work in social science in the twentieth century; Marx did for social science what Darwin had done for biology. Millions of readers this century have treated Capital as a sacred text, subjecting it to as many different interpretations as the bible itself. No mere work of dry economics, Marx's great work depicts the unfolding of industrial capitalism as a tragic drama - with a message which has lost none of its relevance today. This is the only abridged edition to take account of 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 of Production', and a selection of key chapters from Volume 3, which Engels published in 1895.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #169293 in Books
• Published on: 1999-09-02
• Format: Abridged
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

Customer Reviews

A must read
This book has greatly changed the way I look at the world. It is a captivating and thought provoking read. I think what capitalism is, is hard to define, but this book should give the reader a real feel for what it is, and for why this book changed the world. Marx's intellect is razor sharp! I didn't find it an easy read; It required concentration, and I often had to re-read sections. To anyone who is about to read the book I would suggest making notes during the first section where Marx defines a lot of terminology. It's by far the best book I have read.

Misunderstood masterpiece
Despite the vast numbers of people who have read (or claim to have read!) this book, there is still no real understanding of what it says. In other reviews, and in the books of many right-wing thinkers, the book is criticised for the laws that Marx claimed to have discovered, such as the ever-decreasing law of profit, the law of decreasing wages (although in actual fact Marx said the wages of workers would fall relative to that of capitalists, which is undeniable) and the labour theory of value. However, the book does not stand or fall on these laws, so whether they are correct or not is, to some degree, irrelevant. Marx wrote a melo-drama, an economic parody (Francis Wheen). He points out the absurdity of the system, using irony (the capitalist, 'mr moneybags') and so on. Yes, Marx was too enthralled by science, but so was every 19th century thinker (incl. Adam Smith who agreed with the labour theory of value). The book is a MUST read, not for the accuracy of its scientific laws necessarily but for its brilliant overview of capitalism and its thundering criticism of it, which is still very relevant today in a world where 2 billion people live on less than $2 per day and where crippling debt make any chance of poorer countries working their way out of poverty impossible.

Fascinating and frightening
The book is fascinating because it has exerted so much influence. It is frightening because very few that acted on the theories presented in the book can have properly understood them. When they had understood them they would have found them to be useless. In order to arrive at this conclusion I have read the book thoroughly, which is hard work. The influence of the book derives from the dramatic but accurate description of the way capitalism functioned at the time Marx lived. Apart from a few responsible capitalists such as the Quakers, capitalists were only chasing profit without any consideration of the health of their employees and their families. Acts of parliament to reduce labour hours from 15 hours during six days as well as the extensive use of child labour were fiercely opposed by the capitalists referring to their certain ruin if these laws were passed. Marx writes: "capital never becomes reconciled to such changes". Marx does not point out that the exploitation of farm labourers was just as bad or even worse. Exploitation is as old as civilisation. That is however not a justification for the absence of moral standards.
The economic theory is presented as if it is scientific and that the laws will lead to a replacement of the capitalist system by a superior one. Unfortunately there is no science and the description of the superior system is extremely limited.
What Marx refers to, as laws are hypotheses and effects that are the result of the hypotheses. All examples are based on the idea that a worker works for six hours for a capitalist to earn enough to pay for his subsistence and works another six hours without being paid for by he capitalist. A typical example of a "law" derived from this hypothesis is that when the labour costs of a product declines profits decline. This strange idea is based on the idea that if the total cost of raw materials and machinery depreciation and labour costs are 100 and the labour cost thereof declines from 40 to 20 that the profit also declines from 40 to 20 as paid labour time is equal to unpaid labour time. This leads to the next "law". As the profit declines with increasing investment in equipment the capitalist increases sales more rapidly than the profit percentage declines so that his absolute profit increases. It is obvious that if the volume increases more in percentage than the price declines as a percentage that the absolute profit increases. Marx devotes many pages to explaining this "law". The sentences are however very cumbersome and loaded with emotions that make it very hard work to discover that the laws are mathematical necessities. Marx does not recognise any work having value other than that of manual labour, " only the labourer is productive". He does not consider selling, product development, accounting, figuring out in what to invest, analysing risk taking as work. He therefore considers that all "profit" made is theft from the worker. Marx specifically excludes competition from his theories "actual movement of competition belongs beyond our scope". He nevertheless makes some negative comments like referring to it as " capitalism begets by its anarchical system of competition, the most outrageous squandering of labour power".
As far as the new superior system Marx only writes: "But capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a law of Nature, its own negation". "This does not re-establish private property for the worker but will be based on co-operation and the possession in common of land and of the means of production".
The conclusion "Marxist" countries logically drew from Marxists theories were, (1) the only owner of the means of production can be the state (2) there is no needs for marketing and sales (3) profit can never be justified (4) there is something wrong with competition and that can be avoided by central state planning and (5) our success is assured as our actions are based on scientific laws. In that way they did accept his hypothesis with disastrous effect.
Some examples of emotional language, that makes the book fascinating to read. "Capital pumps the surplus-labour (unpaid working hours) directly out of the labourers", on supervision, " The place of the slave-driver's lash is taken by the overlooker's book of penalties, on profit "the profit made in selling depends on cheating, deceit and inside knowledge" and finally "If money comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek, capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt".

It is fascinating that a book that describes real problems with powerful emotional language can make many intelligent people with good intentions believers without critically analysing the proposed theories. It is frightening that many powerful political leaders applied these theories (with or without good intentions).