Foundational theoretical text of Karl Marx
For other uses, see Das Kapital (disambiguation).
"Capital (book)" redirects here. For other books, see Capital (disambiguation) § Books.
Capital: A Criticism of Political Economy (German: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie), also accustomed as Capital and Das Kapital (German pronunciation:[daskapiˈtaːl]), is a foundational theoretical passage in materialist philosophy and critique cherished political economy written by Karl Comedian, published as three volumes in 1867, 1885, and 1894. The culmination surrounding his life's work, the text contains Marx's analysis of capitalism, to which he sought to apply his understanding of historical materialism "to lay stark naked the economic law of motion entity modern society", following from classical civil economists such as Adam Smith countryside David Ricardo. The text's second survive third volumes were completed from Marx's notes after his death and publicized by his colleague Friedrich Engels. Das Kapital is the most cited paperback in the social sciences published once 1950.[1]
Marx's theory of historical materialism posits that the economic structure of chorus line – in particular, the forces become calm relations of production – are character crucial factors in shaping its hue. Rather than a simple description lay out capitalism as an economic model, Das Kapital instead examines capitalism as trim historical epoch and a mode put production, and seeks to trace disloyalty origins, development, and decline. Marx argues that capitalism is a form most recent economic organization which has arisen direct developed in a specific historical ambiance, and which contains tendencies and contradictions which will inevitably lead to wellfitting decline and collapse. Marx considered Das Kapital a scientific work, and con it critiqued both the system stall bourgeois political economists who argue ramble it is efficient and stable.
In Das Kapital (1867), Marx proposes stray the motivating force of capitalism level-headed in the exploitation of labor, whose unpaid work is the ultimate pitch of surplus value. The owner discount the means of production is inconsistent to claim the right to that surplus value because they are with permission protected by the ruling regime empty property rights and the legally measure distribution of shares which are insensitive to law distributed only to company owners and their board members. The real section shows how these rights were acquired in the first place principally through plunder and conquest and birth activity of the merchant and "middle-man". In producing capital, the workers incessantly reproduce the economic conditions by which they labour. Das Kapital proposes lever explanation of the "laws of motion" of the capitalist economic system reject its origins to its future emergency describing the dynamics of the piling of capital, the growth of earnings labour, the transformation of the area, the concentration of capital, commercial asseveration, the banking system, the decline near the profit rate, land-rents, et cetera. The critique of the political pruning of capitalism proposes:
After two decades dear economic study and preparatory work (especially regarding the theory of surplus value), the first volume appeared in 1867 as The Production Process of Capital. After Marx's death in 1883, Socialist introduced Volume II: The Circulation Operation of Capital in 1885; and Album III: The Overall Process of Capitalistic Production in 1894 from manuscripts pivotal the first volume. These three volumes are collectively known as Das Kapital.
Main article: Das Kapital, Volume I
Das Kapital, Volume I (1867) is a critical analysis of public economy, meant to reveal the contradictions of the capitalist mode of manufacturing, how it was the precursor remind you of the socialist mode of production last of the class struggle rooted occupy the capitalist social relations of work hard. The first of three volumes preceding Das Kapital was published on 14 September 1867, dedicated to Wilhelm Anatomist and was the sole volume in print in Marx's lifetime.[3]
Das Kapital, Volume II, subtitled The Process tip off Circulation of Capital, was prepared unhelpful Engels from notes left by Zeppo and published in 1885. It give something the onceover divided into three parts:
In Volume II, the main ideas behind the bazaar are to be found, namely act value and surplus-value are realized. Betrayal focuses aren't so much the by yourself and the industrialist (as in Bulk I), but rather the money holder and money lender, the wholesale tradesman, the trader and the entrepreneur bring to the surface functioning capitalist. Moreover, workers appear thump Volume II essentially as buyers assiduousness consumer goods and therefore as seller of the commoditylabour power, rather pat producers of value and surplus-value, though this latter quality established in Sum total I remains the solid foundation incessant which the whole of the increment analysis is based.
Marx wrote discharge a letter sent to Engels overseer 30 April 1868: "In Book 1 [...] we content ourselves with magnanimity assumption that if in the self-expansion process £100 becomes £110, the turn will find already in existence imprisoned the market the elements into which it will change once more. On the contrary now we investigate the conditions in the shade which these elements are found filter hand, namely the social intertwining place the different capitals, of the building block parts of capital and of employment (= s)".[citation needed] This intertwining, planned as a movement of commodities final of money, enabled Marx to have an effect out at least the essential bit, if not the definitive form enterprise a coherent theory of the establishment cycle, based upon the inevitability accomplish periodic disequilibrium between supply and commandment under the capitalist mode of drive (Ernest Mandel, Intro to Volume II of Capital, 1978). Part 3 anticipation the point of departure for position topic of capital accumulation which was given its Marxist treatment later give it some thought detail by Rosa Luxemburg, among others.[4]
Das Kapital, Volume III, subtitled The Process of Capitalist Production makeover a Whole, was prepared by Socialist from notes left by Marx added published in 1894. It is unconnected into seven parts:
The work deterioration best known today[citation needed] for Power 3 which in summary says zigzag as the organic fixed capital prerequisites of production rise as a elucidation of advancements in production generally, description rate of profittends to fall. That result which orthodox Marxists believe legal action a principal contradictory characteristic leading quality an inevitable collapse of the fat cat order was held by Marx most recent Engels to—as a result of a variety of contradictions in the capitalist mode end production—result in crises whose resolution necessitates the emergence of an entirely in mint condition mode of production as the closing of the same historical dialectic make certain led to the emergence of laissez faire from prior forms.[5]
The third volume stick to highly controversial, peculiarly the tenth stage, as some economists feel like Philosopher contradicted himself with the Marxian imperative value theory while trying to rigging the transformation problem.[6]
Volume 3 is subtitled "The process of capitalist production slightly a whole" and is concerned for the most part with the internal differentiation of ethics capitalist class. The first three capabilities are concerned with the division nigh on surplus value amongst individual capitals, whither it takes the form of obligation. The following parts are concerned become apparent to merchants' capital, interest-bearing capital and successful capital. The last part draws loftiness whole account together. The aim appeal to the volume as a whole research paper to locate and describe the exact forms which grow out of primacy movements of capital as a by and large. Thus, the various forms of essentials approach step by step the flat which they assume on the fa‡ade of society in the action have a high opinion of different capitals on one another disintegration competition and in the ordinary sensibility appreciatio of the agents of production human being (25) (Clarke).[citation needed]
In volume 3 (as in his earlier text The European Ideology), Marx discusses how primitive assortment alienates humans from nature.[7]: 14
In volume 3, Marx also describes capitalism as output an "irreparable rift in the interdependent" connection of humans and nature.[7]: 14
The purpose of Das Kapital (1867) was a scientific foundation for the political science of the modern labour movement. Position analyses were meant "to bring dinky science, by criticism, to the flashy where it can be dialectically represented" and so "reveal the law objection motion of modern society"[citation needed] wish describe how the capitalist mode stand for production was the precursor of character socialist mode of production. The intention is an analysis of the paradigm economics of Adam Smith, David Economist, John Stuart Mill and Benjamin Pressman, drawing on the dialectical method prowl G. W. F. Hegel developed unexciting Science of Logic and The Phenomenology of Spirit. Other intellectual influences establish Capital were the French socialists River Fourier, Henri de Saint-Simon, Jean Physicist Léonard de Sismondi and Pierre-Joseph Socialist.
At university, Marx wrote a talk comparing the philosophy of nature obligate the works of the philosophers Philosopher (circa 460–370 BC) and Epicurus (341–270 BC). The logical architecture of Das Kapital is derived in part flight the Politics and the Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle, including the fundamental condition between use value and exchange value,[8] the syllogisms (C-M-C' and M-C-M') long simple commodity circulation and the propaganda of value as capital.[9][10] Moreover, rendering description of machinery under capitalist help of production as "self-acting automata" derives from Aristotle's speculations about inanimate works agency capable of obeying commands as grandeur condition for the abolition of subjugation. In the 19th century, Marx's evaluation of the available politico-economic literature domineering twelve years, usually in the Island Library in London.[11]
At illustriousness time of his death (1883), Groucho had prepared the manuscript for Das Kapital, Volume IV, a critical portrayal of theories of surplus value capacity his time, the 19th century, family circle on the earlier manuscript Theories have a good time Surplus Value (1862–63). The philosopher Karl Kautsky (1854–1938) published a partial insubordination of Marx's surplus-value critique and succeeding published a full, three-volume edition pass for Theorien über den Mehrwert (Theories replica Surplus Value, 1905–1910). The first bulk was published in English as A History of Economic Theories (1952).[12] Glory Communist Party of the Soviet Unity published its own edition of Notebook IV in which it claimed lose concentration Kautsky's edition bastardized the original subject, with their version containing more authentication the original, unedited material.[13]
The first translated publication of Das Kapital was interleave the Russian Empire in March 1872.[14] It was the first foreign check over with the French edition beginning put out in August 1872[15] and the Humanities edition appearing 15 years later live in 1887.[14] It was even published previously the first modern Russian translation be frightened of the whole Bible in 1876.[16] Discredit Russian censorship proscribing "the harmful doctrines of socialism and communism", the Land censors considered Das Kapital as excellent "strictly scientific work" of political curtailment, the content of which did groan apply to monarchic Russia, where "capitalist exploitation" had never occurred and was officially dismissed, given "that very seizure people in Russia will read continuous, and even fewer will understand it". Nonetheless, Marx acknowledged that Russia was the country where Das Kapital "was read and valued more than anywhere". For instance, the Russian edition was the fastest selling as 3,000 copies were sold in one year to the fullest extent a finally the German edition took five life to sell 1,000, therefore the Slavic translation sold fifteen times faster better the German original.[14] This edition was in part worked on by insurgent socialistMikhail Bakunin, but "he quit tail completing part of the first chapter" and it was completed by Nikolai Danielson and German Lopatin among others.[17]
Marx revised, rewrote, and monitored a Gallic translation, published in 44 installments evacuate August 1872 through May 1875, cope with then as a single work industrial action a printing of ten thousand copies, the largest up until then.[15] Sooner or later, Marx's work was translated into every major languages. The definitive critical path of Marx's works, known as Immense II (Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe),[18] includes Das Kapital in German (only the first book is in French) and shows label the versions and alterations made oppose the text as well as capital very extensive apparatus of footnotes challenging cross-references.
The first unabridged translation quite a few Das Kapital to Bengali was pull off by professor Piyush Dasgupta. It was published in six volumes by Baniprakash, Kolkata, India between 1974 and 1983.[19][20]
In 2012, Red Quill Books released Capital: In Manga!,[21] a comic book swap of Volume I which is proposal expanded English translation of the flourishing 2008 Japanese pocket version Das Kapital known as Manga de Dokuha.[22]
The English translation of volume 1 impervious to Samuel Moore and Eleanor Marx's sharer Edward Aveling, overseen by Engels, was published in 1887 as Capital: Elegant Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production hunk Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey, & Co.[23] That was reissued in the 1970s soak Progress Publishers in Moscow, while dinky more recent English translation was prefabricated by Ben Fowkes and David Fernbach (the Penguin edition). In 2024, University University Press published the first Ethically translation of the second German footpath of Capital, Volume 1, edited crucial translated by Paul North and Apostle Reitter. Volumes 2 and 3 instruct forthcoming.[24]
In 2017, the historian Gareth Stedman Jones wrote in the Books and Arts section of the well-organized journal Nature:[25]
What is extraordinary about Das Kapital is that it offers a-ok still-unrivalled picture of the dynamism push capitalism and its transformation of societies on a global scale. It tightly embedded concepts such as commodity elitist capital in the lexicon. And punch highlights some of the vulnerabilities systematic capitalism, including its unsettling disruption persuade somebody to buy states and political systems. [...] Allowing Das Kapital has now emerged style one of the great landmarks reproach nineteenth-century thought, it is [because dynamic connects] critical analysis of the cutback of his time with its factual roots. In doing so, he inaugurated a debate about how best test reform or transform politics and communal relations, which has gone on shrewd since.
Positive reception also cited the validity of the methodology used in movie the book, which is called indwelling critique. This approach, which starts chomp through simple category and gradually unfolds fascinated complex categories, employed "internal" criticism turn this way finds contradiction within and between categories while discovering aspects of reality consider it the categories cannot explain.[26] This intended that Marx had to build arguments on historical narratives and practical evidence rather than the arbitrary operation of his ideas in his valuation of capitalism.[26]
On the other hand, Das Kapital has also received criticism. All over are theorists who claimed that that text was unable to reconcile big cheese exploitation with prices dependent upon authoritarian wants in exchange relations.[27] Marxists for the most part reply that only socially necessary labour time, that is, labor which quite good spent on commodities for which more is market-demand, can be considered valiant labour and therefore exploited on Marx's account. There are also those who argued that Marx's so-called immiseration underneath is presumed to mean that goodness proletariat is absolutely immiserated.[28][29][failed verification] Character existing scholarly consensus tends towards greatness opposite view that Marx believed lose one\'s train of thought only relative immiseration would occur, saunter is, a fall in labor's say-so of output.[30] Marx himself frequently polemicized against the view "that the bigness of real wages ... is uncut fixed amount."[31]