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If you have succeeded in reading volit is undoubtedly worth your time persevering with vol.
A lot of commentary write it off as unpublished manuscripts a product more of Engels than Marx as if their was a undividable gulf between the two! and it being an unfinished work is something that has to be considered when reading but many of Marx's most influential writings remained unpublished in his lifetime such as The German Ideology.
The manuscripts were what he was writing on his later years and you can detect the subject areas Marx became enthralled with to complete it, namely anthropology and Mathematics algebra/calculus.
It can be dry, repetitive, laborious at times and some sections are just mere fragments, But overall you come away with a more expansive view of the totality of Capital the various forms it takes within a circuit, an exploration of circulation revolutions in transport and communication and its impact on turnover and the rate of surplus value.
The final part then incorporates these insights into a pioneering macroeconomic modelling of capitalist economies in his reproduction schemas.
I am still in the process of studying these so I will not provide any further interpretation of them but I am exploring the subsequent uses of them in the USSR and I have come to a deeper understanding and appreciation of the complexity of transitioning to a socialist economy.
As so many others have pointed out here, Marx's Capital Vol, II is much more difficult than Vol, !. It's less literary in it's language it's less polemical and so contains little "red meat" for political agitation what this really means is that it contains none of the gripping historical material that grounded Vol.
I and provided such a wonderful context for understanding the theoretical points Marx was making there, Vol. II is much more abstract and theoretical and it contains all that math, especially in the presentation of the reproduction schemas for the simple and expanded reproduction of capital i.
e. capital accumulation. Hence, it is more dry and difficult to plow through, However, Vol. II is still vital for an understanding capital circulation and accumulation because you gain an understanding of how the capitalism is inherently unstable, of why crisis is inherent the capitalist system, and you also gain an understanding of all the possible points where crisis could occur, from blockages in circulation such as problems in turnover time, to the imbalances and disproportionalities between the two major departments of the economy, production of the means of production raw materials, machinery, etc.
and production of the means of consumption consumer goods with overproduction or underproduction in one dept, or the other. This later aspect is why Marx's reproduction schemas are so important and they have been recognized as a major contribution to macroeconomics by even nonMarxist economists.
Another reviewer recommended reading this in conjunction with David Harvey's A Companion To Marx's Capital, Volumenot a bad idea but I would also suggest watching Prof.
Harvey's series of video lectures on Reading Capital Vol, II link: sitelink org/readingcapital/ as you work your way though the text, He will be of great assistance to your comprehension of this difficult material, He will also have you read sections of Vol, III on commercial capital and credit system which are of great importance for understanding the circulation and accumulation of capital in a more concrete "reallife" fashion.
won but at what cost Whatever the social forms of production, workers and the means of production always remain virtual factors, as long as they are separated and do not act.
Only when they united with each other, The particular model of their combination distinguishes the different economic epochs of the social structure, The case which concerns us have characterized by the free worker dissociation and his means of production we have seen how and under what conditions they come together in the capitalist's hands to constitute his productive capital.
The production process that material and personal creators of commodities undertake, brought in this way, becomes a function of money, the nature of which has developed in detail in the first volume of this work.
Each production of commodities becomes, at the same time, exploitation of labour power, Still, it is only with the capitalist production of things that a new era of exploitation begins, which, in its historical development, revolutionizes the whole economic structure of society and incomparably exceeds all previous generations by the organization of the labour process and by the massive growth of the technique.
HALLELUJAH! DONE! Now need therapy, Maybe I'm just tired after reading Volumebut this is easily the worst of the three, If Volumewas a descent into the inferno of production, this is like reaching the very bottom, slowly and carefully treading an infinite sheet of ice so as to avoid the protruding heads of the condemned.
Ok but actually this is very important to Marx's project, especially where he takes up the questions discussed in part, where social reproduction effectively appears as a "free stuff" scheme for capitalists.
It's just that and Engels even notes this in the margins Marx continuously gets bogged down by figures and arithmetic, the importance of which is only vaguely understood in some parts.
Se nota que no está tan refinado como el volumen, Aquí se empieza a
apreciar el cuidado que ponía Marx a la hora de publicar sus libros, Carece de la conexión que te guiaba en el volumen, pero su lógica sigue siendo preciosa,
Ciertamente ayuda leer los capítulos del sistema crediticio como manda Harvey en el curso Aunque duela.
El cerebro se va expandiendo a medida que se te fríe, The "forgotten" second volume of Capital, Marx's worldshaking analysis of economics, politics, and history, contains the vital discussion of commodity, the cornerstone to Marx's theories.
Marx, as one of the main German Idealists and as a radical revolutionary, is taking a serious shot at the capitalist system and at the British political economy.
In the end, it all boils down in explaining how the profit or surplus value is created by the capitalist system.
For Marx, the entire theory of political economy is just concealing the real issue and thus legitimizing the capitalist system.
The truth according to Marx is that the profit is just the unpaid difference between the value of the labor incorporated in the commodities and the wages actually paid by the capitalist to the laborer for his labor.
By not paying the entire sum, the capitalist steals, exploits the laborer, and accumulates more capital, Beside this fundamental topic, there is also this haunting experience of the capitalist system with its commodities, relationships, money, cycles, classes, and so on that acquires an autonomous and monstrous life, pulls everything into itself, and changes everything it touches accordingly.
Not as philosophical, polished, political, poetical, dramatic, and in general not as great as Vol,but a nice reading nevertheless, It's hard to imagine the dedication it must have taken for Engels to sift through Marx's apparently illegible notes and compile this book considering how it came to be, it's shockingly coherent.
Still, it's much harder to read than Volume, which is sprightly and fun,
But no one is reading the second volume of Capital for its sparkling prose, The ideas are here, and it's remarkable how often you can point to a modern economic event and see it explained in a book fromyears ago.
The final section, which might be considered the birth of macroeconomics, is actually pretty engaging, if you're into that sort of thing.
I remember hearing that Aristotle had written a more consumerfriendly version of his philosophy that was lost when the library at Alexandria was destroyed, so all we have left are his notes which is why Plato seems so energetic and Aristotle seems like a snooze.
Whether or not that's true, I think the final two volumes of Capital are a similar situation Marx didn't live long enough to give us the easily digested version, so we need to take what we can from the notes.
So dry, so technical, so boring to be honest,
The subject matter the circulation of capital is no less important than that of volume, but here the political and philosophical considerations take a backseat to economic considerations about very specific and sometimes arcane issues.
Also, this book was constructed posthumously from manuscripts Marx had left, and it does feel much less polished and fluid than volume.
Gone are the interminable footnotes, gone are the literary references and quotations of Greek philosophers, gone are the jests and ironies and Marxs sardonic comments about his contemporaries.
Sometimes in volumeit feels like the book is overexplaining things, but here I was often left wanting more accessible explanations of its premises and conclusions and why does this matter and why are we talking about this now.
What we see here is a much more barebones Marx, the skeleton of his thought process, which is as rich and deep as ever, but for someone who found so much pleasure reading volumeit felt almost sad reading what is but a shadow of Marxs vibrant writing style.
The introduction by Ernst Mandel is also very helpful and insightful both about the significance of some of the books discussions and about the posterioe debates about the subject.
Really wish he had edited this before he died, Also my man badly needed algebra, Huge thanks to John Fox and David Harvey's guide or I would never have finished this, In Das Kapital, Volume, Karl Marx laid out his critique of political economy, According to Marx, all his predecessors and contemporaries had failed to grasp capitalism for what it truly is: value in motion.
Value is created by the exploitation of labourtime in other words: capitalism presupposes the existence of a capitalist and a labour class.
In essence, surplus value s is created by variable capital v transforming constant capital c into new commodities that the capitalist will sell dear on the market.
In Volumeof Das Kapital, Marx zoomed in on how surplus value is created in the production process i.
e. on the exploitation of labourers, In Volume, Marx was determined to set out how capitalism functions as a system of circulating capital: value creating surplus value, surplus value creating more surplus value, etc.
Marx never got to finishing this project as well as Volume, and Friedrich Engels published Volumeout Marx' manuscripts, adding and deleting material here and there.
The result is a very incoherent, unfinished and incomplete work,
But Das Kapital Volumeis not only incomplete, it is also very abstract, This has nothing to do with the state of Volumewhen Marx passed away it has everything to do with Marx' approach to present the material.
In essence: Marx uses the method of critical analysis to study capitalism and discover the natural laws determining this economic system.
He does this out of necessity, since he wants to offer a scientific analysis of capitalism, The scientist wants to do controlled experiments i, e. singling out one variable for variation, while holding all other variables constant, This is, of course, impossible to achieve in economics, This, by the way, is a problem that still pesters modern day economics some critics use this problem to argue that economics isn't even a science.
Anyway, Marx studies capitalism on a very abstract, general level, He then zooms in on particular phenomena, and assumes all other interrelated phenomena are given, So when he presents his results, one has always to add this caveat to his conclusions, By following this method, he discovers interesting lawlike tendencies in the capitalist system and interesting questions that were never before raised by scientists.
For example, the aim of capital is to reduce the time spent on producing commodities i, e. the working period and the time spent on buying and selling commodities i, e. the circulation period. Why The faster the process in which a given capital is applied to create surplus value and is again reinvested i.
e. the turnover rate, the more profit the capitalist makes, One can only discover this lawlike tendency in capitalism by zooming in on the cycle of circulation, production and again circulation of commodities.
In partof Volume, Marx explains the three forms in which capital exists:money capital,production capital andcommodity capital.
Capital takes on these forms successively in the system of capitalism, The three processes associated with these three forms of capital are circulation of money, production of commodities containing surplus value and circulation of the produced commodities.
Then, in partof Volume, Marx zooms in on how the individual capitalist is affected by the aforementioned forms and processes of capitalism all the while ignoring technological change, competition, credit, etc.
The individual capital consists of the means of production constant capital, labourtime cariable capital and the created value surplus value.
This was already outlined in Volume, Now Marx makes a new distinction, between fixed and circulating capital, The interplay and peculiarities of fixed and circulating capital are what truly determines the movement of capital,
Fixed capital transfers its use value, at the hands of the labourer, step by step onto the commodities that are produced.
Once the use value of the fixed capital is completely transformed into commodities i, e. the machine is used up, the capitalist has earned back all his capital spent on this fixed capital, With this capital, the capitalist then buys a new machine, Of course, once one includes continuous technological improvements and inventions leading to cheaper and more efficient machines as well as competition by other capitalists, it's easy to see that there's an inherent drive in the capitalist system of production to reduce the turnover rate i.
e. the time in which the capitalist completely earns back his invested money, If you buy a machine fordollars, which is completely used up inyears, you earn back each yeardollars of your original investment.
I. e. the turnover rate of this machine isyears, But once some competitor buys new, cheaper and/or more efficient machinery in the third year, your machine will be worth less on the market, you will not get back the original capital you spend on your machine, so you lose capital.
The quicker you wear out your machine, the safer you are, and the more profit you will make, How to achieve this By institutinghour working days, by making labourers work in shifts, by not stopping machines even for repairs, etc.
Marx uses a major part of partto criticize earlier economists like Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Francois Quesnay.
According to Marx, these economists have failed to grasp capitalism for what it truly is: a system of creating surplus value C cvs.
They all focused on the distinction between fixed and circulating capital, failing to see how the distinction between constant means of production, variable labour time and surplus capital surplus value is the truly important one to understand capitalism.
Surplus s gets created out of nothing by making labourers v work on the means of production m, Once you understand this, and understand the difference between the makeup of capital on the one hand and the type of capital fixed and circulating on the other hand, you truly grasp capitalism for what it is: exploitation of labour, or even more crudly, the existence of class relations.
The system of individual capital can be described in terms of the time necessary to produce commodities production time, including the working period and the time necessary to buy the commodities necessary to produce and the time time necessary to sell your newly produced commodities on the market both circulation time.
Since capital is value in motion, the system of production and circulation has to keep running, And this is where the biggest flaw in Marx' terms a fatal contradiction in capitalism lies, We know from experience that it takes time and effort to buy and sell products, that markets fluctuate, that stocks will form, that production will require more time than simply the time to produce a product e.
g. trees have to grow, cattle has to be raised, etc,
This is where the credit system comes in, The individual capitalist will need more money than is simply required for production he will need money to buy a stock of commodities in order to keep the production process going, to produce new commodities when the old batch is brought to the market, etc.
So banks and speculative investors will loan the capitalist money, or he will put in more of his own money, in order to keep the process of production and circulation going.
But the credit system can only do so much, It can temporarily smoothen things a bit, but it cannot solve the inherent flaws of the system, When stocks start to accumulate on the market, prices will tend to drop, hence surplus value will be destroyed, and since this is someone's capital the merchant or the capitalist, problems will erupt.
Similar problems arise when capitalists start to compete with each other, There are many weak spots in the processes of production and circulation that are dangers to the continuous flow of capital and these weak spots are the causes of crises.
According to Marx, consequently, the capitalist mode of production is inherently instable, stable conditions are only temporary events,
Then, in partof Volume, Marx leaves the perspective of the individual capital and he zooms in on the collection of all individual capitals: the social capital.
Social capital just like individual capital consists of constant, variable and surplus capital, There are two major groups, or departments on the level of society:the production of means of production andthe production of the means of consumption.
As any labourer, as well as capitalist, has to consume to keep living, consumption becomes a major component of capitalism on the level of social capital.
The variable and surplus capital of departmentis spent on the constant capital of department: the commodities of departmentform the means of production i.
e. constant capital of department.
At the same time, the variable and surplus capital within departmentare spent on consumption as well since the labourers and capitalists producing means of consumption have to eat as well, so within departmentthe production of means of consumption there's an internal flow of capital as well.
All these flows of capital between departmentandand within departmentare mediated by money this is were the merchant and investor come in.
But where does the constant capital the means of production in departmentthe production of the means of production come from Well, according to Marx this is partly natural resources and partly the product of its own process so departmentproduces the means of production for itself as well.
This is all very technical and abstract, but the main point here is that from the perspective of society, the total surplus value is created by setting to work or exploiting the total variable capital, the labour force, on the total constant capital, the means of production.
Since all people, labourer and capitalist alike, have to eat, live, etc, i. e. consume, the production of the means of consumption emerges on a societal level, So, the highly general process of capitalist production is divided up into the production of the means of production departmentand the production of the means of consumption department.
Both departments are related, in that departmentproduces the necessities for departmentand both departments live of the created use value of departmenti.
e. everyone consumes.
How does capital accumulate, or expand, on a societal level Within department, production of the means of production, this is simple: the labour forces literally creates surplus value for the capitalist.
In other words: the exploitation of the labourer creates 'free' means of production that the capitalist can either sell to capitalists from departmentor use himself to expand the scale of his own production.
The humanity of the people making up departmentforms the basis for the accumulation of capital within department.
The capitalists and workers that produce means of production have to consume in order to produce, They will spend capital on commodities that are produced by departmentthe production of the means of consumption, So workers produce capital that is then used as means of production to produce means of consumption these means of consumption are bought by all people within society.
So we here see a nice, neat cyclical process of consumption and production,
One can see how the analysis of the capitalist mode of production i, e. the circulation of capital through its various stages and forms on the level of society leads to the same conclusion as Marx already drew in Das Kapital Volume, i.
e. that the whole system of creating surplus value is based on the existence of an exploitable labour class, Without the existence of this class, society could never produce surplus value in both departments of production, This, by the way, makes it easy to see what one needs to do in order to destroy capitalism: extinguish the class relations.
Once the class relations disappear, no more surplus value is being created, and hence the capitalist mode of production breaks down.
This is, of course, the message Marx and Engels preach in their Communist Manifesto, this was the aim of their Workers International, and this is what socialists and marxists have tried to put into practice ever since the time of Karl Marx.
Uplifting the labour classes means the destruction of capitalism collective production i, e. communism means the destruction of capitalism forming trade unions and actively working against the fundamentals of capitalist mode of production e.
g. the creation of a reserve army, the suppression of wages, etc, means the destruction of capitalism,
For the record: I am not describing my own opinions here, I am just following Marx's argument to its logical conclusion.
I am glad I reread Das Kapital Volume, since this made me see the ingenuity of Karl Marx' approach to economics.
Even though I don't subscribe to his conclusions I do subscribe to much of his critical analysis of capitalism.
Marx exposes the inherent flaws within this economic system the necessity of continuous circulation of capital and the importance this gives to the global credit system and the dangerous tendencies of capitalism the formation of monopolies, the exploitation of man and nature, the elevation of the means making profits to a goal in and of itself.
Based on the content of both books, I prefer Volumeover Volumethe problem is that Volumeis written a much more accessible style and a more livelier and policially inflammatory way.
Volume, is simply put, a book that doesn't give up its secrets very easily, The question is: does one have the motivation to struggle through this, .