Capital: Volume One A Critique of Political Economy

Capital: Volume One by Karl Marx is a classic of political economics and was described by Friedrich Engels, the author's friend and collaborator, as "the bible of the working class." Thirty years in the making, this 1867 publication was the first in the three-part Das Kapital series and the only volume published during Marx's lifetime. The polemic asserts that society is advancing from primitive economic systems toward the utopian state of communism.
It remains a work of tremendous importance and influence and offers an astute critique of capitalism, exploring commodities, value, money, and other factors related to the system's historic origins and contemporary functions. The examination of these elements forms the basis of Marxist doctrine: the system is irredeemable, a revolution is imperative, and a socialist system is the only viable alternative, providing a structure in which production serves the needs of all rather than the enrichment of the elite.
 

Philosopher and radical thinker Karl Marx (1818–74) was expelled from Germany and France after publishing controversial material, including The Communist Manifesto, which he co-wrote with Friedrich Engels. In 1848, he was exiled to London, where he wrote Das Kapital and resided for the remainder of his life.

Contents

Editor’s Note to the First American Edition
Author’s Prefaces
Editor’s Preface to the First English Translation

Part I. Commodities and Money
Chapter I. Commodities
Chapter II. Exchange
Chapter III. Money, or the Circulation of Commodities

Part II. The Transformation of Money into Capital
Chapter IV. The General Formula for Capital
Chapter V. Contradictions in the General Formula of Capital
Chapter VI. The Buying and Selling of Labour-Power

Part III. The Production of Absolute Surplus-Value
Chapter VII. The Labour Process and the Process of Producing Surplus-Value
Chapter VIII. Constant Capital and Variable Capital
Chapter IX. The Rate of Surplus-Value
Chapter X. The Working-Day
Chapter XI. Rate and Mass of Surplus-Value

Part IV. Production of Relative Surplus-Value
Chapter XII. The Concept of Relative Surplus-Value
Chapter XIII. Co-Operation
Chapter XIV. Division of Labour and Manufacture
Chapter XV. Machinery and Modern Industry

Part V. The Production of Absolute and Relative Surplus-Value
Chapter XVI. Absolute and Relative Surplus-Value
Chapter XVII. Changes of Magnitude in the Price of Labour-Power and in Surplus-Value
Chapter XVIII. Various Formulae for the Rate of Surplus-Value

Part VI. Wages
Chapter XIX. The Transformation of the Value (and respectively the Price) of Labour-Power into Wages
Chapter XX. Time-wages
Chapter XXI. Piece-Wages
Chapter XXII. National Differences of Wages

Part VII. The Accumulation of Capital
Chapter XXIII. Simple Reproduction
Chapter XXIV. Conversion of Surplus-Value into Capital
Chapter XXV. The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation

Part VIII. The Sol-Called Primitive Accumulation
Chapter XXVI. The Secret of Primitive Accumulation
Chapter XXVII. Expropriation of the Agricultural Population from the Land
Chapter XXVIII. Bloody Legislation against the Expropriated from the End of the 15th Century
Chapter XXIX. Genesis of the Capitalist Farmer
Chapter XXX. Reaction of the Agricultural Revolution on Industry
Chapter XXXI. Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist
Chapter XXXII. Historical Tendency of Capitalistic Accumulation
Chapter XXXIII. The Modern Theory of Colonization

Works and Authors Quoted in “Capital”
Index