Capital

Karl Marx was born in 1818 in Trier, Germany and studied in Bonn and Berlin. Influenced by Hegel, he later reacted against idealist philosophy and began to develop his own theory of historical materialism. He related the state of society to its economic foundations and mode of production, and recommended armed revolution on the part of the proletariat. Together with Engels, who he met in Paris, he wrote the Manifesto of the Communist Party. He lived in England as a refugee until his death in 1888, after participating in an unsuccessful revolution in Germany.Ernst Mandel was a member of the Belgian TUV from 1954 to 1963 and was chosen for the annual Alfred Marshall Lectures by Cambridge University in 1978. He died in 1995 and the Guardian described him as 'one of the most creative and independent-minded revolutionary Marxist thinkers of the post-war world.'

• Capital Introduction by Ernest MandelTranslator's PrefacePreface to the First EditionPostface to the Second EditionPreface to the French EditionPostface to the French EditionPreface to the Third Edition (by Engels)Preface to the English Edition (by Engels)Preface to the Fourth Edition (by Engels)BOOK I: THE PROCESS OF PRODUCTION OF CAPITAL Part One: Commodities and MoneyChapter 1: The Commodity1. The Two Factors of the Commodity: Use-Value and Value (Substance of VAlue, Magnitude of Value)2. The Dual Character of the Labour Embodied in Commodities3. The Value-Form, or Exchange-Value(a) The Simple, Isolated, or Accidental Form of Value(1) The two poles of the expression of value: the relative form of value and the equivalent form(2) The relative form of value(i) The content of the relative form of value(ii) The quantitative determinacy of the relative form of value(iii) The equivalent form(iv) The simple form of value considered as a whole(b) The Total or Expanded Form of Value(1) The expanded relative form of value(2) The particular equivalent form(3) Defects of the total or expanded form of value(c) The General Form of Value(1) The changed character of the form of value(2) The development of the relative and equivalent forms of value: their interdependence(3) The transition from the general form of value to the money form(d) The Money Form4. The Fetishism of the Commodity and Its SecretChapter 2: The Process of Exchange Chapter 3: Money, or the Circulation of Commodities1. The Measure of Values2. The Means of Circulation(a) The Metamorphosis of Commodities(b) The Circulation of Money(c) Coin. The Symbol of Value3. Money(a) Hoarding(b) Means of Payment(c) World MoneyPART TWO: THE TRANSFORMATION OF MONEY INTO CAPITAL Chapter 4: The General Formula for CapitalChapter 5: Contradictions in the General FormulaChapter 6: The Sale and Purchase of Labour-PowerPART THREE: THE PRODUCTION OF ABSOLUTE SURPLUS-VALUEChapter 7: The Labour Process and the Valorization Process1. The Labour Process2. The Valorization ProcessChapter 8: Constant Capital and Variable Capital Chapter 9: The Rate of Surplus-Value1. The Degree of Exploitation of Labour-Power2. The Representation of the Value of the Product by Corresponding Proportional Parts of the Product3. Senior's "Last Hour"4. The Surplus ProductChapter 10: The Working Day 1. The Limits of the Working Day2. The Voracious Appetite for Surplus Labour. Manufacturer and Boyar3. Branches of English Industry without Legal Limits to Exploitation4. Day Work and Night Work. The Shift System5. The Struggle for a Normal Working Day. Laws for the Compulsory Extension of the Working Day, from the Middle of the Fourteenth to the End of the Seventeenth Century6. The Struggle for a Normal Working Day. Laws for the Compulsory Limitation of Working Hours. The English Factory Legislation of 1833-647. The Struggle for a Normal Working Day. Impact of the English Factory Legislation on Other CountriesChapter 11: The Rate and Mass of Surplus-Value PART FOUR: THE PRODUCTION OF RELATIVE SURPLUS-VALUEChapter 12: The Concept of Relative Surplus-ValueChapter 13: Co-operationChapter 14: The Division of Labour and Manufacture1. The Dual Origin of Manufacture2. The Specialized Worker and His Tools3. The Two Fundamental Forms of Manufacture - Heterogeneous and Organic4. The Division of Labour in Manufacture, and the Division of Labour in Society5. The Capitalist Character of ManufactureChapter 15: Machinery and Large-Scale Industry 1. The Development of Machinery2. The Value Transferred by the Machinery to the Product3. The Most Immediate Effects of Machine Production on the Worker(a) Appropriation of Supplementary Labour-Power by Capital. The Employment of Women and Children(b) The Prolongation of the Working Day(c) Intensification of Labour4. The Factory5. The Struggle between Worker and Machine6. The Compensation Theory, with Regard to the Workers Displaced by Machinery7. Repulsion and Attraction of Workers through the Development of Machine Production. Crises in the Cotton Industry8. The Revolutionary Impact of Large-Scale Industry on Manufacture, Handicrafts and Domestic Industry(a) Overthrow of Co-operation Based on Handicrafts and on the Division of Labour(b) The Impact of the Factory System on Manufacture and Domestic Industries(c) Modern Manufacture(d) Modern Domestic Industry(e) Transition from Modern Manufacture and Domestic Industry to Large-Scale Industry. The Hastening of this Revolution by the Application of the Factory Acts to those Industries9. The Health and Education Clauses of the Factory Acts. The General Extension of Factory Legislation in England10. Large-Scale Industry and AgriculturePART FIVE: THE PRODUCTION OF ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE SURPLUS-VALUE Chapter 16: Absolute and Relative Surplus-ValueChapter 17: Changes of Magnitude in the Price of Labour-Power and in Surplus-Value1. The Length of the Working Day and the Intensity of Labour Constant; the Productivity of Labour Variable2. The Length of the Working Day and the Productivity of Labour Constant; the Intensity of Labour Variable3. The Productivity and Intensity of Labour Constant; the Length of the Working Day Variable4. Simultaneous Variations in the Duration, Productivity and Intensity of LabourChapter 18: Different Formulae for the Rate of Surplus-Value PART SIX: WAGESChapter 19: The Transformation of the Value (and Respectively the Price) of Labour-Power into WagesChapter 20: Time-WagesChapter 21: Piece-WagesChapter 22: National Differences in WagesPART SEVEN: THE PROCESS OF ACCUMULATION OF CAPITALChapter 23: Simple ReproductionChapter 24: The Transformation of Surplus-Value into Capital1. Capitalist Production on a Progressively Increasing Scale. The Inversion which Converts the Property Laws of Commodity Production into Laws of Capitalist Appropriation2. The Political Economists' Erroneous Conception of Reproduction on an Increasing Scale3. Division of Surplus-Value into Capital and Revenue. The Abstinence Theory4. The Circumstances which, Independently of the Proportional Division of Surplus-Value into Capital and Revenue, Determine the Extent of Accumulation, namely, the Degree of Exploitation of Labour-Power, the Productivity of Labour, the Growing Difference in Amount between Capital Employed and Capital Consumed, and the Magnitude of the Capital Advanced5. The So-Called Labour FundChapter 25: The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation 1. A Growing Demand for Labour-Power Accompanies Accumulation if the Composition of Capital Remains the Same2. A Relative Diminution of the Variable Part of Capital Occurs in the Course of the Further Progress of Accumulation and of the Concentration Accompanying It3. The Progressive Reduction of a Relative Surpluse Population or Industrial Reserve Army4. Different Forms of Existence of the Relative Surplus Population. The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation5. Illustrations of the General Law of Capitalist Accumulation(a) England from 1846 to 1866(b) The Badly Paid Strata of the British Industrial Working Class(c) The Nomadic Population(d) Effect of Crises on the Best Paid Section of the Working Class(e) The British Agricultural Proletariat(f) IrelandPART EIGHT: SO-CALLED PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION Chapter 26: The Secret of Primitive AccumulationChapter 27: The Expropriation of the Agricultural Population from the LandChapter 28: Bloody Legislation against the Expropriated since the End of the Fifteenth Century. The Forcing Down of Wages by Act of ParliamentChapter 29: The Genesis of the Capitalist FarmerChapter 30: Impact of the Agricultural Revolution on Industry. The Creation of a Home Market for Industrial CapitalChapter 31: The Genesis of the Industrial CapitalistChapter 32: The Historical Tendency of Capitalist AccumulationChapter 33: The Modern Theory of ColonizationAppendix: Results of the Immediate Process of Production Introduction by Ernest MandelI. Commodities as the Product of CapitalII. Capitalist Production as the Production of Surplus-ValueIII. Capitalist Production is the Production and Reproduction of the Specifically Capitalist Relations of ProductionIV. Isolated FragmentsQuotations in Languages Other than English and GermanIndex of Authorities QuotedGeneral IndexNote on Previous Editions of the Works of Marx and EngelsChronology of Works by Marx and Engels