Capital, Volume I

Contents

1. Editor’s Note to the First American Edition (1906) 7 min 4

   Ernest Untermann introduces the first American edition. He explains Marx’s original plan for Capital, how Engels completed Volumes II and III from Marx’s manuscripts, and how Kautsky took over the material for Theories of Surplus-Value. He warns that the English edition of 1886 was often mistaken for the complete work, and explains that this edition compares the Moore–Aveling translation with Engels’s revised fourth German edition and adds about ten pages of new text.

2. Preface to the First German Edition (1867) 11 min 16

   Marx introduces the first volume. He warns that beginnings are hard, especially the analysis of the commodity, and explains why he uses England as his main example: it is the classic ground of capitalist production, and “the country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future.” He praises English factory inspectors, predicts that a radical change is coming, and says he treats individuals only as personifications of economic categories, not as personally responsible for social relations.

3. Afterword to the Second German Edition (1873) 22 min 24

   Marx surveys the reception of Capital. He explains how political economy declined into “vulgar” apologetics once class struggle became open after 1830, describes the book’s reception in Germany and Russia, and quotes at length a Russian reviewer’s description of his method. He then states his relation to Hegel: his dialectic is the “direct opposite” of Hegel’s, which “is standing on its head” and must be turned “right side up again” to find “the rational kernel within the mystical shell.”

4. Engels’s Preface to the English Edition (1886) 11 min 9

   Engels introduces the first English translation, by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, and explains the difficulties of translating Marx’s terms. He notes that Capital is often called “the Bible of the working class” on the Continent, and argues, in the depression of the 1880s, that England is the one European country where social revolution might be carried out by peaceful and legal means, though Marx did not expect the English ruling class to submit without a “pro-slavery rebellion.”

5. Engels’s Preface to the Fourth German Edition (1890) 16 min 7

   Engels describes his corrections for the fourth German edition, then recounts at length the controversy started in 1872 by an anonymous attack accusing Marx of misquoting a Gladstone budget speech. The anonymous writer was later revealed as the economist Lujo Brentano, and the charge was revived in 1883 by Sedley Taylor of Cambridge. Engels shows that Marx’s wording agreed with several newspaper reports of the 1863 speech, though not with Hansard, and recounts Eleanor Marx’s replies, concluding that no one would dare to question Marx’s literary conscientiousness again.

6. 1 Commodities 2 h 4 min 89

   The book opens with the commodity, the “elementary form” of capitalist wealth. A commodity has use-value (it is useful) and exchange-value (it can be exchanged in definite proportions). What commodities have in common is that they are products of human labour, and their value is determined by the socially necessary labour-time needed to produce them. Labour itself has a double character: concrete, useful labour produces use-values; abstract human labour creates value. Section 3 traces the forms of value, from a simple exchange of linen for a coat to money. Section 4, on the “fetishism of commodities,” argues that in a market society social relations between people appear as relations between things, and the products of labour seem to have a life of their own.

7. 2 Exchange 20 min 27

   Commodities cannot go to market by themselves: their owners must meet as legal persons who recognise each other as private proprietors. Every owner wants to exchange for something useful to them, yet values must be compared socially. The contradiction is solved in practice by setting one commodity apart as the universal equivalent: money. Money is a product of exchange, not a convention, and its apparent magic is the fetishism of commodities in its most dazzling form.

8. 3 Money, or the Circulation of Commodities 1 h 56 min 100

   Marx examines money’s functions. As a measure of value, gold expresses the values of commodities as prices; as means of circulation, it mediates the sale of one commodity and purchase of another (C–M–C), a process that also creates the possibility of crises when sale and purchase come apart. The chapter discusses the velocity of money, coins and paper money as symbols of gold, hoarding, money as means of payment (and credit-based crises), and world money, gold moving between nations.

9. 4 The General Formula for Capital 23 min 25

   Simple circulation of commodities (C–M–C: sell in order to buy) ends in a use-value. Circulation of capital (M–C–M′: buy in order to sell dearer) starts and ends in money, and makes sense only if more money comes out than went in. The increment is surplus-value; value that expands itself in this way is capital. Its movement is endless, and the capitalist is capital personified, driven not by use but by the restless pursuit of profit.

10. 5 Contradictions in the General Formula of Capital 25 min 35

    Where does surplus-value come from? Not from exchange as such: if equivalents are exchanged no one gains, and if one party cheats, the other loses, so the class of capitalists as a whole cannot enrich itself by cheating. Merchant and usurer capital seem to violate this, but are derivative forms. The puzzle is posed: capital must arise in circulation and yet not in circulation.

11. 6 The Buying and Selling of Labour-Power 22 min 29

    The answer lies in a unique commodity: labour-power, the capacity to work. For it to be on the market, the worker must be “free” in a double sense: free to sell it as a person, and free of any means of production with which to work independently, a condition produced by history, not nature. The value of labour-power is the labour-time needed to produce the worker’s means of subsistence, which include a “historical and moral element.” The chapter ends with Marx leaving the sphere of exchange, “a very Eden of the innate rights of man,” for the “hidden abode of production.”

12. 7 The Labour-Process and the Process of Producing Surplus-Value 55 min 40

    The labour-process in general is the purposeful activity by which humans transform nature; the architect, unlike the bee, raises the structure in imagination first. Under capitalism it is also a process of creating value: the capitalist controls the work and owns the product. Marx works through the example of yarn: the worker’s labour reproduces the value of labour-power in part of the day and creates surplus-value in the rest, since the capitalist pays the value of a day’s labour-power but uses it for a whole day. Everything is exchanged at value, and yet surplus-value results.

13. 8 Constant Capital and Variable Capital 30 min 17

    The means of production (machinery, raw materials) transfer their own value to the product but add no new value: Marx calls this constant capital. The part of capital spent on labour-power both reproduces its own value and creates surplus-value: variable capital. The same labour does both at once, preserving old value through its concrete character and adding new value through its abstract character.

14. 9 The Rate of Surplus-Value 48 min 29

    The rate of surplus-value is surplus-value divided by variable capital, or surplus labour divided by necessary labour: an exact measure of the degree of exploitation. Marx illustrates with a spinning mill and refutes the claim of Nassau Senior that the factory’s entire profit is made in the “last hour” of the working day, an argument used against shortening hours.

15. 10 The Working Day 2 h 35 min 214

    The length of the working day is not fixed by the law of exchange: the capitalist asserts the buyer’s right to use labour-power as long as possible, the worker the seller’s right to limit it, and “between equal rights force decides.” Using factory inspectors’ reports, Marx documents the hunger for surplus labour in English industries, night work and relays, and the struggle from the 14th-century statutes that lengthened the working day to the Factory Acts of 1833–1864 that limited it, and the ten-hours agitation. He concludes that the normal working day is the product of a protracted class struggle, and that “labour cannot emancipate itself in the white skin where in the black it is branded.”

16. 11 Rate and Mass of Surplus-Value 24 min 15

    The mass of surplus-value depends on the rate of surplus-value and the number of workers employed. Raising one can compensate for a fall in the other, within limits. Not every sum of money can become capital: a minimum is needed for the owner to stop working and live from others’ labour. Here quantity turns into quality, and capital becomes command over labour.

17. 12 The Concept of Relative Surplus-Value 25 min 19

    Surplus-value can be increased not only by lengthening the working day (absolute surplus-value) but also by shortening the necessary part of it, by cheapening the goods that workers consume (relative surplus-value). This requires raising the productivity of labour. Individual capitalists innovate to gain extra surplus-value temporarily; the general result is a fall in the value of labour-power.

18. 13 Co-Operation 34 min 36

    Capitalist production begins when many workers work together under one capitalist. Co-operation creates a new collective productive power, saves on means of production and requires direction, which under capitalism becomes the capitalist’s despotic command. The productive power of co-operation appears as a power of capital, since the workers are united only after they are sold to the capitalist.

19. 14 Division of Labour and Manufacture 1 h 13 min 84

    Manufacture, dominant from the mid-16th to the late 18th century, is based on the division of labour within the workshop. Handicrafts are broken into partial operations, each done by a specialised “detail labourer.” Productivity rises, but the worker is crippled into a fragment. Marx distinguishes the division of labour in society, coordinated by the market, from that in the workshop, coordinated by the capitalist’s authority, and cites Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson on the mental degradation it causes.

20. 15 Machinery and Modern Industry 5 h 22 min 320

    The longest chapter. Machinery, a system of tools driven by a motor, transforms the labour-process: the worker becomes an appendage of the machine. Marx examines the value machinery transfers to the product; how it lets capital employ women and children, prolong the working day and intensify labour; the factory as a barracks under despotic discipline; the Luddites’ struggle against machines; the theory that machinery compensates displaced workers, which Marx rejects; the effect on handicrafts, domestic industry and agriculture; and the Factory Acts’ health and education clauses. Modern industry constantly revolutionises production and so needs a versatile worker, a possibility that capitalism realises only through insecurity and crises.

21. 16 Absolute and Relative Surplus-Value 27 min 23

    Marx reviews the concepts of absolute and relative surplus-value. In a broad sense all labour that produces surplus-value is productive labour under capitalism, whether the worker teaches children or makes sausages. Surplus labour depends on a natural basis, the productivity of labour, but productivity does not explain surplus-value: that requires a social relation in which workers must work beyond what they need for themselves.

22. 17 Changes of Magnitude in the Price of Labour-Power and in Surplus-Value 30 min 20

    How the price of labour-power and surplus-value change with three variables: the length of the working day, the intensity of labour, and the productivity of labour. Marx works through each case singly and in combination, showing, for instance, that rising productivity can raise both real wages and surplus-value, while the worker’s share of the product falls.

23. 18 Various Formulæ for the Rate of Surplus-Value 8 min 9

    A short chapter criticising formulas used by classical economists that express surplus labour as a share of the whole product or working day. These conceal the true degree of exploitation, which is the ratio of surplus labour to necessary labour.

24. 19 The Transformation of the Value (And Respectively the Price) of Labour-Power into Wages 18 min 18

    On the surface of society, the wage appears as the price of labour itself, payment for the whole working day. This form hides the division between necessary labour and surplus labour; all labour appears paid. Marx argues that all the juridical notions of both worker and capitalist, and all the illusions of freedom, rest on this form of appearance.

25. 20 Time-Wages 16 min 22

    Time-wages: labour-power sold by the day or hour. The price of labour falls when hours are lengthened, and capitalists can manipulate hourly rates and working time. Overtime pay often makes long days compulsory. Low hourly prices lead to longer hours, which in turn lower the hourly price.

26. 21 Piece-Wages 16 min 29

    Piece-wages are a converted form of time-wages, but more suited to capitalist production: they measure intensity automatically, make supervision largely unnecessary, encourage the worker to lengthen hours and intensify work, and permit subcontracting and the sweating system. Marx traces their use in English industry, in which piece rates were cut as productivity rose.

27. 22 National Differences of Wages 12 min 9

    Comparing wages between nations requires accounting for prices of necessities, education costs, women’s and children’s labour, and intensity and productivity of labour. Nations where productivity is higher may have higher money wages and yet a higher rate of exploitation. Marx criticises Henry Carey’s attempt to show that wages rise with productivity everywhere.

28. 23 Simple Reproduction 35 min 33

    Production is a continuous process, which means it also reproduces its own social conditions. Over time even the capital the capitalist initially advanced is converted into accumulated surplus-value, and the workers’ own products pay their wages. The worker’s individual consumption reproduces labour-power for capital, and capitalist production reproduces the separation between labour-power and the means of production: the wage-labourer is bound to capital by “invisible threads.”

29. 24 Conversion of Surplus-Value into Capital 1 h 18 min 84

    Surplus-value converted into capital: the conditions of production expand. The laws of commodity exchange turn into their opposite: property now appears as the right of the capitalist to appropriate others’ unpaid labour. Marx criticises the classical view that all saved revenue is consumed by productive workers, and Nassau Senior’s theory that profit is the reward of “abstinence”; he satirises the capitalist torn between accumulation and enjoyment: “Accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets!”

30. 25 The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation 4 h 3 min 205

    The general law of accumulation. With rising productivity the composition of capital changes: more means of production per worker. Accumulation and the centralisation of capital proceed hand in hand. As capital grows, demand for labour grows more slowly, creating a relative surplus population, an “industrial reserve army” that pulls down wages and supplies labour for booms. Its layers are floating, latent and stagnant, with pauperism at the bottom. Accumulation of wealth at one pole is accumulation of misery at the other. Marx illustrates with official statistics for 1846–1866: English industry, the agricultural proletariat, the nomadic labourers, the effect of crises, and the depopulation of Ireland.

31. 26 The Secret of Primitive Accumulation 9 min 9

    Part VIII opens. Accumulation presupposes capital, which presupposes accumulation: the circle can be broken only by a previous “primitive” accumulation. Economists present it as an idyll of diligent savers and lazy spendthrifts; in reality it is a history of conquest, enslavement and robbery. Primitive accumulation is the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production, written “in letters of blood and fire.”

32. 27 Expropriation of the Agricultural Population from the Land 32 min 49

    The expropriation of the English peasantry, from the dissolution of feudal retinues and the enclosures of the 15th and 16th centuries, through the Reformation’s seizure of Church lands and the Glorious Revolution’s theft of Crown lands, to the parliamentary enclosures of the 18th century and the clearing of estates in the 19th, most violently the Highland Clearances in Scotland.

33. 28 Bloody Legislation Against the Expropriated, from the End of the 15th Century. Forcing Down of Wages by Acts of Parliament 20 min 17

    The expropriated were not absorbed by manufacture, and became beggars, robbers and vagabonds. From Henry VII onward, legislation whipped, branded, enslaved and executed them into the discipline of wage labour. Laws also fixed maximum wages and banned combinations of workers, from the 1349 Statute of Labourers to the Combination Acts and France’s Le Chapelier Law. Once capitalism is established, “the dull compulsion of economic relations” does the work.

34. 29 Genesis of the Capitalist Farmer 4 min 5

    The capitalist farmer emerged from the bailiff and the share-cropping tenant. Long leases, the price revolution of the 16th century, which raised farm prices while rents were fixed, and the usurpation of common land enriched farmers at the expense of both labourers and landlords.

35. 30 Reaction of the Agricultural Revolution on Industry. Creation of the Home Market for Industrial Capital 10 min 13

    Expropriation released means of subsistence and raw materials as well as people, which became elements of variable and constant capital. It also created a home market: households that once produced their own goods now had to buy them. Manufacture began this process, and modern industry completed it by separating agriculture from rural domestic industry.

36. 31 Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist 29 min 32

    The industrial capitalist emerged not only from small masters but from usurer’s and merchant’s capital, liberated by the dissolution of feudalism. The decisive moments were systematically combined in England by the end of the 17th century: the colonial system (conquest and plunder of the Americas, India and the East Indies, and the slave trade), the national debt, modern taxation and protectionism. Force is “the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one.” Capital comes into the world “dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.”

37. 32 Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation 8 min 8

    Marx’s summary of the historical tendency. Private property based on the producer’s own labour was destroyed and replaced by capitalist private property based on others’ labour. Capital centralises, socialises production and creates a growing, organised working class. Eventually centralisation and socialised labour become incompatible with their capitalist integument: “The expropriators are expropriated.” This “negation of the negation” establishes not private property for the producer but individual property based on co-operation and common possession of land and the means of production.

38. 33 The Modern Theory of Colonisation 23 min 32

    In the colonies the secret of capitalism is exposed. Where land is free, workers become independent farmers and capital cannot find wage-labourers. Edward Gibbon Wakefield’s theory of “systematic colonisation” proposed a high price for land to force immigrants to work for wages; Marx uses it to show that capital is “a social relation between persons” and that capitalist property rests on the expropriation of the labourer.