Quiz: Capital, Volume I

All 50 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. 1. What must be done to Hegel’s dialectic, according to the 1873 afterword?

   It must be discarded altogether, since its mystical form makes it worthless to empirical science It must be turned right side up to discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell It must be kept in its Hegelian form and applied directly to political economy It must be purged of its materialism and brought back to Kant’s critical idealism
2. 2. What does Marx call “Moses and the prophets” for the capitalist?

   “Honesty is the best policy” “Buy cheap and sell dear!” “Accumulate, accumulate!” “Laissez faire”
3. 3. What did the old Statutes of Labourers (such as those of 1496 and 1562) try to do?

   Prolong the working day by law Abolish the labour of young children in the towns Shorten the working day for women and children Fix a minimum wage for all artificers
4. 4. What form of robbery of the people does Marx call “parliamentary”?

   The creation of the national debt The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 Protective tariffs on imported corn Enclosure of Commons Acts
5. 5. Whom does Marx quote at the start of the chapter on machinery as doubting that inventions have lightened anyone’s toil?

   Thomas Robert Malthus Jean-Baptiste Say John Stuart Mill Charles Babbage
6. 6. Which “clearing” in the Scottish Highlands does Marx single out?

   The Duchess of Sutherland’s, turning a county of 15,000 inhabitants into a sheep-walk The Earl of Breadalbane’s, turning all of Loch Tay into a deer-forest for English sportsmen The Duke of Argyll’s, turning the island of Tiree into a fishing station and kelp-works Queen Victoria’s, turning the Balmoral estate into a royal park and hunting ground
7. 7. To become a commodity, what must a product be, according to Marx?

   A useful thing made by an independent producer for his own consumption A product of labour handed over to a lord as rent or to a priest as tithe A use-value for others, a social use-value, transferred by exchange A thing having value in itself, whether or not anyone else needs it
8. 8. What role does “primitive accumulation” play in political economy, according to Marx?

   About the same part as original sin in theology A scientific law, like gravitation in physics The role of a moral ideal No role at all
9. 9. How does the wealth of capitalist societies present itself, in the opening sentence of Capital?

   As “an immense accumulation of commodities” As “a vast store of gold, silver and other treasure” As a mass of fixed capital As the labour of the nation
10. 10. With which phrase does Marx end chapter 5, setting the problem of how surplus-value can arise from exchange of equivalents?

    “Caveat emptor, caveat venditor” “Eureka, I have found it!” “Quod erat demonstrandum” “Hic Rhodus, hic salta!”
11. 11. How does Marx describe the sphere of circulation where labour-power is bought and sold?

    A hidden abode of production, bearing over its door the sign “No admittance except on business” A very Eden of the innate rights of man, where rule Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham A temple of Mammon, where rule greed, deceit, usury and the worship of gold A battlefield of rival interests, where rule force, fraud, cunning and the right of the stronger
12. 12. What happened to Mary Anne Walkley, as reported in the London papers in June 1863?

    The 20-year-old milliner died “from simple over-work” She was appointed the first woman factory inspector in London She led a strike of the West End dressmakers for shorter hours She founded a trade union
13. 13. Which example does Marx use to show that a commodity is “a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties”?

    A table that, as a commodity, stands on its head and evolves grotesque ideas from its wooden brain A coin that, as money, speaks of its own value and forgets the mine it was dug from A Bible that, as a commodity, preaches sermons on thrift and abstinence from inside its leather binding A machine that, as capital, dreams of its own profits and sets itself to work through the night unbidden
14. 14. In Marx’s example of the circuit C—M—C, what does the weaver buy with the money from his linen?

    Some bread A new loom A Bible A new coat
15. 15. What does Marx call force in the history of primitive accumulation?

    The foundation of all value and the source of property The enemy of progress, which only peaceful trade advances “The midwife of every old society” A purely political matter, foreign to the economic sphere proper
16. 16. What does the rate of surplus-value express, according to Marx?

    The degree of exploitation of labour-power by capital The rate of profit The rate of interest The productivity of the machinery and tools employed by capital
17. 17. What is the title of Section 4 of chapter 1?

    The Two Factors of a Commodity: Use-Value and Exchange-Value The Labour Theory of Value and the Measure of Labour-Time The Origin of Money The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof
18. 18. Into how many volumes did Marx plan to divide Capital at the time of the first German edition of 1867?

    One Six Two Three
19. 19. What does Marx call “the watchword of every capitalist and of every capitalist nation”?

    “Buy in the cheapest market” “Enrichissez-vous par le travail!” “Laissez faire, laissez passer” “Après moi le déluge!”
20. 20. Which equation does Marx use to analyse the elementary form of value?

    1 quarter of corn = 1 ounce of gold 10 lb. of tea = 1 ton of iron 1 hour = 1 shilling 20 yards of linen = 1 coat
21. 21. What did the “bloody legislation” at the end of the 15th and in the 16th century target?

    Vagabondage, punishing the expropriated as voluntary criminals Recusant Catholics, punishing them as traitors to the Crown Engrossing merchants, punishing them for hoarding corn in times of dearth Foreign traders, punishing them for underselling the native guilds
22. 22. What does Marx call the part of capital represented by means of production, which does not change its value in production?

    Circulating capital Money capital Constant capital Productive capital
23. 23. Whose experiences, “a favourite theme with political economists”, does Marx use to show labour relations without the mystery of commodities?

    Odysseus’s Baron Munchausen’s Captain Lemuel Gulliver’s Robinson Crusoe’s
24. 24. Which event of 1862–63 does Marx list as causing complete collapse in the English cotton industry?

    The Crimean war The Irish famine The repeal of the Corn Laws The American civil war and the cotton famine
25. 25. Which events does Marx say signalled “the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production”?

    The printing press, the compass and gunpowder, which together opened the way for European expansion The steam engine, the spinning-jenny and the power-loom, set to work in the cotton mills The Crusades, the rise of Venice and Genoa, and the opening of the Levant trade to merchants of Europe Gold and silver in America, enslavement of natives, looting of the East Indies, the African slave trade
26. 26. Where does the exchange of commodities first begin, according to Marx?

    In the market towns, where craftsmen first sold their wares to the neighbouring peasants Within the patriarchal family, among members sharing out the household’s labour On the boundaries of communities, where they meet other communities In the temples, where priests stored and traded the offerings of the faithful
27. 27. Who translated Capital, Volume I, into English, according to Engels’s 1886 preface?

    Ernest Untermann (with Eleanor Marx) Daniel De Leon (with Lucien Sanial) Eleanor Marx alone Samuel Moore (with Edward Aveling)
28. 28. What determines the magnitude of a commodity’s value?

    The actual hours worked by each individual producer on that commodity Supply and demand alone The labour-time socially necessary for its production The utility of the commodity
29. 29. What happened to Mr. Peel, who took means of subsistence, production and 3,000 workers from England to the Swan River?

    He founded the city of Perth and became its first mayor He made a great fortune from the sale of wool and land He became the first governor of the Swan River colony in Western Australia He was left without a servant to make his bed
30. 30. What distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees?

    The bee works only by instinct, while the architect works for money and fame He raises the structure in his mind before building it in reality Nothing at all, since both follow a plan that is fixed in them by Nature The architect’s building lasts longer and serves many more purposes than a honeycomb
31. 31. How does Marx describe capital at the opening of “The Working Day”?

    A neutral instrument of production that serves whoever happens to own it The reward for the risk the capitalist runs in advancing his money Dead labour that, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour Accumulated savings, set aside by the capitalist through his own abstinence
32. 32. In which form does the token character of money “stand out plainly”?

    Gold coin of full weight Copper small change Paper money Silver bullion
33. 33. Which system did manufacturers use to evade the limits on hours for children and young persons?

    The piece-wage system The relay system The putting-out system The truck system
34. 34. What is the general formula for capital, as distinct from simple circulation of commodities?

    C—M—C: selling in order to buy C—C: barter M—M: lending M—C—M′: buying in order to sell dearer
35. 35. What does accumulation of wealth at one pole mean at the opposite pole, according to Marx?

    Accumulation of savings, comfort and education among the better-paid workers of the great towns Accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality and mental degradation Accumulation of idleness, vice and luxury among the servants of the rich A gradual rise in the living standards of all classes as the new wealth slowly spreads downward
36. 36. What enters into the value of labour-power, unlike that of other commodities?

    The price of gold A historical and moral element The rate of profit The worker’s skill alone
37. 37. What does Marx tell the German reader who thinks the English conditions described in Capital do not concern him?

    “Nosce te ipsum”: know thyself “Germany is spared these evils” “Wait and see” “De te fabula narratur!”
38. 38. Which “absurd fable” does Marx say manufacture realises, making man a mere fragment of his own body?

    The parable of the talents The myth of Prometheus and the fire Mandeville’s fable of the bees Menenius Agrippa’s fable
39. 39. What does Marx call the ultimate aim of Capital in the 1867 preface?

    To sketch in detail the institutions of the future socialist society To write a history of England To lay bare the economic law of motion of modern society To refute Hegel
40. 40. Whose definition of man as “a tool-making animal” does Marx cite?

    Franklin’s Hegel’s Aristotle’s Smith’s
41. 41. Whose argument that all profit came from the “last hour” of the working day does Marx demolish?

    David Ricardo’s Thomas Malthus’s Nassau W. Senior’s J. R. McCulloch’s
42. 42. What does Marx call the destruction of machinery in the English manufacturing districts in the first fifteen years of the 19th century?

    The Chartist movement The Rebecca riots The Captain Swing riots The Luddite movement
43. 43. What sounds in the chapter on the historical tendency of capitalist accumulation?

    The alarm of a general crisis, after which capital revives stronger The knell of capitalist private property: the expropriators are expropriated The trumpet of a new war between the industrial nations for markets The bell of a new church, calling the workers to a new religion of labour and thrift
44. 44. What does a rise in wages mean, according to Marx, when capital accumulates rapidly?

    A fall in the rate of profit to zero, which brings all further accumulation of capital to a standstill The gradual end of exploitation, as the worker wins back by slow degrees the whole product of his own labour The worker’s rise into the capitalist class through savings from his higher wages Only a lessening of the length and weight of the golden chain the wage-worker has forged for himself
45. 45. In what “double sense” is the labourer whom the money-owner meets in the market free?

    Free from feudal dues to a lord, and free to till a little plot of common land of his own Free to sell his labour-power, and free of all means of production Free from taxes and military service, and free to emigrate where he chooses Free to vote at elections, and free to combine with others in trade unions
46. 46. What does Marx call the expropriation of the expropriators, in relation to capitalist private property?

    A political accident The negation of negation The end of all property whatever A return to small property
47. 47. What does capitalist accumulation constantly produce, according to the general law?

    Full employment A relative surplus population, an industrial reserve army Higher wages for all A permanent shortage of hands in the factories and industrial towns
48. 48. How does capital come into the world, according to Marx?

    Bearing the stamp of the State, created by royal charters and privileges By peaceful trade and the slow growth of the market from town to town Through the patient savings of a diligent, intelligent and frugal elite Dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt
49. 49. Which ancient thinker does Marx credit with first analysing the form of value?

    Xenophon Aristotle Heraclitus Plato
50. 50. To what does Marx compare capital’s hunger for surplus-labour in the extension of the working day?

    A raging fire’s greed for fuel A miser’s love A starving lion’s appetite A were-wolf’s hunger