Quiz: Capital, Volume III

15 questions drawn at random. Score 80% for a silver medal.

1. 1. On what is landed property conditioned, according to Marx?

   The natural fertility of the soil, which yields a surplus above the labour expended The monopolisation of certain portions of the globe by private persons The laws of nature, which fix a limited quantity of land for a growing population The labour of the landlord in clearing, draining and improving the land in the past
2. 2. What does Marx say the progressive tendency of the general rate of profit to fall expresses?

   The progressive development of the social productivity of labour, peculiar to capitalist production The steady rise of real wages, as workers win a growing share of the product they create The growing waste of capital through mismanagement and speculation on the stock exchange The progressive decline in the productivity of labour, as capitalism slowly exhausts the soil and the mines
3. 3. What does Marx call the value-composition of capital insofar as it reflects its technical composition?

   The organic composition of capital The rate of profit on the total capital The rate of turnover of the total capital Fixed capital
4. 4. What does Marx call “the last cause of all real crises”?

   A shortage of gold in the Bank’s reserves The poverty and restricted consumption of the masses Government interference Bad harvests
5. 5. What does Marx say about the claim that too much is produced?

   Not enough is produced to satisfy the wants of the great mass decently and humanely He says the trouble is too much money, not too many goods, in circulation at the time He says the workers consume too much, leaving too little for the accumulation of capital He agrees that too much is produced, more than the population could ever consume
6. 6. What raised the price of cotton to an unprecedented height, according to chapter VI?

   An Indian famine The Crimean War The American Civil War Tariffs
7. 7. Which novelist does Marx praise as “generally remarkable for his profound grasp of actual conditions”?

   Zola Hugo Sand Balzac
8. 8. What did Adam Smith call what Marx calls the price of production?

   Necessary price Natural price Real price Market price
9. 9. Which part of the manuscript presented Engels with the main difficulty?

   Part VI, on rent Part I, on cost-price Part V, on interest and credit Part III, on falling profit
10. 10. To which figure does Marx compare the labour of supervision needed in all combined production?

    A general The captain of a ship The director of an orchestra A priest
11. 11. What contradiction does chapter VIII set up?

    The price of commodities seems irreconcilable with the quantity of money in circulation Rising wages seem irreconcilable with a constant rate of profit in industries of equal composition The theory of value seems irreconcilable with equal profit rates in industries of different composition The rate of interest seems irreconcilable with the rate of profit in industries of similar turnover
12. 12. What does Marx say about value and the process of circulation?

    Merchants create new surplus-value by buying cheap and selling dear Most value is produced in circulation Circulation doubles value No value, and therefore no surplus-value, is produced in circulation
13. 13. Which of these is not one of the counteracting causes Marx lists against the falling rate of profit?

    Foreign trade Rising wages Cheapening of the elements of constant capital Depression of wages below the value of labour-power
14. 14. How does the law of the falling rate of profit show itself, because of the counteracting causes?

    Only as a tendency, whose effects become clear under certain circumstances and over long periods As an iron law, the rate falling steadily and visibly in every single year without exception Not at all in practice, since the counteracting causes always fully cancel the falling tendency Only in agriculture, where the declining fertility of land drives the rate down over long periods
15. 15. What are the three great classes of modern society, according to the unfinished chapter LII?

    Rich, middle and poor Wage labourers, capitalists and landlords The nobility, the bourgeoisie and the peasantry Industrial workers, managers and shareholders