If you know Karl Marx’s “Capital” only by reputation, what do you think it is about? What would you expect to read about if you picked up a copy?
I will be putting this question to a university undergrad seminar and am curious about the responses of that group and this one.
By reputation? Mostly lots and lots and lots of dense verbiage. I recall his writing style being compared to his beard; big, thick and with lots of curlicues.
I think it’s about the class struggle between the owners of the means of production and the workers. In particular, it’s about who should reap the benefits of the wealth being produced. I’ve heard of two different versions of what Marx supposedly recommended, one of which I agree with and one of which I don’t. I don’t know which comes close to what Marx thought should happen.
I think the first one is a great idea, and that the second one is terrible. ISTM that most people who are against socialism use the second idea as a straw man to discredit the whole concept. Having never actually read Marx, I don’t know if the second idea is actually a straw man or not.
I’ve never read it, only the (much shorter and easier to read) Communist Manifesto.
I would expect the longer work to be full of history, analysis, and critique of capitalism and the economic systems that led up to it. I would expect some of it to still be relevant and timely today, while other parts may seem antiquated or flatly disproven.
How far off is that from what the book actually says?
I also wonder what he has to say about authoritarianism, if anything, and whether he foresaw the rise of people like Stalin, Mao, and Kim.
Really should just read it sometime…
He did envision a transitory dictatorship of the proletariat, but not strongmen like Stalin. As far as I remember, he didn’t even concern himself with feudal states like Russia, China, or Korea. He expected the worker revolt against capitalism to happen in industrialized nations like Germany, the UK, and the US.
I haven’t read it, but I expect much of it is an argument that “value” is defined by the costs of labor input.
I think the central thesis is that capitalism requires the exploitation of labor in order to profit. This is based on his labor theory of value. i.e. The value of a commodity is based on the amount of labor necessary to produce it. Under capitalism, labor is underpaid with the capitalist class taking the excess value produced in the form of profit. Somehow this system leads to ups and downs which creates instability in the market leading to class conflict.
My impression is Marx made a lot of astute observations, pointing out some of the failings of the economy of his day, but he was wrong about how to fix things. He wasn’t even right about what countries might go down the communist route and when.
I haven’t read Das Kapital, I’ve only heard people discussing it. Now it makes me wonder how many people have read The Wealth of Nations.
I agree. If Marx had only written “Das Kapital”, principally a critique of capitalism, he would be remembered a lot more favorably. Communists/Socialists are great at describing the problems of capitalism, but lousy at prescribing remedies for them. The problem, as I see it, is that Capitalism as outlined by Adam Smith and Communism as outlined by Marx are both outmoded philosophies, no longed applicable to our modern world. Folks just don’t recognize it yet.
I have said it before: someone needs to undertake the monumental project of re-working the book on Capital using modern rigorous methods.
One aspect of Marx’s thinking that I understood was important was economic and social determinism - that inevitably capitalism would lead to its own destruction, and that many a sociocultural phenomenon was inevitably determined by the economic structure.
But maybe that’s a later Leninist rigidity.
Thanks, everyone. This is interesting and helpful. A couple of interesting things about Capital: the subtitle is “A Critique of Political Economy,” and much of it is a debate with political economists of the day. The possibility of reform is appreciated, especially the passage of the 10 hour day in England. There is a lot of history, including an argument that capitalism in England begins in agriculture, not industry. There is no insistence on economic determinism as commonly understood and no guidelines for revolution or what socialism should look like.
The book was seen as a technical economic tome by the tsar’s censors, who said it could be allowed into Russia as it would be of interest only to experts in the field.
If you’re tempted to read it, I suggest starting with Part 8, on “primitive accumulation,” now usually translated as “original accumulation.” Starting at the beginning is a recipe for madness. Marx suggested that “the chapters on the ‘Working Day’, ‘Co-operation, Division of Labour and Machinery’ and finally on ‘Primitive Accumulation’ are the most immediately readable.”
I also have never read it. Based on what I heard about it, and the amount of research Marx put into it, my main expectation would be lots of very boring details of industrial output in different European economies
Have you read
?
There are certainly some stats, but many references to literature, some discussion of vampires and werewolves, a footnote reference to oral sex, harrowing tales of the creation of capitalism and colonialism from the 1400s to his day, and some fascinating explorations of how capitalism works along with some obscure arguments with long forgotten political economists.
I have read Piketty’s book.
Was this the original inspiration for Twilight?
Since it came out in ,2013, I’m gonna say ‘no’.
Also The Hunger Games.
OK, now you’ve got our attention. Which sort?
He was describing Capital
I’m aware the vampire and werewolf passages. The oral sex must be buried deeper than I have dug into the notes.
Chapter 27, footnote 12 reads
“On the private moral character of this bourgeois hero, among other things: ‘The large grant of lands in Ireland to Lady Orkney, in 1695, is a public instance of the king’s affection, and the lady’s influence… Lady Orkney’s endearing offices are supposed to have been — fœda labiorum ministeria.’ (In the Sloane Manuscript Collection, at the British Museum, No. 4224. The Manuscript is entitled: ‘The character and behaviour of King William, Sunderland, etc., as represented in Original Letters to the Duke of Shrewsbury from Somers Halifax, Oxford, Secretary Vernon, etc.’ It is full of curiosa.)”
The Latin may be translated, a Latin scholar has assured me, as “base services performed with the lips.”