A Guide to Marx's 'Capital'

For anyone wishing to understand the modern world, Marx's Capital is indispensable. It is also, unfortunately, a difficult book to read. Some of these difficulties are inevitable since the ideas are unfamiliar and complex, but it seems more forbidding than it really is and the reader who persists will find it worth the effort. The Guide is intended to be read in conjunction with Capital (though it can be read on its own). It goes through Marx's masterpiece, chapter by chapter, setting each in the context of the whole and picking out the main threads of the argument. Each of Marx's technical terms if explained when it is first used and is also defined in the glossary for easy reference. The introduction outlines the development of Marx's thought and relates it to the philosophical, political and economic ideas of his time. The Guide does not take sides for Marx or against him. Its aim is to contribute to a better understanding of his work. Contents ......Page 3 Preface ......Page 6 Introduction ......Page 7 VOLUME 1: Capitalist Production......Page 16 PART 1: Commodities and Money......Page 17 PART 2: The Transformation of Money into Capital ......Page 24 PART 3: The Production of Absolute Surplus Value ......Page 26 PART 4: Production of Relative Surplus-Value ......Page 31 PART 5: Production of Absolute and of Relative Surplus-Value ......Page 37 PART 6: Wages ......Page 38 PART 7: The Accumulation of Capital ......Page 40 PART 8: The So-Called Primitive Accumulation ......Page 46 VOLUME 2: The Process of Circulation of Capital ......Page 49 PART 1: The Metamorphoses of Capital and Their Circuits ......Page 50 PART 2: The Turnover of Capital ......Page 55 PART 3: The Reproduction and Circulation of the Aggregate Social Capital ......Page 62 VOLUME 3: The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole ......Page 69 PART 1: The Conversion of Surplus-Value into Profit and of the Rate of Surplus-Value into the Rate of Profit ......Page 70 PART 2: Conversion of Profit into Average Profit ......Page 74 PART 3: The Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall ......Page 79 PART 4: Conversion of Commodity-Capital and Money-Capital into Commercial Capital and Money-Dealing Capital (Merchant's Capital) ......Page 83 PART 5: Division of Profit into Interest and Profit of Enterprise. Interest-Bearing Capital ......Page 85 PART 6: Transformation of Surplus-Profit into Ground-Rent ......Page 92 PART 7: Revenues and Their Sources ......Page 97 APPENDIX 1: Prefaces and Afterwords to Capital ......Page 99 APPENDIX 2: The Communist Manifesto......Page 100 APPENDIX3: Preface and Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy ......Page 102 Glossary ......Page 105 Notes ......Page 109 Index ......Page 111