Product Description

The "forgotten" second volume of Capital, Marx's world-shaking analysis of economics, politics, and history, contains the vital discussion of commodity, the cornerstone to Marx's theories.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #49090 in Books
• Published on: 1993-03-01
• Original language: German
• Number of items: 2
• Binding: Paperback
• 624 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780140445695
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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About the Author
Karl Marx was born in 1818 in Trier, Germany and studied in Bonn and Berlin. Influenced by Hegel, he later reacted against idealist philosophy and began to develop his own theory of historical materialism. He related the state of society to its economic foundations and mode of production, and recommended armed revolution on the part of the proletariat. Together with Engels, who he met in Paris, he wrote the Manifesto of the Communist Party. He lived in England as a refugee until his death in 1888, after participating in an unsuccessful revolution in Germany. Ernst Mandel was a member of the Belgian TUV from 1954 to 1963 and was chosen for the annual Alfred Marshall Lectures by Cambridge University in 1978. He died in 1995 and the Guardian described him as 'one of the most creative and independent-minded revolutionary Marxist thinkers of the post-war world.'

Customer Reviews

The production process as a necessary evil for the purpose of money-making
The most important point made in this volume is : "The production process appears simply as an unavoidable middle term, a necessary evil for the purpose of money-making." In his time, Marx could not have foreseen how this reality would transform our world beyond all imagination, once the current phase of mass consumption on a global scale was reached. Most objects capitalism offer today are objects with little usefulness, but are so thoroughly pushed by publicity and social conformism that they seem to fulfill vital necessities of life.

An astonishing achievement
I hate how some of the other people reviewing the volumes of Das Kapital fail to see that at least in this book, Marx wasn't advocating anything. It was his analysis of the fundamental features of capitalism. This book deals with the cell of capitalism: the commodity. This book is simply Marx's analysis of how the labor in the production of commodities becomes the commodity itself (commodity fetishism). He identifies the three circuits of capital required to produce commodities in a capitalist society: money capital, productive capital, and commodity capital. The third chapter I found to be very interesting because in this chapter Marx identifies two forms of consumption, these being productive consumption and personal consumption. This created the circular flow of money to becoming either money capital or productive capital. Highly recommended for anyone looking to understand how societies function and how capitalism really works.

Must read
Although Marx's Capital remains a difficult read, it is essential for understanding the current economic mess, in particular the growth of unproductive speculative capital. With speculative debt reaching nearly ten times the level of the world's productive economy (GDP), it appears that the barons of capitalism have sealed their own fate. Find out why.