Das Kapital

 

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Contents

Introduction

Volume 1 – The Process of Production of Capital

Part One: Commodities and Money

Chapter 1 – The Commodity

Chapter 2 – The Process of Exchange

Chapter 3 – Money, or the Circulation of Commodities

Part Two: The Transformation of Money into Capital

Chapter 4 – The General Formula for Capital

Chapter 5 – Contradictions in the General Formula

Chapter 6 – The Sale and Purchase of Labour-Power

Part Three: The Production of Absolute Surplus-Value

Chapter 7 – The Labour Process and the Valorisation Process

Chapter 8 – Constant Capital and Variable Capital

Chapter 9 – The Rate of Surplus-Value

Chapter 10 – The Working Day

Chapter 11 – The Rate and Mass of Surplus-Value

Part Four: The Production of Relative Surplus-Value

Chapter 12 – The Concept of Relative Surplus-Value

Chapter 13 – Co-operation

Chapter 14 – The Division of Labour & Manufacture

Chapter 15 – Machinery & Large Scale-Industry

Part Five: The Production of Absolute and Relative Surplus-Value

Chapter 16 – Absolute and Relative Surplus-Value

Chapter 17 – Changes of Magnitude in the Price of Labour-Power and in Surplus-Value

Chapter 18 – Different Formulae for the Rate of Surplus-Value

Part Six: Wages

Chapter 19 – The Transformation of the Value (and Respectively the Price) of Labour-Power into Wages

Chapter 20 – Time-Wages

Chapter 21 – Piece-Wages

Chapter 22 – National Differences in Wages

Part Seven: The Process of Accumulation of Capital

Chapter 23 – Simple Reproduction

Chapter 24 – The Transformation of Surplus-Value into Capital

Chapter 25 – The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation

Part Eight: So-Called Primitive Accumulation

Chapter 26 – The Secret of Primitive Accumulation

Chapter 27 – The Expropriation of the Agricultural Population from the Land

Chapter 28 – Bloody Legislation against the Expropriated since the End of the 15th Century

Chapter 29 – The Genesis of the Capitalist Farmer

Chapter 30 – Impact of the Agricultural Revolution on Industry

Chapter 32 – The Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation

Chapter 33 – The Modern Theory of Colonisation

 

Volume 2 – The Process of Circulation of Capital

Part One: The Metamorphoses of Capital and their Circuit

Chapter 1 – The Circuit of Money Capital

Chapter 2 – The Circuit of Productive Capital

Chapter 3 – The Circuit of Commodity Capital

Chapter 4 – The Three Figures of the Circuit

Chapter 5 – Circulation Time

Chapter 6 – The Costs of Circulation

Part Two: The Turnover of Capital

Chapter 7 – Turnover Time and Number of Turnovers

Chapter 8 – Fixed Capital and Circulating Capital

Chapter 9 – The overall Turnover of the Capital Advanced. Turnover Cycles

Chapter 10 – Theories of Fixed and Circulating Capital. The Physiocrats

Chapter 11 – Theories of Fixed and Circulating Capital. Ricardo

Chapter 12 – The Working Period

Chapter 13 – Productive Time

Chapter 14 – Circulation Time

Chapter 15 – Effect of Circulation Time on the Magnitude of the Capital Advanced

Chapter 16 – The Turnover of Variable Capital

Chapter 17 – The Circulation of Surplus-Value

Part Three: The Reproduction and Circulation of the Total Social Capital

Chapter 18 – Introduction

Chapter 19 – Former Presentations of the Subject

Chapter 20 – Simple Reproduction

Chapter 21 – Accumulation and Reproduction on an Expanded Scale

 

Volume 3 – The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole

Part One: The Transformation of Surplus-Value into Profit, and of the Rate of Surplus-Value into the Rate of Profit

Chapter 1 – Cost Price and Profit

Chapter 2 – The Rate of Profit

Chapter 3 – The Relationship between Rate of Profit and Rate of SV

Chapter 4 – The Effect of the Turnover on the Rate of Profit

Chapter 5 – Economy in the Use of Constant Capital

Chapter 6 – The Effect of Changes in Price

Chapter 7 – Supplementary Remarks

Part Two: The Transformation of Profit into Average Profit

Chapter 8 – Different Compositions of Capital in Different Branches of Production and the Resulting Variation in Rates of Profit

Chapter 9 – Formation of a General Rate of Profit (Average Rate of Profit) and Transformation of Commodity Values into Prices of Production

Chapter 10 – The Equalisation of the General Rate of Profit through Competition. Market Prices and Market Values. Surplus Profit.

Chapter 11 – The Effects of General Fluctuations in Wages on the Prices of Production

Chapter 12 – Supplementary Remarks

Part Three: The Law of the Tendential Fall in the Rate of Profit

Chapter 13 – The Law Itself

Chapter 14 – Counteracting Factors

Chapter 15 – Development of the Law’s Internal Contradictions

Part Four: The Transformation of Commodity Capital and Money Capital into Commercial Capital and Money-Dealing Capital (Merchant’s Capital)

Chapter 16 – Commercial Capital

Chapter 17 – Commercial Profit

Chapter 18 – The Turnover of Commercial Capital. Prices

Chapter 19 – Money-Dealing Capital

Chapter 20 – Historical Material on Merchant’s Capital

Part Five: The Division of Profit into Interest and Profit of Enterprise

Chapter 21 – Interest-Bearing Capital

Chapter 22 – Division of Profit. Rate of Interest. ‘Natural’ Rate of Interest

Chapter 23 – Interest and profit of Enterprise

Chapter 24 – Interest-Bearing Capital as the Superficial Form of the Capital Relation

Chapter 25 – Credit and Fictitious Capital

Chapter 26 – Accumulation of Money Capital and its Influence on the Rate of Interest

Chapter 27 – The Role of Credit in Capitalist Production

Chapter 28 – Means of Circulation and Capital. The Views of Tooke and Fullarton

Chapter 29 – Banking Capital’s Component Parts

Chapter 30 – Money Capital and Real Capital: I

Chapter 31 – Money Capital and Real Capital: II

Chapter 32 – Money Capital and Real Capital: III

Chapter 33 – The Means of Circulation under the Credit System

Chapter 34 – The Currency Principle and the English Bank Legislation of 1844

Chapter 35 – Precious Metal and the Rate of Exchange

Chapter 36 – Pre-Capitalist Relations

Part Six: The Transformation of Surplus Profit into Ground-Rent

Chapter 37 – Introduction

Chapter 38 – Differential Rent in General

Chapter 39 – The First Form of Differential Rent

Chapter 40 – The Second Form of Differential Rent

Chapter 41 – Differential Rent II – First Case: Price of Production Constant

Chapter 42 – Differential Rent II – Second Case: Price of Production Falling

Chapter 43 – Differential Rent – Third Case: Rising Price of Production. Results

Chapter 44 – Differential Rent Even on the Poorest Land

Chapter 45 – Absolute Ground-Rent

Chapter 46 – Rent of Buildings. Rent of Mines. Price of Land

Chapter 47 – The Genesis of Capitalist Ground-Rent

Part Seven: The Revenues and their Sources

Chapter 48 – The Trinity Formula

Chapter 49 – On the Analysis of the Production Process

Chapter 50 – The Illusion Created by Competition

Chapter 51 – Relations of Distribution and Relations of Production

Chapter 52 – Classes

Summary

Capitalism is based upon commodity production: things are produced for sale not for immediate consumption.

The value of a commodity is not the amount of (concrete) labour actually expended, but that portion of social (abstract) labour that is credited to that commodity. This can only be known in exchange (in the market).

Prices diverge from values because of the tendency for profits to be equalised between different capitals.

The circulation of capital: M – C – M’ (Money – Commodities – More Money)

How does money increase into more money? i.e. How can capital self expand?

This additional value is surplus value.

Marx’s great insight was that the source of surplus value lies in the difference between the value of labour-power (wages) and the value created in the course of the working day.

Labour is the source of surplus value, i.e. the source of all profit, interest & rent.

The capitalist by seizing the means of production leaves the labourer with no choice but to sell his labour to the capitalist to survive. The capitalist keeps some of the value that the labourer produces.

Surplus value can be increased by lengthening the working day – absolute surplus value.

Or by curtailment of the necessary labour (the proportion of the day the worker has to work to produce his means of consumption) – relative surplus value.

Competition drives capitalists to increase labour productivity. This increases the organic composition of capital, i.e. the amount of constant capital (machines, raw materials) to variable capital (wages).

This increase in the organic composition of capital puts downward pressure on the rate of profit (even if the first capitalists to introduce the new methods initially reap higher profits).

Capitalists only produce for profit; if the initial outlay of capital will not increase in value they won’t produce.

To the capitalists it doesn’t matter that people need things.

Exchange-value rules use-value.

The system is a set of social relations, it is not nature.
It hasn’t always been this way and probably will not always be this way.

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