So you’ve bought Volume 1 of Marx’s Capital, or you’re thinking about buying it?
Good for you! It’s a fantastic book, and you should read it! Capital is worthwhile for its historical significance alone, both to politics in the last 150 years and to philosophical and intellectual developments. But it’s also a highly relevant book to our current times. Particularly in an era of neoliberal or financialized capitalism, where many of the conditions Marx wrote about resurface.
Personally, I would’ve liked a bit more guidance when I started reading. I fumbled around quite a bit, and it took me awhile to understand what Marx was doing in the text.
What I lacked, may you have!
Capital: A Five Step Program
OK, so you’ve got Capital and you’re ready to read. Here are some things to get you started.
1.Keep Marx’s overall project in mind.
Marx’s project in Capital is specific, and he tells the reader pretty directly what it is. But first a note about what it isn’t. He’s not morally condemning capitalism, nor does he provide moral arguments for why you should oppose it. It’s true that Marx writes at length about conditions in English factories, and he’s not above tugging on the reader’s moral sentiments. There’s also a broader debate out there about the extent to which leftist ideas are grounded in morality.
However, Capital is a scientific project, at least as Marx himself saw it. He begins by assuming a pure form of capitalism, the kind laid out by classical economists like Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Marx reveals the internal tensions of that system. He’s showing how a pure capitalist system, by its nature, produces mounting contradictions and ultimately its own downfall.
This is a good point to remind you that Capital has three volumes. While Volume 1 is the most famous, each volume is essential to this overall project. I’ll say more about that below.
2. Be careful around predictions, especially those of enthusiastic Marxists.
Marx assumes the world of classical economics in order to make a point about the capitalist system. But to do so, he must accept a number of assumptions. In the first two volumes, Marx looks at different stages in the circulation of capital. And so the assumptions differ, often in ways that produce apparent contradictions. This helps him look at credit and crises in Volume 3.
Here are a couple of examples. In Volume 1, Marx assumes that economic exchanges always involve equal changes of value. In Volume 2, he assumes the capitalist production process works normally without swings in, say, productivity or wages.
We all know the real world isn’t like that, and so does Marx. Often one side of a transaction rips off the other side or productivity and wages rise or fall. But Marx is getting at the basic laws of capitalism. To do that, he needs to hold various parts of the system constant while explaining other parts. And to apply this to the world, we have to determine how well the world matches the ideal system.
When Marx predicts crisis or tension, these things are caveats. Marx’s followers are often less careful. The thing is, some of the beauty of Marx’s approach is that when capitalism solves a crisis, it’s often through violating Marx’s assumptions in specific ways. And that itself offers a window into how the system functions.
Capitalism has many means at its disposal to solve crises. Everything from rent extraction to wage theft to colonialism and other forms of imperial market expansion to racism/sexism/et al., etc. On occasion, capitalism even solves crises through bettering the lives of some people, through things like social welfare and other social democratic programs.
3. Get used to the dialectical method.
My background is in analytic philosophy. At the risk of glossing over the complications, analytic philosophers operate according to a pretty standard method. We take some concept, break it into its parts, and then explain how those parts work together. Our methods are, in terms of their broader goals, explanatory and causal.
Marx wasn’t an analytic philosopher. He does some of those things, especially in Volumes 2 and 3 of Capital. But his method in Volume 1 is dialectical. He begins from some concept, explains its internal tensions and contradictions, and then ‘resolves’ it with another concept. The cycle then begins again.
He finds this method especially well suited to capitalism, which is based around the constant motion of value through a convoluted process with lots of parts. Everything in capitalism is in motion, and capitalism is a system constantly transforming both itself and the world around it.
4. Read a Commentary on Marx.
Yes, it’s more reading. But it’s well worth it. Capital is pretty chewy on its own. Especially the beginning of Volume 1 (and most of Volume 2). You’ll want to read a commentary to guide you along.
Allow me to make a plug here for David Harvey. Harvey’s commentaries on Volume 1 and Volume 2 are close to essential reading for beginners. Harvey does a fantastic job introducing the project, setting expectations, and allowing the reader to discover the text in their own way.
Seriously, go pick up Harvey’s commentaries. You might not agree with all of his interpretive steps. But neither do I. What he’ll give you is a great starting point to situate your own reading and your own objections.
5. Either enjoy or get past Marx’s shit-talking.
It’s a bit uncommon in contemporary philosophy to openly insult your opponents. And it’s definitely not encouraged in professional publications. But the world was a bit different in the 19th century and earlier. Marx talked some shit about his opponents, as did people like David Hume, et al.
It’s fun to read. It’s also a useful window into how Marx really felt about his opponents’ views. He lobs a few insults at people like Adam Smith and David Ricardo. But at the same time, he goes a bit easy on them. He spends much more time discussing their actual views than he does with other theorists. By the end, I think it’s clear that Marx harbored a grudging respect for Smith and Ricardo. And perhaps even admiration.
By contrast, Marx repeatedly poured scorn on those he called ‘vulgar economists.’ And he really didn’t like Jeremy Bentham. On one page, Marx calls Bentham an “arch-philistine” and the “soberly pedantic and heavy-footed oracle of the ‘common sense’ of the nineteenth-century bourgeoisie.” The best part is that Marx adds a footnote at the end of this. He continues by stating that Bentham is a “purely English phenomenon” and that “in no time and in no country has the most homespun manufacturer of commonplaces ever strutted about in so self-satisfied a way.” Marx finishes by accusing Bentham of plagiarism.
You just don’t see that kind of craft these days.
Bonus: 6. Read Capital together with a group.
You don’t have to read Capital with a group. I didn’t. But it helps, especially if it’s a group of smart people interested in the topic who don’t have too many preconceived notions of what they’re going to find in the text.
If you can read it for a class, do that. If you’ve got a local socialist group that’s reading it, try joining.
Again, this isn’t a big deal. If you want to read it by yourself, that’s fine. But I think the group experience here is promising.
What To Buy or Check out from the Library
Here’s a quick summary. You’ll want to get the Penguin Classics editions of the three Volumes of Capital. Along with that, you’ll want David Harvey’s commentaries.
Marx’s Tests
Volume 1 of Marx’s Capital
Volume 2 of Marx’s Capital
Volume 3 of Marx’s Capital
Harvey’s Texts
Volume 1 of Harvey’s Companion
Volume 2 of Harvey’s Companion
For more budget friendly alternatives, check your local library for any of these books. Also, it’s possible to find a combined version of Harvey’s Companions for a lower price. And he also has some lecture courses online.
