Capital
A Critique of Political Economy
Volume I
Book One: The Process of Production of Capital
First published: in German in 1867, English edition first published in 1887;
Source: First English edition of 1887 (4th German edition changes included as indicated) with some
modernisation of spelling;
Publisher: Progress Publishers, Moscow, USSR;
Translated: Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, edited by Frederick Engels;
Transcribed: Zodiac, Hinrich Kuhls, Allan Thurrott, Bill McDorman, Bert Schultz and Martha
Gimenez (1995-1996);
Proofed: by Andy Blunden and Chris Clayton (2008), Mark Harris (2010), Dave Allinson (2015).
Table of Contents
Preface to the First German Edition (Marx, 1867) ...................................................................... 6
Preface to the French Edition (Marx, 1872) ................................................................................ 9
Afterword to the Second German Edition (1873)...................................................................... 10
Afterword to the French Edition (1875) .................................................................................... 16
Preface to the Third German Edition (1883) ............................................................................. 17
Preface to the English Edition (Engels, 1886) ........................................................................... 19
Preface to the Fourth German Edition (Engels, 1890) .............................................................. 22
Part 1: Commodities and Money ............................................................................................... 26
Chapter 1: Commodities ............................................................................................................ 27
Section 1: The Two Factors of a Commodity: Use-Value and Value (The Substance of Value
and the Magnitude of Value) ................................................................................................. 27
Section 2: The Two-fold Character of the Labour Embodied in Commodities..................... 30
Section 3: The Form of Value or Exchange-Value ............................................................... 33
Section 4: The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof ....................................... 47
Chapter 2: Exchange .................................................................................................................. 60
Chapter 3: Money, Or the Circulation of Commodities ............................................................ 67
Section 1: The Measure of Values ......................................................................................... 67
Section 2: The Medium of Circulation .................................................................................. 71
Section 3: Money ................................................................................................................... 84
Part 2: Transformation of Money into Capital....................................................................... 103
Chapter 4: The General Formula for Capital ........................................................................... 104
Chapter 5: Contradictions in the General Formula of Capital ................................................. 111
Chapter 6: The Buying and Selling of Labour-Power ............................................................. 119
Part 3: The Production of Absolute Surplus-Value ............................................................... 126
Chapter 7: The Labour-Process and the Process of Producing Surplus-Value ........................ 127
Section 1: The Labour-Process or the Production of Use-Values ....................................... 127
Section 2: The Production of Surplus-Value ....................................................................... 131
Chapter 8: Constant Capital and Variable Capital ................................................................... 142
Chapter 9: The Rate of Surplus-Value .................................................................................... 150
Section 1: The Degree of Exploitation of Labour-Power .................................................... 150
Section 2: The Representation of the Components of the Value of the Product by
Corresponding Proportional Parts of the Product Itself ....................................................... 154
Section 3: Senior’s “Last Hour” .......................................................................................... 156
Section 4: Surplus-Produce ................................................................................................. 159
Chapter 10: The Working day ................................................................................................. 162
Section 1: The Limits of the Working day .......................................................................... 162
Section 2: The Greed for Surplus-Labor, Manufacturer and Boyard .................................. 164
Section 3: Branches of English Industry Without Legal Limits to Exploitation ................. 168
Section 4: Day and Night Work. The Relay System ........................................................... 175