Das Kapital: A Critique of Political Economy [Paperback]

As a student in Economics, I always engage in comparative analysis of Economics. Marxian Economics is generally presented as an early critique of classial economy, and a "difficult" one too. As to difficulty, it is not that unconscionably incomprehensible! There are many apsects of Marxian Economics that make a lot of sense (to me). True, Marx is most likely to be appealing to workers and below subsistence income earners, just as much as classical and neoclasscial economics is most likely to appeal to capital owners and free "marketeers". Not to forget Keynes who will garner support from those who prefer reasonable state intervention! So every school of thought has its own target and appeal. In this book, you will find basic concepts of labour theory of value (what determines the value of a commodity); monetary theory (the evolution of money); the Theory of Surplus Value (what is profit and how does it come about - to Marx, profit represents that portion of icome/value "improperly" appropriated by capital owners instead of accruing to workers. Since workers are the sole producers of goods from scratch to end, they should benefit from all income, or at least from most of it, as per Marxian argument); and lastly, the mechanism of production. Trust me, if you read Marxism with an open mind (and not with a bias attitude of it being revolutionary, inefficient, dictatorial and a threat), you will realize it has a very interesting, unique and relatively realistic method of explaning inequality and exploitation generally! Relative poverty does not exist exclusively in poor or so called "third-world" countries, even in UK, for example, there are relatively poor people (who for example cannot afford private schooling), despite its strong economy. As much as Communism/Socilaism is history, the ideas are still alive and very much interesting! Read it to enhance your understanding of this renowned work by Karl Marx!

Marx's Kapital brings to climax the research programme of classical political economy by its throughgoing analysis of the contradictions inherent in capitalism. Marx's magnum opus shows capitalism to be a historically transitory system which arose from feudalism and which was to necessarily to give way to socialism. Marx set "understanding the laws of motion of capitalism" to be his task and he succeeded much better than many modern theorists.

Many reviewers (including Saulius Muliolis) are incapable of reading Marx's arguments on their own terms, but must read them throgh the beer goggles of neo-classical economics. Marx is certainly engaged in a different project than are economists--in that sense it is right to say he is not doing economics at all. Rather, he is engaged in a "critique of political economy"--as he declares in the subtitle. Marginal utility is not the same concept as use-value. It's not clear that marginal utility is a real concept at all. What is clear is that Marx's Capital provides an indispensible guide to modern life--there is simply no other book that so fully and accurately describes the workings of capitalism. If you have not read Capital, you almost certainly do not grasp the forces that shape our world.