Rating: 
Summary: Controversially Fascinating
Review: "When Volume 1 of Capital was first published, capitalist industry, though predominant in a few Western European countries, still appeared as an isolated island circled by a sea of independent farmers and handicraftsmen which covered the whole world, including the greater part even of Europe," writes Ernest Mandel in his introduction to 'Capital'.How did we advance to the present day?
An *economic* text, this book is considerably distinct from much of Marx's preceding output. In contrast to Marx, many capitalist apologists have explained capitalism as an "Unknown Ideal" while others despise historical analysis-- as if a feudal baron shouted one day, "I invented capitalism!" The bulk of Marx's presentation is theoretical-- calls for action, the nature of the state, and philosophical concepts are given little treatment throughout the 2,500 pages. What Marx *does* talk about- commodity production, use-values and exchange-values, theories of surplus-value, crisis theory, organic and technical compositions of capital, the transformation problem, changes in the rates of profit, and much more. It is an analysis of *capital*, and hence, *capitalism.* There is little information about the mechanics of a post-capitalist society. After investing the time to read it, readers will be baffled when critics argue "50 bujillion people DIED as a result of 'Capital!!!'" (Marx died in 1883) -- "therefore Marx is wrong!" To be objective, a thinker can imagine the absurdity of blaming World War Two, the slave trade, and imperialism on 'The Wealth of Nations'. This is a brilliant work. The tough part is understanding the meaning of his terms, which was especially difficult for me, learning the neo-classical viewpoint first. The first chapters took a few days to understand with confidence. After that, the sheer length of the text is formidable, though rewarding and absolutely fascinating. Later, in Mandel's introduction, "it would be very easy to 'prove' Marx's analysis to be wrong, if experience had shown, for example, that the more capitalist industry develops, the smaller and smaller the average factory becomes, the less it depends upon new technology, the more its capital is supplied by the workers themselves, the more workers become owners of their factories, the less the part of wages taken by consumer goods becomes (and the greater becomes the part of wages used for buying means of production). If, in addition, there had been decades without economic fluctuations and a full-scale disappearance of trade unions and employers' associations..... one could indeed say that 'Capital' was so much rubbish and had dismally failed to predict what would happen in the real capitalist world a century after its publication. It is sufficient to compare the real history of the world since 1867 on the one hand with what Marx predicted it would be, and on the other hand with any such alternative "laws of motion", to understand how remarkable indeed was Marx's theoretical achievement and how strongly it stands up against the experimental test of history." A paranoia exists of socialist conspiracy to create monopoly as a transitional stage for communism. The largest 500 industrial and commercial corporations in the United States account for roughly 10% of all employees, 50% of profits, 70% of sales, and 90% of manufacturing assets, and 200 banks control 80% of all banking assets. How does this happen? An explanation that isn't even Marxist-- Joseph Schumpeter argues that modern technology creates enormous returns to scale. Under this hypothesis, large firms have the profit to experiment with new technologies, which creates new cost structures that promote greater efficiency in production. Competitive firms, which cannot absorb experimental failures and would have their innovations copied by the competition, have everything to lose by innovating and often not much to gain. The volumes of this massive economic text were published successively in 1867, 1885, and 1894. His theoretical influence is seen on moderns including Paul Sweezy, Anwar Shaikh, Nubuo Okishio, Paul Mattick, Joan Robinson, and many others. There has been plenty of work critical of Marx in academia. Most economists feel marginalism has rendered it obsolete, others have appropriated pieces of Marxist thought into their work. Have fun!
Rating:
Summary: A Small Error in the Beginning...
Review: This book is one of the most important treatises ever written - the logic contained in these volumes has justified the senseless slaughter of more than one hundred million living, breathing fellow human beings. Love it or hate it, "Capital" must be taken very seriously.
This book is essentially a conflation of Ricardian economics and Hegelian philosophy - two systems with obvious epistemological flaws which had been discovered before the book was ever conceived. Ricardo advanced a theory of value which was producer-driven, that is, the effort which the producer invests in the creation of a good (be it labor, money or other goods) determines the value of a good. This is inherently fallacious - the value of a good is clearly determined by the price someone is willing to pay for it, in other words, value is consumer-driven; an obvious truth to anyone who stops to reflect upon it - but so is the advantage of the wheel over the sledge, which took millenia to discover. Ricardo's original mistake (an unexamined one which he inherited and amplified) was the producer-driven or labor theory of value. Marx was unskilled in economic analysis and he accepted Ricardian theses unthinkingly - even though many other economists had been puzzling over their inconsistency for years. Four years after the first volume of Das Kapital was published, an Austrian named Menger solved the problem by formulating the theory of marginal utility. By the time Marx published the second volume in 1885 his economic principles were already in shambles. One of the reasons why so many of his "examples" are either fabricated or contain clear mathematical errors was Marx's need to invent foundations for his increasingly insupportable theories. Any reader of this book should track the golden thread of the labor theory of value which winds through it - this fundamental error colors and tinges every economic argument.
Very often modern-day Marxists, like Chris below, make the claim that Das Kapital is not at all crippled by the clear logical and economic flaws that pervade it - Marx did not set out to write a book about economics only, but a work of moral philosophy. Although this is misleading and disingenuous (Marx certainly thought of his book as a rigorous economic treatise) it contains an element of truth. Marx intended his economics to be a concrete realization of Hegelian philosophy. Hegel essentially believed that all History (to both Marx and Hegel history is not an academic discipline but a living force) is guided by a Spirit or Mind or Reason. The way History unfolds its purpose is by raising up (in Marx's version of Hegelianism) new classes to combat and destroy old ones. Thus Das Kapital sets out to show that the "proletariat" is a class created by History to destroy the "bourgeoisie" who in turn were created to defeat the "seigneurs". The flawed labor theory of value is adduced by Marx as proof that the "proletariat" is favored by History and must destroy the "bourgeoisie" to bring about Progress. Any argument made by anyone against the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is thus a dishonest "reaction" against the clear intentions of History. Such reaction is, in Marx's view, the ultimate in moral evil and, as Chris says in another review, it is perfectly acceptable to kill such reactionaries (as well as the infant children of such reactionaries).
Since Marx and Marxists believe themselves to be the chosen avatars of History, any disagreement with their arguments or methods can never be honest or logical. Instead of an intellectual engagement, the Marxist is more inclined to answer with a fist or a bullet. They have the final word, History whispers in their ears and their ears alone. This infantile insistence on the rightness of their cause at all costs resulted in the torture and murder of millions of Russians, Chinese, Cambodians, Poles and others who dared disagree with the outmoded ideas of this poorly argued mishmash of economics and transcendental German philosophy.
Read this book, and read it carefully - it is a lesson in how the power of a few fixed thoughts can wash a world in blood. Academic mistakes often carry far higher costs than the untalented student imagines.
Rating:
Summary: It takes a brain...
Review: Amazing work. Too bad the Åmericans, Russians, and Chinese managed to pervert it so badly these last 80 years. Reading this is like the scene from The Matrix when Neo wakes up and sees in all its horrible glory the fact that he's been a slave to monsters all his life. Let's have a clear understanding of what Marx was all about: Marx taught that Capitalism is just a product of very cruel social relations, and that these relations are simply a more subtle form of the old lord/vassal ones from the Middle Ages. It's not the reflection of any kind of cosmic law. It was born, it lives, and one day it will die. Everything he writes follows upon that premise. More importantly, he calls things exactly as he see them. Like Trotsky decades later, he has no problem giving Capitalism credit where it's due. While personally a fanatic, Marx nevertheless largely managed to segregate this facet of his personality from his intellectual explorations, and where he fails it's easy to detect. There's no control of religion here. There's no control of free speech. There's no sappy "socialism." You'd be able to work as hard as you like in a Communist society, and it can be easily arranged for you to be compensated for that. You'd be able to rise to a position of authority -- and be compensated for that as well. This is what Communism's all about after all -- paying you what you're worth. You just can't steal the time and energy of your fellow workers like Capitalism allows. He'd even be opposed to price controls. A commodity can, should, must, and in fact WILL (in the long run) cost exactly as much as it's worth. Otherwise you may as well be go back to Capitalism where you can steal the fruit of people's labor with manic abandon. Marx is a giant in the history of economic thought, resting solidly on the foundations laid by titans such as David Ricardo and Adam Smith, and moves grandly within the natural flow of western tradition and civilization. There's nothing here people like Benjamin Franklin (whom he quotes warmly at least three times in this book), Shakespeare, and Aristotle wouldn't appreciate. Anyone who's read this book knows exactly what I'm talking about. Bring your thinking cap, though, 'cause this book's hard. Especially since you have to unlearn everything you've been taught all your life. Remember -- the Matrix (or to use a more traditional metaphor: Plato's cave) has you. And most people would rather shoot you than be dragged out of it. So read it. And Educate! Educate! Educate!
Rating: 
Summary: so-so
Review: Certainly this is much better than "The Big Store", but it can't really compare to "Horse Feathers" and, of course, "Duck Soup". Where is Margaret Dumont?
Rating:
Summary: Among my favorities
Review: Excellent, I only found battlefield earth and Dianetics more enlightening. I mean who doesn't like L.Ron's excellant writing style and rambling thought process. What distinguishes this book is how it influenced such luminaries as Josepth Smith (of morman fame of course) trotsky and my favorite friend Howard Dean. Good luck to my friends striking at Safeway, Kroger, and Albertsons. Got to go see the new donald trump show. Talk to you later.
Rating: 
Summary: History not reality
Review: First off, this was a difficult read and I would only recommend this book to people who really have a strong background in literature or who read every day. Secondly the ideas in this book are horribly inaccurate, the examination of the world economies and social standings has been proven wrong in many cases. The ideas are moral ideas about fairness and equality but unfortunately, for all of us, the world is an unfair place and we can not impose fairness on the world. At the time of Karl Marx the world was in shambles depression and world conflicts had made the world a very nasty place to live. His ideas were revolutionary at the time and were seized upon by extremist around the world. Anything people could do to make their lives a little better was fare game regardless of the long term impact. Time and again we can see the lack of foresight Karl had about the danger of giving total control of a society to one governing body. People who get into power will always take advantage of that power in every society, the difference with Marxism is that you have no alternatives to choose from and speaking out can get you killed. The United States is going down the road of big government were the people are loosing their voice more and more each day. This is the result of Marxist ideas in the government and if it continues the US will become Marxist and shortly after fall into complete chaos as most Marxist societies do. What Karl also failed to take into consideration when speaking about equality in the realm of personal wealth and property is each individual's ability or lack of ability to be equal. Why should a person with more stamina, skill and strength work hard as a laborer if he could make the same living as a librarian? While someone who isn't as skilled does his manual labor job less efficiently than it could be done. In a free market there is plenty of incentive for the labor to excel at the trade for which his skills and talents allows for. Personal wealth and a higher standard of living are the rewards for excelling at the occupation that you are talented or skilled at. People who belong to a system that gives them everything with little or no incentive to excel will in most cases become dependant on that system and will have no desire to better themselves or their society. A friend of mine in high school had a rich uncle who died and left his family with a large inheritance, once my friend turned 16 his mother used that wealth to buy her son a brand new car for his birthday. He did nothing to earn the car and had little respect for the new car. I had to get a job and bum rides from my sister to and from work until I earned enough money for half a car, my parents sported the second half of the car. Six months after my buddy got his car it had been in three accidents and was driven with no care for its maintenance and was heading for the scrap yard. While my car although modest and much older was running like a champ and lasted me about three years until I could afford something newer. The point of the story is when you have to earn something and it belongs to you, you take care of it and make sure it last. Conversely, if you are given things and have to do little or nothing to earn them you have no incentive to take care of them and why should you? My friend went out a bought another new car about a week after his first one was being towed away to the scrap heap and his mother paid for it. If you don't own anything why should you take care of the possessions the government has so kindly allowed you to use? In a Marxist society you are given hand outs by the government, if the government decides they are needed elsewhere then you are out of luck. The moral bandwagon that Karl and many, many other Marxist have been on for decades has gone nowhere except bankruptcy, lose of liberty, and death for centuries, isn't it time to get off the Marxist bandwagon? The book tries to take the moral high ground and I think we, as a people, should try to take the moral high ground but Karl's lack of foresight makes this book a good history lesson that moral ideas come with a price and sometimes that price is too high to pay.
Rating:
Summary: A Critique of Political Economy, not an econ text book
Review: For all those proponents of capitalism, this book will not interest you much. Marx writes to expose capital (money, interest, profit, value, etc) as a relation between people, as a relation of domination and exploitation. The central defense of capital by political economy meant a critique of political economy as the rational expression of a mad world. What does it mean to try to give a rational explanation of a mad world, a world built upon exploitation/domination and the insubordination of that exploitation/domination (good, old class struggle, like in that bastion of U.S. power, South Korea)? Certainly not a text book on how it works, but a critique of the madness of calling exploitation/domination 'rational', 'moral', 'free', etc. Marx exposes the inherent fragility of capital's power because capital only exists as alienated labor power, the creativity of workers turned against themselves. All the wealth of all the rich and powerful is the product of the labor power of the workers. Marx's ultimate message is that the capitalist needs the worker, but the worker's only need is the overthrow of capital and the establishment of a humane society: "The free development of all depends on the free development of each." (Marx, 1844 Manuscripts) As for 'empirical' matters, capitalism has impoverished the vast mass of human beings for the vast wealth of a few. To see the misery, hunger, disease, and human debasement created by capital's thirst for profit and then to say 'capital has nothing to do with this' is to tell lies. To say that capital does not give rise to all the dictatorships of the world is telling lies. To say "Let the market sort it out." is to say "Let things stay as they are." With all our wealth, all our productive capacity, only capital prevents a world of abundance, and therefore a liberation from 'things', a liberation from exploitation/domination. The defence of capital depends on moral bankruptcy, class privilege, and inhumanity being the standard of human conduct. I suggest a look at John Holloway, Werner Bonefeld, and Richard Gunn, among others, for an intelligent, impassioned and insightful reading of Marx. And happily, Amazon carries their 3 vol. set, Open Marxism.
Rating:
Summary: Among my favorities
Review: Hillarious, I found only Roger Rabbit, and Attack of the Green Tomato's more intellectual. While I once enjoyed this book,(after all I am V.I Lenin) I have alas out grown it. Unfortunately I most appologize to all those who had to live under communism or who once supported it it sounded so good on paper back in 1917. However it has been and will more likely than not continue to remain a idelogy plague by a lack of practicality(most of the formerly stalinist regimes are now capitalist or semi capitalist(Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam...etc) (North Vietnam being the remaining exception) based on the inherant impracticality of the communist/socialist economic model. Unfortunately, as a system it is prone to abuse by those claiming to represnt the people,(Stalin, Mao, Kim Il Sung and His Son, Che Guevara etc.)to impose totalitarian controls much like those imposed by Adolf Hitler. Therefore I must conclude that systems which are republican(United States) and parlimentarian (England, Italy, Germany, Japan) create greater access to opportunity and freedom from repression.
Rating:
Summary: Well...
Review: How amazing there are still people arguing about Karl Marx's works. I am not a marxist myself but i still found Capital an intriguing book -- at least a serious social studies. I hate communism as a social reality for the last 100 years, but it doesnt mean Marx' writing is in vain 100%. You can still pick up stuff from the books for good purposes. Several more points i wanna address: 1) wilhempf: you needa seperate the doctrine from historical events. What happened in the last century may be some strong evidence of how flawed the materialization of classical marxism can be, but it never dismisses as a wholesale Marx' humanistic concern and his arguments about the internal contradiction of capitalism. 2) It is very easy to whip on a dead man; and it is equally handy to whip on marxism after the end of the cold war. Wilhempf demonstrated how we can do that perfectly. The terror of communism haunts those people in countries on the other hemisphere, not in the US, my friend. In what way u really show your care to those suffered and tortured? You can't really show me that. What you tried to do is just another subtle mocking of communisms to show off. Well, yeah show off, and distinguish yourself.... (from those commies) So many people tried to do that before you, and ponder how stupid they looked. 3) not all marxists are boneheaded. You did a survey before? seriously accusation must be backed up by evidences! (or someone can sue you!) 4) wilhempf had some points in his essay: theory of surplus value may be totally flawed, but still people in the next 200 years and rework the theories and improved on that. John Roemar, Erik Wright, Fredrick Jameson, to name a few, are working on this. They are a lot smarter than you thought.
Rating:
Summary: ok ok so I'm a communist at heart
Review: I am a die hard capitalist. I beleive in the free market. I beleive that capitalism invigorates the mind and cuases the individual to succeed where the communist will fail. Nevertheless I recomment Marx's Kapital because it is an important analysis of the current system of the movement of capital. His analysis is not full of propoganda the way 'The Manifesto' is, instead it is a logical view of our system, perhaps more of a totallity of the evidence then Adam Smith's own read. I cannot recommend this read strongly enough to those that call themselves communists for this read will make you shiver as you realize that Marx understood capitalism more then any of his succesors. Lenin and Mao and Gramsci were mere mice compared to the mind of Marx. In the final summation when one has read all three volumes of Kapital(the third is unfinished) one will come to find that present day Communists have misinterpreted the view of Marx. The reality is that the command economies of the soviet bloc alienated the workers from their labour more so then capitalism for it stole from them the earning that come with hard work and reduced the workers to slaves, something Marx would have felt was monstrous. Read this book and you will not be a Communist, instead you will be born a Capitalis anew with a view towards reightous capitalism in which all are rewarded for their work.
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