Rating: 
Summary: Dead wrong!!!!!
Review: Reading this book really shows that Marx understood nothing about economy: Prices cannot be fixed objectively according to some cost computation, but depend on how much people want things, of the balance of want and demand. I recommend instead reading book by insightful persons, like Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Israel Kirzner, etc. Anyway reading Marx explains why all goes wrong in socialist/communist countries, why people become so poor and have so little freedom and rights. The only value of this book may be to take what Marx thinks is good as on the contrary the way things should never been done.
Rating: 
Summary: An invaluable tool for the Marx collector!
Review: The author seems to have put unlimited hours into research to come up with writing that left me feeling like I just finished a discussion with a proslytizing religionist, who attempts to convert other people as a stop-gap measure for his own insecurity. For example, the attempt to incorporate the software industry to support the main thesis was not sophisticated, possibly weakening the author's point in some instances. I never really thought about it but it seems to me that Mr. Marx is undeniably one of the greatest comedians of all time, and his wit, wisdom, and genius come across in this humorous tome of stories. Many of the near misses in history are also recorded here including the real beginning of the open circuit systems we all attribute to teachers in middle school. I am not a biologist, but I have found two forts and an old gold mining town close to me to hunt in thanks to this book. My 8 year daughter and I use the book for a guide as we search through the thrift stores and antique stores for the times that have long since passed, but live on in books like this. A companion book with extra problems and complete, fully-worked out solutions, and an appendix for reviewing things like calculus required for the problems, would be helpful.
Rating:
Summary: A rationalization for slavery and slaughter
Review: The book that spawned the deaths of over 100 million people in the 20th Century is, ironically, only a boring litany of economic fallacies. The poverty of the labor theory of value, the absurdity of economic progress without a price system, and the necessary terror that accompanies socialism are all exposed in detail in George Reisman's CAPITALISM. All of you poor proletarians with computers out to read how effortlessly a real economist dismantles your dogma.
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Summary: One of the most influential books ever
Review: The Capital, written in three volumes by Karl Marx himself and, after his death, by his friend Friedrich Engels, and totalling some 3.000 pages, is the work of a man who surpassed all established standards of his time in what regards the multifaceted knowledge he acquired in many fields and, more important, trough the influence it had over millions of peoples troughout the world, whatever their position in the social spectrum. Of the monumental book and of its author it could be said that not a single human being in the years to come, wherever he/she lived, would escape (for better or for worse) unscathed from what is written in the book. For it inaugurated a new era in the relationship between men of all social conditions in the whole world and in years to come. It is the book where all the reasons for the downfall of capitalism in the end of the XIX century are pinpointed with a precise and polemical style, trademarks of the German author, and where, for the very first time in the story of History, historical movements are treated coherently as the necessary (deterministic) events of the social movements of humankind since the beginning of civilization, something called historical or dialectical determinism by the author, who borrowed and inverted many concepts from the German philosopher Hegel. Notwhitdstanding the importance of the book to West and East culture, this is not an easy book to read, given the intricacy of the subjects treated and also its lenght. For me the most attractive feature of the book is the disdain Marx had for anyone who did not agree with him, unabashedly fighting against Political Economists and Historians of all ideological collors. Despite all the rabid polemic, what remains after almost 150 years of the publication of the first volume of Das Kapital is the collapse of the communist world and the strenght of Capitalism, who learned the lessons of survival better than its ideological counterpart.
Rating: 
Summary: STV vs. LTV?
Review: The review below hinges on the reviewer's (who sounds like an advocate of neo-classicalism) rejection of the LTV. The transformation problem is a thorny one, yes, but not one that cannot be worked out. Did not Stigler determine that 93% of the differences of prices could be calculated with the LTV? This is an important piece of empirical evidence, no? STV, on the other hand, treats every commodity as if it were a work of art or a diamond or such, completely ignoring the modern mode of production. Not only did Ricardo endorse the LTV, but Smith also. From there the reviewer lapses into ad hominem. Should we judge Christianity by the atrocities committed in its name?
Rating:
Summary: Reactionary Nonsense!!!
Review: These reactionary socialists want us to continue living in the 18th century!!! Back then, dead white males such as Smith and Ricardo brainwashed the enslaved human race into believing that they exchanged a good for another good whose usefulness was exactly equal to the good you gave up!!! And why would these dead Anglo Saxon males have you believe that the price of a good had nothing to do with its usefulness? why would they ignore the slightly less-white spanish economists of Centuries earlier who disproved the so called "value paradox"? Maybe it was because they were RACIST ANGLOPHILES of a less enlightened time!! Bring your mind into the 21st century, and don't read reactionary white males like Marx who would like to keep in in the 18th!! Luckily, the Anglo-American patriarchy has been unable to completely supress the views of Bohm-Bawerk, Fetter and Von mises! Although they tried, they tried. These parasites will try as hard as possible to hang on to their reactionary status quo! Too bad there are inherent contradictions in these irrational ideologues' systems! These ridiculous views gave rise to the Nazis of Germany, which forced the Austrian Subjectivists to evacuate to America!! Now, they will not keep the eyes of the common man blind to ideas such as "time preference" that challenge their traditionalist patriarchal hegemony!! edit: This is in reply to Keith Restrepo from NY's positive review. He states: "BUT PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING OVERLOOKED BY MARX'S CRITICS: When the Russian radical party led by Trotsky sent delegates to Marx's front door with ideas for a Communist Revolution, he slammed his fists down on the table and totally rejected the idea. He knew it would not work especially if they skipped over Capitalism in the process, and he told them that one day they will have to become capitalist anyway, and start all over again. Was he wrong? " I bet the reason that Marx (Died in 1883) rejected Trotsky (born in 1879) was because he could have been no more than a little toddler when he visited him....either that or the story isn't true.
Rating: 
Summary: Always get the whole story
Review: This book is good for theoretical and historical study. Extremist on both ends have many opinions about this book and the author but I say read it, learn from it, then go buy Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell or Free to Choose by Milton Friedman or Heaven on Earth by Joshua Muravchik to get the whole story and decide for yourself. There are evils in every type of society, Marxism is a monopoly of power and is one of the difference between free markets and Marxism. If McDonalds (which I never frequent) gives you bad service you have many alternative competitors to choose from. If the EPA or FDA goes off the deep end you have no alternative. Free markets economies consistently beat Marxist economies in standards of living and per capita income all over the world. Even when countries have vastly more resources like China in contrast to Japan, Marxist governments have produced much lower quality of life. I spent several years as a child living in Norway and I can say first hand the standard of living at the time wasn't better than U.S, the hospitals (although free) were nowhere near U.S. standards. Because of the excessive high taxes and government controls there is a ceiling for standards of living that can not be circumvented. I can say that there were very few homeless people and the standard of living was better than say Mexico or Cuba but Norwegian's gave up a considerable amount of liberty to achieve those standards. If liberty and personal freedom are not important to you, then Norway or Denmark might be the place for you. Capitalism is not a perfect system and I don't think many people would argue that point, but it's the best system out their today that allows for the most personal freedom and liberty. Karl himself would not follow his own ideas and clearly explains that its theory. Marxism has proven time and again to be a dismal failure and people who keep pushing for it should take a look at history and see how dismally it has failed. Marxism is a moral idea that looks good in theory and works great on a small scale. "An example would be traditional families were resources are lavished on the children, who don't earn a dime of their own (even the most diehard capitalist practice this), maybe someday we will discover how to make a whole society work that way. But today a society with millions of people cannot act like one big family", Thomas Sowell. Some may say that Marxism wasn't implemented correctly, but I say after millions of people have died trying should we give Marxism another chance? The clear answer is no. Be thankful you live in a country were you have a chance for your voice to be heard. Don't squander it, vote and encourage everyone you know to vote. When you don't vote you give part of your freedom to the elitist who are only self serving and then you may as well live in a Marxist society. Beware of the extremist who think there are simple answers to complex problems. As for the book it wasn't a bad read and Marx was a great thinker with great ideas but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. By the way, I'm not a right wing conspirator just a middle of the road guy who makes his mind up one issue at a time, as we all should.
Rating:
Summary: One of the worst books ever
Review: This is one of the most important books of the modern age. This is quite simply, a sad fact. The common claim you will likely hear from a modern Marxist is that communism did not fail, it simply never existed. This goes contrary to history: Lenin and several others (Mao and Pol Pot most notably) did their best to bring about the supposed dialectical steps necessary for communism. Communism, or the attempt at bringing about it, did in fact fail, but not because of revolutions being "corrupted" ala Animal Farm, or because of the "invasion of capital" brought about by the West (had this reason been true, it would have disproved Marx's theory to a large extent since communism was supposed to outproduce capitalism), but rather because of philosophical flaws in Marxism. Marxism is a Historicism. Historicists believe that history can largely be predicted through reason, and that it moves towards an absolute goal, which is preordained. Now there's a lot of problems with this idea, obviously. The first is that without a belief in God, there is no logical reasoning to hold this mess of a theory together. The German philosopher Hegel, who was a significant influence on Marx, largely justified the historicism by believing in God. Because Marx does not presuppose God, there is no way he can properly reason that there is an "end of history." Further on this line of thinking is the Marxist determinism. For instance, a pro-Marxist reading my critique might say "he only believes that because he is bourgeoisie!" The problem with this is that, the Marxist was predetermined to believe in Marxism, and Marx was predetermined to believe the fundaments of his philosophy, etc. And belief provides no reason for thinking something is true. Thus determinism contradicts itself and under its own terms people have no reason to believe in Marxism. Marxism is fundamentally a violent theory. Marx does not call for reform towards the end of history, he calls for violent class war. Thus a devout Marxist has no reason to listen to his opponents, the dialectic of history is on his side. He only has to shoot to kill and the utopia will follow. This has provided Communists with the philosophical justification to butcher over 100 million individuals. Had Marx really wanted to prove his theory, then why did he not just found a worker-owned factory? Had he been right, it would have surely outproduced everyone else, and since capitalism follows the market, worker owned factories would have sprung up everywhere and peacefully attained victory. (this had already been attempted however, as those of you with a bit of history know. The people who tried this were the "utopian socialists" whom Marx argues, unconvincingly, against in the Manifesto. My question is, why did Marx still believe in socialism when he had seen it fail?) Marx also had faulty notions of economics and human progress. 1) economics -- Marx believed that capitalism led to monopolies which would gradually grow in power and oppress the workers until finally being consumed in the revolution. This did not happen. Monopolies tend to collapse rather quickly in a capitalist system -- as soon as they fail to innovate. Take the example of IBM -- they had the computer platform everyone wanted, but succumbed to dozens of startup companies which were able to offer the equal or better computers at lower prices. Monopolies generally only thrive where they are supported by the state, which is supposedly a dialectical step towards communism (again, this didn't happen, it just helped the collapse of several economies, including Germany's, which led to the rise of Hitler). What must be noticed is that capitalism leads to a freer, wealthier, and less classed society. Look at what the poor of America have compared to what the rich of the Middle Ages had. Capitalism and Science better people's lives in ways that government programs never can or will. The modern capitalist society is pear shaped rather than pyramid shaped for a reason -- hard labor and serfdom aren't as necessary for a strong economy. Machinery is largely freeing up humans for more creative pursuits, not oppressing or impoverishing them. 2) human progress -- Marx misunderstands this too. He thinks that by increasing the power of the state to an almost total control of the citizens lives, the state will "wither away." Yeah, right. Look at Hitler and Stalin. Power is concentrated in the state, but nothing miraculous happens, the economy gets more and more unstable, the state has to take genocidal actions to quell revolt, and eventually the government falls due to internal and/or external pressure. Mass government power is not an advance, it is a backsliding. The conception of the state is largely that it represents a separation of public life and private life. Totalitarianism is a de-politization of society: in all respects, it is a neo-tribalism. In tribal societies, the individual is suppressed and order upheld. This is largely what Marx wanted. The great wonder is not why Marxism did not lead to greater production and progress, but why Marx thought it would. I would recommend this book critical mind, who can stand to read a hideously boring book (this ain't Ulysses or Brothers Karamozov.) It is important that Marxism be studied, for it has not left us. It is still a dominant factor in many universities (outside of economics departments, where it is for the most part known as a discredited system,) and still exerts a massive influence on European and American politics (in America Marxists are incorrectly known as "liberals") This is a dangerous book which has led to the deaths of over 100 million. That's about 16 Holocausts.
Rating:
Summary: Good translation, but . . .
Review: This is the best English translation, but it ignores Marx's final thoughts enbodied in the French edition. (The first French translation was a hack job, and such a mess that Marx himself had to edit and partly rewrite.) For these significant additions and restatements, you'll either have to learn French or go to a research library for the old Dona Torr translation. Asinine, sleep-inducing introduction by Belgian Trotskyist theoretician Ernest Mandel.
Rating:
Summary: How Many Stars Do You Give to a Discredited Classic?
Review: To tell the truth, I haven't read too much of Capital since I was assigned sections of it in a college course years ago. However, the opportunity to once again match wits with Amazon reviewer Mr. Walt Bryars, an Austro-feminist-scholastic studying economics in Tampa, Florida, was just too tempting to resist. His recent "review" of Capital can be found below (I've put the word in quotes since it isn't clear whether or not Mr. Bryars has actually read Capital, though he certainly hates it). Mr. Bryars' views are clearly stated therein but his suggestion that Marx lived in the 18th century is a bit off. News flash, Mr. Bryars: the 1800s were the 19th century, not the 18th century. Regarding Capital, it was a towering achievement of 19th century thought. However, like the Wealth of Nations (written in the 18th century -- i.e., the 1700s) and other economics classics, Capital is mostly of historical interest today. The book can be thought of, at least in part, as an unintentional reductio ad absurdum of the labor theory of value which was bequeathed to Marx by Classical economists such as Adam Smith. Marx's tireless working out of the ramifications of this theory led him to embrace now-discredited conclusions about the declining rate of profit and the immiseration of the proletariat. Marx was wrong, in other words, about some of the central parts of his economic system. On the other hand, there's no doubt that he was a genius of the first rank. To my knowledge, Marx was the first economist to seriously take up issues like underconsumption, boom-and-bust cycles, and the technology-driven growth of large business firms -- issues that only entered mainstream economic discussion decades later in the 20th century. (I'll defer to Mr. Bryars on the history here, since it's possible that Spanish Dominicans wrote about the growth of large corporations in the 17th century -- i.e., the 1600s.) Since Capital is incredibly long and frequently obscure, readers interested in contemporary Marxist economic thought might be better off reading something by Paul Sweezy or Ben Fine. And readers looking for a readable, short, balanced, and easy-on-the brain overview of the totality of Marx's thought -- he was a philosopher and political thinker as well as an economist -- should consult Why Read Marx Today? by Jonathan Wolff.
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