Capital

Karl Marx


CAPITAL

A Critique of Political Economy

Volume Two

Introduced by
Ernest Mandel

Translated by
David Fernbach

Contents

Introduction by Ernest Mandel

Translator’s Preface

Preface (Frederick Engels)

Preface to the Second Edition (Frederick Engels)

Part One: The Metamorphoses of Capital and their Circuit

Chapter 1: The Circuit of Money Capital

1.  First Stage. M–C

2.  Second Stage. The Function of Productive Capital

3.  Third Stage. C′–M′

4.  The Circuit as a Whole

Chapter 2: The Circuit of Productive Capital

1.  Simple Reproduction

2.  Accumulation and Reproduction on an Expanded Scale

3.  Accumulation of Money

4.  The Reserve Fund

Chapter 3: The Circuit of Commodity Capital

Chapter 4: The Three Figures of the Circuit

(Natural Economy, Money Economy and Credit Economy)

(The Matching of Demand and Supply)

Chapter 5: Circulation Time

Chapter 6: The Costs of Circulation

1.  Pure Circulation Costs

(a)  Buying and Selling Time

(b)  Book-keeping

(c)  Money

2.  Costs of Storage

(a)  Stock Formation in General

(b) The Commodity Stock Proper

3.  Transport Costs

Part Two: The Turnover of Capital

Chapter 7: Turnover Time and Number of Turnovers

Chapter 8: Fixed Capital and Circulating Capital

1.  The Formal Distinctions

2.  Components, Replacement, Repairs and Accumulation of the Fixed Capital

Chapter 9: The Overall Turnover of the Capital Advanced. Turnover Cycles

Chapter 10: Theories of Fixed and Circulating Capital. The Physiocrats and Adam Smith

Chapter 11: Theories of Fixed and Circulating Capital. Ricardo

Chapter 12: The Working Period

Chapter 13: Production Time

Chapter 14: Circulation Time

Chapter 15: Effect of Circulation Time on the Magnitude of the Capital Advanced

1.  Working Period and Circulation Period Equal

2.  Working Period Longer than Circulation Period

3.  Working Period Shorter than Circulation Period

4.  Results

5.  Effect of Changes in Price

Chapter 16: The Turnover of Variable Capital

1.  The Annual Rate of Surplus-Value

2.  The Turnover of an Individual Variable Capital

3.  The Turnover of Variable Capital Considered from the Social Point of View

Chapter 17: The Circulation of Surplus-Value

1.  Simple Reproduction

2.  Accumulation and Expanded Reproduction

Part Three: The Reproduction and Circulation of the Total Social Capital

Chapter 18: Introduction

1. The Object of the Inquiry

2. The Role of Money Capital

Chapter 19: Former Presentations of the Subject

1.  The Physiocrats

2.  Adam Smith

(a)  Smith’s General Perspectives

(b)  Smith’s Resolution of Exchange-Value into v+s

(c)  The Constant Capital Component

(d) Capital and Revenue in Adam Smith

(e)  Summary

3. Later Writers

Chapter 20: Simple Reproduction

1.  Formulation of the Problem

2.  The Two Departments of Social Production

3.  Exchange Between the Two Departments: I(v+s) against IIc

4.  Exchange Within Department II. Necessary Means of Subsistence and Luxury Items

5.  The Mediation of the Exchanges by Monetary Circulation

6.  The Constant Capital in Department I

7.   Variable Capital and Surplus-Value in the Two Departments

8.   The Constant Capital in Both Departments

9.  A Look Back at Adam Smith, Storch and Ramsay

10.  Capital and Revenue: Variable Capital and Wages

11.  Replacement of the Fixed Capital

(a)  Replacement of the Depreciation Component in the Money Form

(b)  Replacement of the Fixed Capital in Kind

(c)   Results

12.  The Reproduction of the Money Material

13.  Destutt de Tracy’s Theory of Reproduction

Chapter 21: Accumulation and Reproduction on an Expanded Scale

1.  Accumulation in Department I

(a)  Hoard Formation

(b)  The Additional Constant Capital

(c)  The Additional Variable Capital

2.  Accumulation in Department II

3.   Schematic Presentation of Accumulation

(a)  First Example

(b)  Second Example

(c)  The Exchange of IIc in the Case of Accumulation

4.  Supplementary Remarks

Notes

Chronology of Works by Marx and Engels

Note on Previous Editions of the Works of Marx and Engels

Quotations in Languages Other than English and German

Index of Authorities Quoted

Follow Penguin

PREFACE
CHAPTER 1: THE CIRCUIT OF MONEY CAPITAL
CHAPTER 2: THE CIRCUIT OF PRODUCTIVE CAPITAL
CHAPTER 3: THE CIRCUIT OF COMMODITY CAPITAL
CHAPTER 4: THE THREE FIGURES OF THE CIRCUIT
CHAPTER 5: CIRCULATION TIME
CHAPTER 6: THE COSTS OF CIRCULATION
CHAPTER 7: TURNOVER TIME AND NUMBER OF TURNOVERS
CHAPTER 8: FIXED CAPITAL AND CIRCULATING CAPITAL
CHAPTER 9: THE OVERALL TURNOVER OF THE CAPITAL ADVANCED. TURNOVER CYCLES
CHAPTER 10: THEORIES OF FIXED AND CIRCULATING CAPITAL. THE PHYSIOCRATS AND ADAM SMITH
CHAPTER 11: THEORIES OF FIXED AND CIRCULATING CAPITAL. RICARDO
CHAPTER 12: THE WORKING PERIOD
CHAPTER 13: PRODUCTION TIME
CHAPTER 16: THE TURNOVER OF VARIABLE CAPITAL
CHAPTER 17: THE CIRCULATION OF SURPLUS-VALUE
CHAPTER 18: INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 19: FORMER PRESENTATIONS OF THE SUBJECT
CHAPTER 20: SIMPLE REPRODUCTION
CHAPTER 21: ACCUMULATION AND REPRODUCTION ON AN EXPANDED SCALE

Translator’s Preface

The three volumes of Capital form a single integral work. As Ernest Mandel explains in his introduction, the later volumes extend, if they do not wholly complete, the theoretical depiction of the capitalist mode of production which Marx embarked upon with Volume 1.

The Pelican Marx Library Capital has therefore been planned and executed as a coherent new edition. Though Volumes 2 and 3 have a different translator from Volume 1, Ben Fowkes and myself have each been able to read the other’s work and give advice. On virtually all technical points and matters of terminology, Volumes 2 and 3 follow the lead given in Volume 1.

As far as the style of writing is concerned, the differences to be found between the later volumes and Volume 1, while in some part inevitably reflecting the preferences of the translators, are due to a far greater extent to differences in the original texts. Volume 1 of Capital, which Marx himself prepared for the press – and revised after its first publication – is palpably presented to the public as a work of science that is also a work of world literature. Hence not only the splendid rhetoric of many well-known passages, but also the copious references to the works of classical antiquity and Renaissance Europe.

Volumes 2 and 3 follow much more in the wake of the less purple passages of Volume 1. Their content is to a far greater extent technical, even dry; and Volume 2, above all, is renowned for the arid deserts between its oases. From the scientific point of view, this is all quite contingent; but it has caused many a non-specialist reader to turn back in defeat. As translator, I have tried to ease the passage as best I could by rendering Marx’s prose into as straightforward and contemporary an English as possible. Translator’s footnotes and cross-references are designed with the same end in view. But though it is not hard for a new translator to improve on previous editions, I certainly could not claim to have made the later volumes of Capital easy reading. Happily, the reader of the present edition also has Ernest Mandel’s introduction as a guide, and this will come to the rescue, I am sure, at many a tricky point.

DAVID FERNBACH

NOTE

In compiling the editorial footnotes, the translator has derived much assistance from the Marx-Engels-Werke (MEW) edition of Capital.

Note

In this edition numbered footnotes

are those of the original text.

Those marked by fn are

the translator’s.

Penguin Books

THE BEGINNING

Let the conversation begin …
Follow the Penguin Twitter.com@penguinUKbooks
Keep up-to-date with all our stories YouTube.com/penguinbooks
Pin ‘Penguin Books’ to your Pinterest
Like ‘Penguin Books’ on Facebook.com/penguinbooks
Listen to Penguin at SoundCloud.com/penguin-books
Find out more about the author and
discover more stories like this at Penguin.co.uk
PENGUIN BOOKS

UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia

India | New Zealand | South Africa

Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

Penguin Random House UK

This edition first published in Pelican Books 1978

Reprinted in Penguin Classics 1992

Edition and notes copyright © New Left Review, 1978

Introduction copyright © Ernest Mandel, 1978

Translation copyright © David Fernbach, 1978

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-0-141-91329-2