141-415: Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (German: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie ), also known as Capital and Das Kapital ( German pronunciation: [das kapiˈtaːl] ), is a foundational theoretical text in materialist philosophy and critique of political economy written by Karl Marx , published as three volumes in 1867, 1885, and 1894. The culmination of his life's work,
282-456: A mode of production , and seeks to trace its origins, development, and decline. Marx argues that capitalism is a form of economic organization which has arisen and developed in a specific historical context, and which contains tendencies and contradictions which will inevitably lead to its decline and collapse. Marx considered Das Kapital a scientific work, and in it critiqued both the system and bourgeois political economists who argue that it
423-469: A "strictly scientific work" of political economy , the content of which did not apply to monarchic Russia, where "capitalist exploitation " had never occurred and was officially dismissed, given "that very few people in Russia will read it, and even fewer will understand it". Nonetheless, Marx acknowledged that Russia was the country where Das Kapital "was read and valued more than anywhere". For instance,
564-450: A French translation, published in 44 installments from August 1872 through May 1875, and then as a single work with a printing of ten thousand copies, the largest up until then. Eventually, Marx's work was translated into all major languages. The definitive critical edition of Marx's works, known as MEGA II ( Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe ), includes Das Kapital in German (only the first volume
705-464: A class of slaves , then feudalism which was based on nobles and serfs , and then capitalism which is based on the capitalist class ( bourgeoisie ) and the working class ( proletariat ). In his idea of a future communist society, Marx explains that classes would no longer exist, and therefore the exploitation of one class by another is abolished. To historical materialists, hunter-gatherer societies constituted primitive communist societies. In
846-526: A collection of "high-sounding dramas of princes and states". While studying at the University of Berlin , Marx encountered the philosophy of Hegel (1770–1831) which had a profound and lasting influence on his thinking. One of Hegel's key critiques of enlightenment philosophy was that while thinkers were often able to describe what made societies from one epoch to the next different, they struggled to account for why they changed. Classical economists presented
987-542: A dissertation comparing the philosophy of nature in the works of the philosophers Democritus (circa 460–370 BC) and Epicurus (341–270 BC). The logical architecture of Das Kapital is derived in part from the Politics and the Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle, including the fundamental distinction between use value and exchange value , the syllogisms ( C-M-C' and M-C-M' ) for simple commodity circulation and
1128-427: A fall in labor's share of output. Marx himself frequently polemicized against the view "that the amount of real wages ... is a fixed amount." Historical materialism Historical materialism is Karl Marx 's theory of history. Marx located historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. Karl Marx stated that technological development can change
1269-405: A fellow worker. When Marxists speak of class struggle, they define a class primarily in economic terms, i.e., by its relationship to the means of production . When anarchists like Bakunin speak of class struggle, they have a broader definition of "social class" which encompasses "notions of domination and privilege" in the political and cultural spheres as well as the economic. Bakunin believed
1410-574: A full, three-volume edition as Theorien über den Mehrwert ( Theories of Surplus Value , 1905–1910). The first volume was published in English as A History of Economic Theories (1952). The Communist Party of the Soviet Union published its own edition of Volume IV in which it claimed that Kautsky's edition bastardized the original text, with their version containing more of the original, unedited material. The first translated publication of Das Kapital
1551-422: A lack of state . Slave societies, the ancient mode of production , were formed as productive forces advanced, namely due to agriculture and its ensuing abundance which led to the abandonment of nomadic society. Slave societies were marked by their use of slavery and minor private property ; production for use was the primary form of production. Slave society is considered by historical materialists to be
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#17328441311251692-412: A material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. The phrase "proceeds of labor", objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning. What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on
1833-406: A model of civil society based on a universal and unchanging human nature. Hegel challenged this view and argued that human nature as well as the formulations of art, science and the institutions of the state and its codes, laws and norms were all defined by their history and could only be understood by examining their historical development. Hegel’s philosophical thought saw it as an expression of
1974-498: A more recent English translation was made by Ben Fowkes and David Fernbach (the Penguin edition). In 2024, Princeton University Press published the first English translation of the second German edition of Capital, Volume 1, edited and translated by Paul North and Paul Reitter. Volumes 2 and 3 are forthcoming. In 2017, the historian Gareth Stedman Jones wrote in the Books and Arts section of
2115-413: A necessary result of political liberty, stating that the most important task of government was to manage and adjust for 'the spirit of party'. In his Philosophy of Right , Hegel expressed concern that the standard of living of the poor might drop so far as to make it even easier for the rich to amass even more wealth. Hegel believed that, especially in a liberal country such as contemporary England,
2256-430: A primitive communist society, the productive forces would have consisted of all able-bodied persons engaged in obtaining food and resources from the land, and everyone would share in what was produced by hunting and gathering. There would be no private property , which is distinguished from personal property such as articles of clothing and similar personal items, because primitive society produced no surplus; what
2397-417: A revolution in human thought, and a break from previous ways of understanding the underlying basis of change within various human societies. As Marx puts it, "a coherence arises in human history" because each generation inherits the productive forces developed previously and in turn further develops them before passing them on to the next generation. Further, this coherence increasingly involves more of humanity
2538-507: A society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. [...] The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into
2679-492: A specific culture rather than an eternal truth: "Philosophy is its own age comprehended in thought." In each society, humans were 'free by nature" but constrained by their "brutal recklessness of passion" and "untamed natural impulses" that led to injustice and violence. It was only through wider society and the state , which was expressed in each historical epoch, by a "spirit of the age", collective consciousness or geist , that "Freedom" could be realized. For Hegel, history
2820-592: A whole is to locate and describe the concrete forms which grow out of the movements of capital as a whole. Thus, the various forms of capital approach step by step the form which they assume on the surface of society in the action of different capitals on one another in competition and in the ordinary consciousness of the agents of production themselves (25) (Clarke). In volume 3 (as in his earlier text The German Ideology ), Marx discusses how primitive accumulation alienates humans from nature. In volume 3, Marx also describes capitalism as producing an "irreparable rift in
2961-406: A whole" and is concerned primarily with the internal differentiation of the capitalist class. The first three parts are concerned with the division of surplus value amongst individual capitals, where it takes the form of profit. The following parts are concerned with merchants' capital, interest-bearing capital and landed capital. The last part draws the whole account together. The aim of the volume as
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#17328441311253102-425: Is a great property, there is great inequality. For one very rich man, there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy to invade his possessions. It is only under the shelter of the civil magistrate, that the owner of that valuable property, which
3243-453: Is a lengthy polemic against Marx and Engels' fellow Young Hegelians and contemporaries Ludwig Feuerbach , Bruno Bauer , and Max Stirner . In the Marxian view, human history is like a river. From any given vantage point, a river looks much the same day after day. But actually it is constantly flowing and changing, crumbling its banks, widening and deepening its channel. The water seen one day
3384-522: Is a pattern that has repeated since at least European classical antiquity as illustrated in the Conflict of the Orders and the slave revolt led by Spartacus . In his History , Thucydides describes a civil war in the city of Corcyra between the pro- Athens party of the common people and their pro- Corinth oligarchic opposition. Near the climax of the struggle, "the oligarchs in full rout, fearing that
3525-407: Is acquired by the labour of many years, or perhaps of many successive generations, can sleep a single night in security. He is at all times surrounded by unknown enemies, whom, though he never provoked, he can never appease, and from whose injustice he can be protected only by the powerful arm of the civil magistrate, continually held up to chastise it. Writing The Wealth of Nations , Smith's concern
3666-485: Is an amalgam of contesting forces – some promoting stability and others striving for change. It is not just external factors that bring about transformation but internal contradictions. The unceasing drive of this dynamic is played out by real people struggling to achieve their aims. The outcome is that ideas, institutions and bodies of society are reconfigured into new forms expressing new characteristics. At certain decisive moments in history, during periods of great conflict,
3807-496: Is an expanded English translation of the successful 2008 Japanese pocket version Das Kapital known as Manga de Dokuha . The English translation of volume 1 by Samuel Moore and Eleanor Marx 's partner Edward Aveling , overseen by Engels, was published in 1887 as Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production by Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey, & Co. This was reissued in the 1970s by Progress Publishers in Moscow, while
3948-484: Is at the heart of Marx's account of history. Marx viewed labor throughout history, in all societies and in all modes of production, from the earliest Paleolithic hunter gatherers through to feudal societies and to modern capitalist economies as an "everlasting Nature-imposed condition of human existence" that compels humans to join socially to produce their means of subsistence. Marx identified two mutually interdependent structures of humans' interaction with nature and
4089-573: Is efficient and stable. In Das Kapital (1867), Marx proposes that the motivating force of capitalism is in the exploitation of labor , whose unpaid work is the ultimate source of surplus value . The owner of the means of production is able to claim the right to this surplus value because they are legally protected by the ruling regime through property rights and the legally established distribution of shares which are by law distributed only to company owners and their board members. The historical section shows how these rights were acquired in
4230-482: Is in French) and shows all the versions and alterations made to the text as well as a very extensive apparatus of footnotes and cross-references. The first unabridged translation of Das Kapital to Bengali was done by professor Piyush Dasgupta . It was published in six volumes by Baniprakash, Kolkata, India between 1974 and 1983. In 2012, Red Quill Books released Capital: In Manga! , a comic book version of Volume I which
4371-502: Is never the same as that seen the next. Some of it is constantly being evaporated and drawn up, to return as rain. From year to year these changes may be scarcely perceptible. But one day, when the banks are thoroughly weakened and the rains long and heavy, the river floods, bursts its banks, and may take a new course. This represents the dialectical part of Marx's famous theory of dialectical (or historical) materialism. — Hubert Kay, Life , 1948 Marx based his theory of history on
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4512-406: Is not claiming that productive forces always develop or that they never decline. Their development may be temporarily blocked, but because human beings have a rational interest in developing their capacities to control their interactions with external nature in order to satisfy their wants, the historical tendency is strongly toward further development of these capacities. Broadly, the importance of
4653-420: Is spent on commodities for which there is market-demand, can be considered productive labour and therefore exploited on Marx's account. There are also those who argued that Marx's so-called immiseration thesis is presumed to mean that the proletariat is absolutely immiserated. The existing scholarly consensus tends towards the opposite view that Marx believed that only relative immiseration would occur, that is,
4794-407: Is the negation of capitalism . Class struggle In political science , the term class conflict , or class struggle , refers to the economic antagonism and political tension that exist among social classes because of clashing interests, competition for limited resources, and inequalities of power in the socioeconomic hierarchy. In its simplest manifestation, class conflict refers to
4935-402: Is the key feature of the explanation." It is because the influences in the two directions are not symmetrical that it makes sense to speak of primary and secondary factors, even where one is giving a non-reductionist, "holistic" account of social interaction. To summarize, history develops in accordance with the following observations: Many writers note that historical materialism represented
5076-408: Is the most cited book in the social sciences published before 1950. Marx's theory of historical materialism posits that the economic structure of society – in particular, the forces and relations of production – are the crucial factors in shaping its nature. Rather than a simple description of capitalism as an economic model , Das Kapital instead examines capitalism as a historical epoch and
5217-418: Is the point of departure for the topic of capital accumulation which was given its Marxist treatment later in detail by Rosa Luxemburg , among others. Das Kapital, Volume III , subtitled The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole , was prepared by Engels from notes left by Marx and published in 1894. It is divided into seven parts: The work is best known today for Part 3 which in summary says that as
5358-514: The British Library in London. At the time of his death (1883), Marx had prepared the manuscript for Das Kapital, Volume IV , a critical history of theories of surplus value of his time, the 19th century, based on the earlier manuscript Theories of Surplus Value (1862–63). The philosopher Karl Kautsky (1854–1938) published a partial edition of Marx's surplus-value critique and later published
5499-1109: The Cartesian rationalism of philosophers such as Descartes . Notable philosophers expounding materialist views included Francis Bacon , Pierre Gassendi , and John Locke . They were followed by a series of materialists in France in the 18th century such as Étienne Bonnot de Condillac , Claude Adrien Helvétius , and Baron d'Holbach . In the 19th century, the pre-Marxist communists Théodore Dézamy and Jules Gay adopted materialism in their historical analysis of society as well. Marx inherited his materialist philosophy from this Gassendi-Dezamy line of thinkers. Marx's ideas were also influenced by his reading of Young Hegelian writer Ludwig Feuerbach 's 1833 work Geschichte der neuern Philosophie von Bacon von Verulam bis Benedict Spinoza which covered Gassendi's materialist philosophy as well as Gassendi's treatment on materialist Ancient Greek philosophers such as Epicurus , Leucippus , and Democritus . Inspired by Enlightenment thinkers, especially Condorcet,
5640-503: The Senate into giving the plebs the right to choose one of the two consuls. Tacitus believed that the increase in Roman power spurred the patricians to expand their power over more and more cities. This process, he felt, exacerbated pre-existing class tensions with the plebs, and eventually culminated in a civil war between the patrician Sulla and the populist reformer Marius . Marius had taken
5781-443: The bourgeoisie . However, production was still largely for use. The capitalist mode of production materialized when the rising bourgeois class grew large enough to institute a shift in the productive forces. The bourgeoisie's primary form of production was in the form of commodities , i.e. they produced with the purpose of exchanging their products. As this commodity production grew, the old feudal systems came into conflict with
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5922-551: The divine right of kings . A group of thinkers including Hobbes (1588–1679), Montesquieu (1689–1755), Voltaire (1694–1778), Smith (1723–1790), Turgot (1727–1781) and Condorcet (1743–1794) explored new forms of inquiry, including empirical studies of human nature, history, economics and society. Some philosophers, for example, Vico (1668–1744), Herder (1744–1803) and Hegel (1770–1831), sought to uncover organizing principles of human history in underlying themes, meanings, and directions. For many Enlightenment philosophers,
6063-455: The free-men to be admitted into the tribes , not by the force of his eloquence, but by a word, by a gesture; which had he not effected, the republic, whose drooping head we are at present scarce able to uphold, would not even exist. Tiberius Gracchus weakened the power of the Senate by changing the law so that judges were chosen from the ranks of the knights , instead of their social superiors in
6204-422: The modes of production over time. This change in the mode of production inevitably encourages changes to a society's economic system . Marx's lifetime collaborator, Friedrich Engels , coined the term "historical materialism" and described it as "that view of the course of history which seeks the ultimate cause and the great moving power of all important historic events in the economic development of society, in
6345-450: The serfdom from the countryside to the city, forming a new proletarian class. This caused the countryside to become reliant on large cities. Subsequently, the new capitalist mode of production also began expanding into other societies that had not yet developed a capitalist system (e.g. the scramble for Africa ). The Communist Manifesto stated: National differences and antagonism between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to
6486-653: The socialist mode of production . The argument is an analysis of the classical economics of Adam Smith , David Ricardo , John Stuart Mill and Benjamin Franklin , drawing on the dialectical method that G. W. F. Hegel developed in Science of Logic and The Phenomenology of Spirit . Other intellectual influences on Capital were the French socialists Charles Fourier , Henri de Saint-Simon , Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon . At university, Marx wrote
6627-454: The utopian socialist Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825) formulated his own materialist interpretation of history, similar to those later used in Marxism, analyzing historical epochs based on their level of technology and organization and dividing them between eras of slavery , serfdom , and finally wage labor . According to the socialist leader Jean Jaurès , the French writer Antoine Barnave
6768-402: The "chief enemy to the people" and "a very dog to the commonalty" while the leader of the mob speaks out against the patricians thusly: They ne'er cared for us yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide more piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
6909-567: The "spirit of the age" drive history was mistaken in Marx's view. Hegel, wrote Marx, "fell into the illusion of conceiving the real as the product of thought..." Marx contended that the engine of history was to be found in a materialist understanding of society - the productive process and the way humans labored to meet their needs. Marx and Engels first set out their materialist conception of history in The German Ideology , written in 1845. The book
7050-471: The "violence of the great lords" : In order to understand this, it must be remembered, that, in those days, the sovereign of perhaps no country in Europe was able to protect, through the whole extent of his dominions, the weaker part of his subjects from the oppression of the great lords. Those whom the law could not protect, and who were not strong enough to defend themselves, were obliged either to have recourse to
7191-437: The 'severity of the patricians their creditors, the debts due to whom they had to discharge by slave-work, drove the plebs to revolts.' Gibbon also explains how Augustus facilitated this class conflict by pacifying the plebs with actual bread and circuses . The economist Adam Smith noted that the poor freeman's lack of land provided a major impetus for Roman colonisation , as a way to relieve class tensions at home between
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#17328441311257332-558: The European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, & restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves & sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is a true picture of Europe. Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to
7473-531: The Russian edition was the fastest selling as 3,000 copies were sold in one year while the German edition took five years to sell 1,000, therefore the Russian translation sold fifteen times faster than the German original. This edition was in part worked on by revolutionary socialist Mikhail Bakunin , but "he quit after completing part of the first chapter" and it was completed by Nikolai Danielson and German Lopatin among others. Marx revised, rewrote, and monitored
7614-405: The ability to give a magistrate the power of dictatorship , meaning he could bypass public law in the pursuit of a prescribed mandate. Montesquieu explains that the purpose of this institution was to tilt the balance of power in favour of the patricians. However, in an attempt to resolve a conflict between the patricians and the plebs, the dictator Camillus used his power of dictatorship to coerce
7755-410: The abstract, or by entering into arbitrary or random relations chosen at will, but instead are determined by the development of the existing forces of production. The relations of production are determined by the level and character of these productive forces present at any given time in history. In all societies, human beings collectively work on nature but, especially in class societies, do not do
7896-640: The actions of "great historical men" can align with the "spirit of the age" to bring about a fundamental advance in freedom. The implication of Hegel's philosophy that every social order, no matter how powerful and secure, will eventually wither away was incendiary. These ideas were inspirational to Marx and the Young Hegelians who sought to develop a radical critique of the Prussian authorities and their failure to introduce constitutional change or reform social institutions. However, Hegel's contention that ideas or
8037-464: The aristocrats, the mass of Athenians chose Solon to be the lawgiver to lead them to freedom from their creditors. The philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel said that Solon's constitution of the Athenian popular assembly created a political sphere that balanced the competing socio-economic interests of the social classes of Athens: Participating in a war among the social classes of Ancient Greece
8178-435: The bourgeoisie, in the same way that the bourgeoisie was the revolutionary class in relation to the nobility under feudalism. The proletariat, then, must seize power as the new revolutionary class in a dictatorship of the proletariat . Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which
8319-528: The categories cannot explain. This meant that Marx had to build his arguments on historical narratives and empirical evidence rather than the arbitrary application of his ideas in his evaluation of capitalism. On the other hand, Das Kapital has also received criticism. There are theorists who claimed that this text was unable to reconcile capitalist exploitation with prices dependent upon subjective wants in exchange relations. Marxists generally reply that only socially necessary labor time , that is, labor which
8460-511: The changes in the modes of production and exchange, in the consequent division of society into distinct classes, and in the struggles of these classes against one another." Although Marx never brought together a formal or comprehensive description of historical materialism in one published work, his key ideas are woven into a variety of works from the 1840s onward. Since Marx's time, the theory has been modified and expanded. It now has many Marxist and non-Marxist variants. Marx's view of history
8601-410: The circulation of value as capital . Moreover, the description of machinery under capitalist relations of production as "self-acting automata " derives from Aristotle's speculations about inanimate instruments capable of obeying commands as the condition for the abolition of slavery . In the 19th century, Marx's research of the available politico-economic literature required twelve years, usually in
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#17328441311258742-492: The concepts of property, money, and commodity production. To Marx, the higher-stage of communist society is a free association of producers which has successfully negated all remnants of capitalism, notably the concepts of states , nationality , sexism , families , alienation , social classes , money , property , commodities , the bourgeoisie , the proletariat , division of labor , cities and countryside , class struggle , religion , ideology , and markets . It
8883-400: The conflict between rich and poor, commenting that "the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination." He welcomed class-based factions into political life as
9024-417: The contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society—after the deductions have been made—exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example,
9165-400: The development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto. The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster. United action, of the leading civilised countries at least, is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat. In proportion as
9306-426: The discussion around class conflict between employers and employees. It was with bitter sarcasm that Rousseau outlined the class conflict prevailing in his day between masters and their workmen: You have need of me, because I am rich and you are poor. We will therefore come to an agreement. I will permit you to have the honour of serving me, on condition that you bestow on me the little you have left, in return for
9447-449: The driving force in society or that the underlying cause of change was guided by the actions of leaders in government or religion. The " great man " and occasionally "great woman" view of historical change was popularized by the 19th-century Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) who wrote "the history of the world is nothing but the biography of great men". According to Marx, this conception of history amounted to nothing more than
9588-455: The economic base, but its features also ultimately correspond to the character and development of that economic base, i.e. the way people organize society, its relations of production, and its mode of production. G.A. Cohen argues in Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence that a society's superstructure stabilizes or entrenches its economic structure, but that the economic base is primary and
9729-410: The economic sphere, class conflict is sometimes expressed overtly, such as owner lockouts of their employees in an effort to weaken the bargaining power of the employees' union ; or covertly, such as a worker slowdown of production or the widespread, simultaneous use of sick leave (e.g., " blue flu ") to protest unfair labor practices , low wages, poor work conditions , or a perceived injustice to
9870-501: The emergence of an entirely new mode of production as the culmination of the same historical dialectic that led to the emergence of capitalism from prior forms. The third volume is highly controversial, peculiarly the tenth chapter, as some economists feel like Marx contradicted himself with the Marxian fundamental value theory while trying to tackle the transformation problem . Volume 3 is subtitled "The process of capitalist production as
10011-406: The exploitation of one individual by another will also be put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end to. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end. Under capitalism, the bourgeoisie and proletariat become the two primary classes. Class struggle between these two classes
10152-461: The extravagant consumption of the aristocracy, he remarked that: All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind. In the third book of The Wealth of Nations , Smith explains that in the medieval period , after the fall of the Roman Empire, governments were unable to protect commoners, and their property, from
10293-530: The first class-stratified society formed of citizens and slaves . Surplus from agriculture was distributed to the citizens, who exploited the slaves that worked the fields. The feudal mode of production emerged from slave society (e.g. in Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire), coinciding with the further advance of productive forces. Feudal society's class relations were marked by an entrenched nobility and serfdom . For Marx, what defined feudalism
10434-425: The first place chiefly through plunder and conquest and the activity of the merchant and "middle-man". In producing capital , the workers continually reproduce the economic conditions by which they labour. Das Kapital proposes an explanation of the "laws of motion" of the capitalist economic system from its origins to its future by describing the dynamics of the accumulation of capital, the growth of wage labour ,
10575-582: The first sentence of Chapter 1 of the Communist Manifesto reads: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." Marxists view the struggle's resolution in favor of the working class to be inevitable under plutocratic capitalism. Where societies are socially divided based on status, wealth, or control of social production and distribution, class structures arise and are thus coeval with civilization itself. The rise of class structures eventually leads to class conflict. It
10716-436: The first volume. These three volumes are collectively known as Das Kapital . NML: Das Kapital, Volume I (1867) is a critical analysis of political economy, meant to reveal the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production , how it was the precursor of the socialist mode of production and of the class struggle rooted in the capitalist social relations of production. The first of three volumes of Das Kapital
10857-608: The forces of production tend to develop and expand as new skills, knowledge and technology (for example wooden scratch plows then heavier iron plows) are put to use to meet human needs. From one generation to the next, technical skills, evolving traditions of practice and mechanical innovations are reproduced and disseminated. Marx extended this premise by asserting the importance of the fact that, in order to carry out production and exchange, people have to enter into very definite social relations, or more specifically, "relations of production". However, production does not get carried out in
10998-414: The form of disputes over hours of work, amount paid in wages, division of profits, culture in the workplace, cost of consumer goods, cost of rent, control over parliament or government bureaucracy , and economic inequality . Even a seemingly benign humanitarian program such as government-provided disaster relief can exacerbate class conflict if the relief is seen as being unequally distributed depending on
11139-443: The government.". Aristotle also commented that "poverty is the parent of revolution", but did not consider poverty to be the only cause of revolution. In a society where property is distributed equally throughout the community, "the nobles will be dissatisfied, because they think themselves worthy of more than an equal share of honors; and this is often found to be a cause of sedition and revolution." Moreover, Aristotle said that it
11280-636: The great landmarks of nineteenth-century thought, it is [because it connects] critical analysis of the economy of his time with its historical roots. In doing so, he inaugurated a debate about how best to reform or transform politics and social relations, which has gone on ever since. Positive reception also cited the soundness of the methodology used in producing the book, which is called immanent critique. This approach, which starts from simple category and gradually unfolds into complex categories, employed "internal" criticism that finds contradiction within and between categories while discovering aspects of reality that
11421-450: The hands of too few men. Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) led the U.S. as president from 1801 to 1809 and is considered one of America's Founding Fathers . Regarding the interaction between social classes, he wrote: I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians ) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under
11562-460: The husbandman, during the term of his military service, was obliged to abandon the cultivation of his farm. The lands of Italy which had been originally divided among the families of free and indigent proprietors, were insensibly purchased or usurped by the avarice of the nobles; and in the age which preceded the fall of the republic, it was computed that only two thousand citizens were possessed of an independent substance. Hegel similarly states that
11703-513: The idea that modes of production do not exist in isolation but rather are materialized from the previous existence is a core idea in historical materialism. There is considerable debate among communists regarding the nature of this society. Some such as Joseph Stalin , Fidel Castro , and other Marxist-Leninists believe that the lower-stage of communism constitutes its own mode of production, which they call socialist rather than communist. Marxist-Leninists believe that this society may still maintain
11844-415: The interdependent" connection of humans and nature. The purpose of Das Kapital (1867) was a scientific foundation for the politics of the modern labour movement . The analyses were meant "to bring a science , by criticism, to the point where it can be dialectically represented" and so "reveal the law of motion of modern society" to describe how the capitalist mode of production was the precursor of
11985-462: The large social class of impoverished commoners; and used the analogy of a maritime pilot , who, like the power-holder in a polis , ought to be chosen for political office for his skill, not for the amount of property he owns. The historian Plutarch recounts how the Greek people participated in the class conflict between the aristocrats and the common folk. Financially oppressed by their indebtedness to
12126-405: The manufacturing middle class; division of labour between the different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of labour in each single workshop. With the rise of the bourgeoisie came the concepts of nation-states and nationalism . Marx argued that capitalism completely separated the economic and political forces. Marx took the state to be a sign of this separation—it existed to manage
12267-432: The massive conflicts of interest which arose between the proletariat and bourgeoisie in capitalist society. Marx observed that nations arose at the time of the appearance of capitalism on the basis of community of economic life, territory, language, certain features of psychology, and traditions of everyday life and culture. In The Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels explained that the coming into existence of nation-states
12408-558: The men who bear arms, and expose their lives for the safety of their country, enjoy in the meantime nothing more in it but the air and light; and having no houses or settlements of their own, are constrained to wander from place to place with their wives and children." Following this observation, he remarked that these men "fought indeed and were slain, but it was to maintain the luxury and the wealth of other men." Cicero believed that Tiberius Gracchus's reforming efforts saved Rome from tyranny, arguing: Tiberius Gracchus (says Cicero) caused
12549-400: The modes of production by later authors. In each of these stages of production, people interact with nature and production in different ways. Any surplus from that production was distributed differently. Marx propounded that humanity first began living in primitive communist societies, then came the ancient societies such as Rome and Greece which were based on a ruling class of citizens and
12690-424: The more the productive forces develop and expand to bind people together in production and exchange. This understanding counters the notion that human history is simply a series of accidents, either without any underlying cause or caused by supernatural beings or forces exerting their will on society. Historical materialism posits that history is made as a result of struggle between different social classes rooted in
12831-405: The necessity of labor to ensure physical survival. In The German Ideology , Marx wrote that the first historical act, was the production of means to satisfy material needs and that labor is a "fundamental condition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly be fulfilled merely in order to sustain human life". Human labor forms the materialist basis for society and
12972-414: The new capitalist ones; feudalism was then eschewed as capitalism emerged. The bourgeoisie's influence expanded until commodity production became fully generalized: The feudal system of industry, in which industrial production was monopolised by closed guilds, now no longer sufficed for the growing wants of the new markets. The manufacturing system took its place. The guild-masters were pushed on one side by
13113-446: The ongoing battle between rich and poor . In the writings of several leftist , socialist , and communist theorists, notably those of Karl Marx , class struggle is a core tenet and a practical means for effecting radical sociopolitical transformations for the majority working class . It is also a central concept within conflict theories of sociology and political philosophy . Class conflict can reveal itself through: In
13254-408: The oppressors. The other was expressed in the expansion of links among nations, the breaking down of barriers between them, the establishment of a unified economy and of a world market ( globalization ); the first is a characteristic of lower-stage capitalism and the second a more advanced form, furthering the unity of the international proletariat . Alongside this development was the forced removal of
13395-453: The organic fixed capital requirements of production rise as a result of advancements in production generally, the rate of profit tends to fall . This result which orthodox Marxists believe is a principal contradictory characteristic leading to an inevitable collapse of the capitalist order was held by Marx and Engels to—as a result of various contradictions in the capitalist mode of production —result in crises whose resolution necessitates
13536-444: The other side of the class war, for the patricians and against the plebs. When grain arrived to relieve a serious shortage in the city of Rome, the plebs made it known that they felt it ought to be divided amongst them as a gift, but Coriolanus stood up in the Senate against this idea on the grounds that it would empower the plebs at the expense of the patricians. This decision would eventually contribute to Coriolanus's undoing when he
13677-411: The other. Thucydides believed that "as long as poverty gives men the courage of necessity, [...] so long will the impulse never be wanting to drive men into danger." In the Politics , Aristotle describes the basic dimensions of class conflict: "Again, because the rich are generally few in number, while the poor are many, they appear to be antagonistic, and as the one or the other prevails they form
13818-549: The overall primacy of the productive forces can be understood in terms of two key theses: (a) The productive forces tend to develop throughout history (the Development Thesis). (b) The nature of the production relations of a society is explained by the level of development of its productive forces (the Primacy Thesis proper). In saying that productive forces have a universal tendency to develop, Cohen's reading of Marx
13959-402: The pains I shall take to command you. Rousseau argued that the most important task of any government is to fight in class warfare on the side of workmen against their masters, who he said engage in exploitation under the pretence of serving society. Specifically, he believed that governments should actively intervene in the economy to abolish poverty and prevent the accrual of too much wealth in
14100-482: The poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and there's all the love they bear us. Enlightenment -era historian Edward Gibbon might have agreed with this narrative of Roman class conflict. In the third volume of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , he relates the origins of the struggle: [T]he plebeians of Rome [...] had been oppressed from the earliest times by the weight of debt and usury; and
14241-427: The poorest will politicise their situation, channelling their frustrations against the rich: Against nature man can claim no right, but once society is established, poverty immediately takes the form of a wrong done to one class by another. Class conflict is most commonly described as occurring within capitalist societies. The conflict manifests itself as clashes between the capitalist class and working class, and takes
14382-476: The power of ideas became the mainspring for understanding historical change and the rise and fall of civilizations. History was the gradual advance of the "spirit of liberty" or the growth of nationalism or democracy , rationality and law . This view of history remains popular to this day. Beginning in the 16th and 17th centuries, materialism came to prominence in Western philosophy , especially in opposition to
14523-453: The process of producing their subsistence : the forces of production and relations of production . The forces of production are everything that humans use to make the things that society needs. They include human labor and the raw materials, land, tools, instruments and knowledge required for production. The flint sharpened spears and harpoons developed by early humans in the late Paleolithic period are all forces of production. Over time,
14664-464: The public affairs, you & I, & Congress & Assemblies, judges & governors shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions; and experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor. In his Federalist No. 10 , James Madison revealed an emphatic concern with
14805-443: The recipient's class. Like Rousseau, the classical liberal Adam Smith believed that the amassing of property in the hands of a minority naturally resulted in a disharmonious state of affairs. He said that "avarice and ambition in the rich, in the poor the hatred of labour and the love of present ease and enjoyment, are the passions which prompt to invade property", requiring a government to protect property rights: Wherever there
14946-594: The rich and the landless poor. Hegel described the same phenomenon happening in the impetus to Greek colonisation . Writing in pre-capitalist Europe, the Swiss philosophe Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Federalist statesman James Madison across the Atlantic Ocean made significant remarks on the dynamics of class struggle. Later, German idealist Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel would also contribute his perspective to
15087-412: The same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another. This lower-stage of communist society is, according to Marx, analogous to the lower-stage of capitalist society, i.e. the transition from feudalism to capitalism, in that both societies are "stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges." The emphasis on
15228-458: The same work. In such societies, there is a division of labor in which people not only carry out different kinds of labor but occupy different social positions on the basis of those differences. The most important such division is that between manual and intellectual labor whereby one class produces a given society's wealth while another is able to monopolize control of the means of production . In this way, both govern that society and live off of
15369-468: The scientific journal Nature : What is extraordinary about Das Kapital is that it offers a still-unrivalled picture of the dynamism of capitalism and its transformation of societies on a global scale. It firmly embedded concepts such as commodity and capital in the lexicon. And it highlights some of the vulnerabilities of capitalism, including its unsettling disruption of states and political systems. [...] If Das Kapital has now emerged as one of
15510-507: The senatorial class. Contrary to Shakespeare's depiction of Julius Caesar in the tragedy Julius Caesar , historian Michael Parenti has argued that Caesar was a populist, not a tyrant. In 2003 The New Press published Parenti's The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome. Publishers Weekly said "Parenti [...] narrates a provocative history of the late republic in Rome (100–33 BC) to demonstrate that Caesar's death
15651-494: The social intertwining of the different capitals, of the component parts of capital and of revenue (= s)". This intertwining, conceived as a movement of commodities and of money, enabled Marx to work out at least the essential elements, if not the definitive form of a coherent theory of the trade cycle, based upon the inevitability of periodic disequilibrium between supply and demand under the capitalist mode of production ( Ernest Mandel , Intro to Volume II of Capital , 1978). Part 3
15792-440: The social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as
15933-447: The solid foundation on which the whole of the unfolding analysis is based. Marx wrote in a letter sent to Engels on 30 April 1868: "In Book 1 [...] we content ourselves with the assumption that if in the self-expansion process £100 becomes £110, the latter will find already in existence in the market the elements into which it will change once more. But now we investigate the conditions under which these elements are found at hand, namely
16074-409: The state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat . Marx also describes a communist society developed alongside the proletarian dictatorship: Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as
16215-591: The step of enlisting capite censi , the very lowest class of citizens, into the army, for the first time allowing non-land owners into the legions . Of all the notable figures discussed by Plutarch and Tacitus, agrarian reformer Tiberius Gracchus may have most challenged the upper classes and most championed the cause of the lower classes. In a speech to the common soldiery, he decried their lowly conditions: "The savage beasts," said he, "in Italy, have their particular dens, they have their places of repose and refuge; but
16356-630: The study of history lies in the ability of history to explain the present. John Bellamy Foster asserts that historical materialism is important in explaining history from a scientific perspective, by following the scientific method , as opposed to belief-system theories like creationism and intelligent design , which do not base their beliefs on verifiable facts and hypotheses . The main modes of production that Marx identified include primitive communism , slave society , feudalism , capitalism and communism . Mercantilism , mixed economy ( state-capitalism ) and socialism are sometimes included in
16497-411: The successful struggle of the dominated classes would achieve a revolution to depose the ruling elites and create a stateless or libertarian socialism , and that a prerequisite for successful revolution is class solidarity . Marx's theory of history asserts that in the history of economic systems such as capitalism and feudalism , class struggle is "the central fact of social evolution." Indeed,
16638-416: The superstructure secondary. That said, it is precisely because the superstructure strongly affects the base that the base selects that superstructure. As Charles Taylor wrote: "These two directions of influence are so far from being rivals that they are actually complementary. The functional explanation requires that the secondary factor tend to have a causal effect on the primary, for this dispositional fact
16779-418: The text contains Marx's analysis of capitalism , to which he sought to apply his theory of historical materialism "to lay bare the economic law of motion of modern society", following from classical political economists such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo . The text's second and third volumes were completed from Marx's notes after his death and published by his colleague Friedrich Engels . Das Kapital
16920-615: The transformation of the workplace, the concentration of capital, commercial competition, the banking system, the decline of the profit rate , land-rents, et cetera . The critique of the political economy of capitalism proposes: After two decades of economic study and preparatory work (especially regarding the theory of surplus value ), the first volume appeared in 1867 as The Production Process of Capital . After Marx's death in 1883, Engels introduced Volume II: The Circulation Process of Capital in 1885; and Volume III: The Overall Process of Capitalist Production in 1894 from manuscripts and
17061-459: The underlying economic base. According to G. A. Cohen , author of Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence , the level of development of society's productive forces (i.e., society's technological powers, including tools, machinery, raw materials, and labor power) determines society's economic structure, in the sense that it selects a structure of economic relations that tends best to facilitate further technological growth. In historical explanation,
17202-408: The victorious commons might assault and carry the arsenal and put them to the sword, fired the houses round the market-place and the lodging-houses, in order to bar their advance." The historian Tacitus would later recount a similar class conflict in the city of Seleucia , in which disharmony between the oligarchs and the commoners would typically lead to each side calling on outside help to defeat
17343-485: The wealth generated by the laboring classes. Marx identified society's relations of production (arising on the basis of given productive forces) as the economic base of society. He also explained that on the foundation of the economic base, there arise certain political institutions, laws, customs, culture, etc., and ideas, ways of thinking, morality, etc. These constitute the political/ideological " superstructure " of society. This superstructure not only has its origin in
17484-495: The whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. The bourgeoisie, as Marx stated in The Communist Manifesto , has "forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons—the modern working class—the proletarians." Historical materialists henceforth believe that the modern proletariat are the new revolutionary class in relation to
17625-581: The worker and the industrialist (as in Volume I), but rather the money owner and money lender, the wholesale merchant, the trader and the entrepreneur or functioning capitalist. Moreover, workers appear in Volume II essentially as buyers of consumer goods and therefore as sellers of the commodity labour power , rather than producers of value and surplus-value , although this latter quality established in Volume I remains
17766-406: Was a dangerous political endeavour. In his book Parallel Lives , Plutarch wrote of two Spartan kings, Agis and Cleomenes , who "being desirous to raise the people, and to restore the noble and just form of government, now long fallen into disuse, [they] incurred the hatred of the rich and powerful, who could not endure to be deprived of the selfish enjoyment to which they were accustomed." It
17907-446: Was impeached following a trial by the tribunes of the plebs . Montesquieu recounts how Coriolanus castigated the tribunes for trying a patrician, when in his mind no one but a consul had that right, although a law had been passed stipulating that all appeals affecting the life of a citizen had to be brought before the plebs. In the first scene of Shakespeare's Coriolanus , a crowd of angry plebs gathers in Rome to denounce Coriolanus as
18048-593: Was in the Russian Empire in March 1872. It was the first foreign publication with the French edition beginning publication in August 1872 and the English edition appearing 15 years later in 1887. It was even published before the first modern Russian translation of the whole Bible in 1876. Despite Russian censorship proscribing "the harmful doctrines of socialism and communism ", the Russian censors considered Das Kapital as
18189-466: Was now prevalent. With the emergence of capitalism, productive forces were now able to flourish, causing the Industrial Revolution in Europe. Despite this, however, the productive forces eventually reach a point where they can no longer expand, causing the same collapse that occurred at the end of feudalism: Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property,
18330-415: Was produced was quickly consumed and this was because there existed no division of labour, hence people were forced to work together. The few things that existed for any length of time - the means of production ( tools and land), housing - were held communally. In Engels' view, in association with matrilocal residence and matrilineal descent, reproductive labour was shared. There would have also been
18471-448: Was published on 14 September 1867, dedicated to Wilhelm Wolff and was the sole volume published in Marx's lifetime. Das Kapital, Volume II , subtitled The Process of Circulation of Capital , was prepared by Engels from notes left by Marx and published in 1885. It is divided into three parts: In Volume II , the main ideas behind the marketplace are to be found, namely how value and surplus-value are realized. Its focuses aren't so much
18612-517: Was shaped by his engagement with the intellectual and philosophical movement known as the Age of Enlightenment and the profound scientific, political, economic and social transformations that took place in Britain and other parts of Europe in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Enlightenment thinkers responded to the worldly transformations by promoting individual liberties and attacking religious dogmas and
18753-483: Was similarly difficult for the Romans to maintain peace between the upper class, the patricians , and the lower class, the plebs . French Enlightenment philosopher Montesquieu notes that this conflict intensified after the overthrow of the Roman monarchy . In The Spirit of Laws he lists the four main grievances of the plebs, which were rectified in the years following the deposition of King Tarquin : The Senate had
18894-415: Was the culmination of growing class conflict, economic disparity and political corruption." Kirkus Reviews wrote: "Populist historian Parenti... views ancient Rome's most famous assassination not as a tyrannicide but as a sanguinary scene in the never-ending drama of class warfare." The patrician Coriolanus , whose life William Shakespeare would later depict in the tragic play Coriolanus , fought on
19035-478: Was the first Greek philosopher to describe class conflict. In the Republic , by Plato , Socrates said that "any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other [the city] of the rich; these [cities] are at war with one another." Socrates disapproved of oligarchies , in which members of a small class of wealthy property owners take positions of political power in order to dominate
19176-435: Was the first to develop the theory that economic forces were the driving factors in history. Marx came to his commitment to a materialist analysis of society and political economy around 1844 and completed his works The Holy Family in 1845, The German Ideology or Leipzig Council in 1846, and The Poverty of Philosophy in 1847 along with Friedrich Engels. Marx rejected the enlightenment view that ideas alone were
19317-401: Was the power of the ruling class (the aristocracy ) in their control of arable land, leading to a class society based upon the exploitation of the peasants who farm these lands, typically under serfdom and principally by means of labour, produce and money rents. Simple commodity production existed in the form of artisans and merchants. This merchant class would grow in size and eventually form
19458-439: Was the result of class struggle, specifically of the capitalist class's attempts to overthrow the institutions of the former ruling class. Prior to capitalism, nations were not the primary political form. Vladimir Lenin shared a similar view on nation-states. There were two opposite tendencies in the development of nations under capitalism. One of them was expressed in the activation of national life and national movements against
19599-426: Was the welfare of the ordinary workers who make up society and provide for it: No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged. Regarding
19740-434: Was the working through of a process where humans become ever more conscious of the rational principles that govern social development. Hegel's dialectical method presents the world as a complex totality where all aspects of society (familial, economic, scientific, governmental, etc.) are interconnected, mutually influential, and unable to be considered in isolation. According to Hegel, at any particular point in time, society
19881-472: Was wrong for the poor to seize the wealth of the rich and divide it among themselves, but he said that it is wrong for the rich to impoverish the multitude. Moreover, Aristotle further discussed a middle way, between laxity and cruelty, in the treatment of slaves by their masters, averring that "if not kept in hand, [slaves] are insolent, and think that they are as good as their masters, and, if harshly treated, they hate and conspire against them." Socrates
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