A Guide to Marx's 'Capital'

Anthony Brewer

CUP Archive, 1984 - Business & Economics - 211 pages

For anyone wishing to understand the modern world, Marx's Capital is indispensable. It is also, unfortunately, a difficult book to read. Some of these difficulties are inevitable since the ideas are unfamiliar and complex, but it seems more forbidding than it really is and the reader who persists will find it worth the effort. The Guide is intended to be read in conjunction with Capital (though it can be read on its own). It goes through Marx's masterpiece, chapter by chapter, setting each in the context of the whole and picking out the main threads of the argument. Each of Marx's technical terms if explained when it is first used and is also defined in the glossary for easy reference. The introduction outlines the development of Marx's thought and relates it to the philosophical, political and economic ideas of his time. The Guide does not take sides for Marx or against him. Its aim is to contribute to a better understanding of his work.

Contents

• Exchange: 28
• The transformation of money into capital: 34
• Constant capital and variable capital: 41
• Rate and mass of surplusvalue: 47
• Machinery and modern industry: 54
• Production of absolute and of relative surplusvalue: 61
• 2222: 64
• The accumulation of capital: 67
• The socalled primitive accumulation: 78
• 28: 80
• The modern theory of colonization: 84
• VOLUME TWO THE PROCESS OF CIRCULATION OF CAPITAL: 85
• The circuit of moneycapital: 88
• 34: 89
• The circuit of productive capital: 91
• The circuit of commoditycapital: 92
• The three formulas of the circuit: 93
• The time of circulation: 94
• The costs of circulation: 95
• The turnover of capital: 97
• Fixed capital and circulating capital: 98
• The aggregate turnover of advanced capital: 99
• Theories of fixed and circulating capital The physiocrats and Adam Smith: 100
• The working period: 101
• The time of production: 102
• 35: 105
• The circulation of surplusvalue: 106
• The reproduction and circulation of the aggregate social capital: 110
• Former presentations of the subject: 111
• Simple reproduction: 112
• Accumulation and reproduction on an extended scale: 121
• The conversion of surplusvalue into profit and of: 127
• Supplementary remarks: 133
• Equalization of the general rate of profit: 139
• The law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall: 145
• Conversion of commoditycapital and moneycapital: 152
• Division of profit into interest and profit of enterprise Interestbearing capital: 156
• Division of profit Rate of interest: 157
• Interest and profit of enterprise: 158
• Externalization of the relations of capital: 159
• Accumulation of moneycapital: 160
• The role of credit in capitalist production: 161
• Component parts of bank capital: 162
• Moneycapital and real capital I: 163
• Moneycapital and real capital II: 164
• Moneycapital and real capital III: 165
• The medium of circulation in the credit system: 166
• Precious metal and rate of exchange: 167
• 36: 168
• Transformation of surplusprofit into groundrent: 170
• general remarks: 171
• First form of differential rent: 172
• Second form of differential rent: 173
• 42: 174
• Absolute groundrent: 175
• Building site rent Rent in mining Price of land: 176
• Revenues and their sources: 180
• Analysis of the process of production: 182
• Preface and introduction to A Contribution: 191
• Notes: 205

Bibliographic information

• Title: A Guide to Marx's 'Capital'
• Author: Anthony Brewer
• Publisher: CUP Archive, 1984
• ISBN: 0521257301, 9780521257305
• Length: 211 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / Economic History; Business & Economics / Economics / Theory; Political Science / History & Theory; Political Science / Political Ideologies / Communism, Post-Communism & Socialism