A Companion To Marx's Capital: The Complete Edition

Harvey enlivens Marx's text with pointed analysis, relevant contemporary examples, and by helping to untangle some of the more difficult lines of thought in Vol. 1. At the time of this review, Harvey also offers a free series of video lectures online that focus on each chapter.

It arrived late, but better late than never. I just started reading it and it’s pretty easier to follow, more direct than the actual text of Marx’s Das Kapital

I used to tell people that if Karl Marx could rise from the dead he would have been horrified to learn that his thought, which was rigorously egalitarian and democratic, was alleged by one of the world's major authoritarian states to be the groundwork for that nation's ideology. In fact, I think the worst thing that ever happened to Marx was his embrace by the USSR, which in fact practiced something more like state capitalism than socialism. Then resulting nonsensical mishmash provided everyone with a distinctive lens through which to look at Marx's thought. After all, in his writings Marx NEVER expresses admiration for despots and tyrants, but instead praises Abraham Lincoln (to whom he wrote a couple of letters, though it seems unlikely that the replies were penned by either Nicolay or Hay, his two principal aides). With the fall of the Soviet Union, however, the forced reading of Mars through Soviet eyes came to an end, and there has been an explosion of interest in his thought. Anyone interested in beginning to read and study Marx should unquestionably avail themselves of this fine introduction to his most important work, CAPITAL.Too over-generalize for a second, one might place the preponderance of Marx's important work (and ignoring his large amount of journalistic work; if he had an occupation as an adult, it would have been journalism, having written numerous pieces for newspapers during his life, and having labored as a European correspondent for the New York Daily Tribune) falls into three categories. One would be his early mainly philosophical-economic writings, a second would be his political writings, and the third his purely economic writings. CAPITAL belongs to this third category. If you read Adam Smith's WEALTH OF NATIONS (another classic that virtually no one reads, and therefore is subjected to bizarre misreadings; for instance, if you read Smith you will be shocked to learn what a small role "the Invisible Hand" actually plays in his work; also read Smith and Marx back to back will unearth universe of ironies, such as Smith not embracing democracy, but instead constitutional monarchy, while Marx is a passionate proponent of democracy, or Smith considering the stock market a thoroughly undesirable entity, while Marx believed the stock market was essential to growing modern corporations) and then read CAPITAL, you will be shocked at the degree to which Marx took the discipline. Though to be fair, Marx was influenced much more by Ricardo than Smith. If you want to read Marx thinking that it will be like reading THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO, think again. The two books bear almost no resemblance to one another. CAPITAL was intended to light no fires, but instead to provide a careful, rigorous analysis of Capitalism. As time has gone by, many have come to believe that Marx was more of less correct in seeing Capitalism as a profoundly flawed giant. He was one of the first to grasp the central fact about modern economics, that the market was exceptional in its ability to generate wealth in general, but ineffective in distributing that wealth. Inequality lies at the core of the market, something the egalitarian Marx found repellant. It is no wonder that Marx has received a titanic amount of interest following the collapse of the economy in 2007-2008, as many of Americans and Europeans came to believe that laissez faire economics will never be able to keep the many promises that it makes, and that despite the insistence of the Neocons during Bush 43's two terms, there is no link between capitalism and democracy. In fact, what is likely to be the major economic power of the 21st Century, China, denied its citizens a vast number of political freedoms, even while it encourages them to be fair consumers. Meanwhile, the United States has seen in Donald Trump the first utterly anti-Semitic and anti-egalitarian president, as he has pushed forward a political agenda that foists all the evils in the world on the oppressed and downtrodden, and has not-subtly judged America in the direction of Oligarchy. Many of us who truly believe in democracy and the egalitarianism associated with Jefferson, Lincoln, and FDR have therefore looked at Marx as the preeminent critic of Capitalism for new ideas in combating the attacks on liberty, freedom, and fairness being waged by economic inequality. If we don't fix this soon, America might soon cease to exist as a democracy, but will instead descend into oligarchy.David Harvey's book is the perfect post-Communist intro to CAPITAL. 50 years ago it would have been incomprehensible for someone to be a Marxist though not a Communist (though this was commonplace in the Soviet bloc, with people like Lukacs and Ernst Bloch, who privately rejected Soviet ideology while affirming many of Marx's core ideas), but today it is widespread for people who reject the Leninist-Stalinist project (though to be fair, Lenin wrote some wonderful pieces prior to the Revolution, though it is hard to point to anything positive that Stalin did, except possibly forcing Russia to undertake most of the fighting in WW 2) to write of the brilliance and wisdom of Marx. This is as good of an intro to Marx as one is likely to find. But let me add, in reading CAPITAL you will discover a complete absence of those thing that some critics of socialism insist is an essential component of it. For instance, CAPITAL focuses on economics, not politics. It might lead to political conclusions, but that is another matter. One will find nothing in Marx's books about the need for violent revolution (though it is true that early on Marx's followers after his death split into those who felt that revolution was necessary, like Kautsky, and those who believed in peaceful evolution over time, like Eduard Berstein). Marx NEVER advocates anything like the Gulag, and in fact he was a critic of governments that employed such oppressive remedies. He believed in ideals like freedom, which he believed impossible in a society where a small number of capitalists reaped most of the benefits while the workers engaged in most of the labor and lived diminished lives so that the owners of capital could thrive. In fact most of the totalitarian states in the world since the First World War (about 80%) have been right wing, not leftist, let alone socialist. A relative of mine is terrified that if elected Bernie Sanders will put people in concentration camps, but why would he do that? It is something that literally no one in America (except for some of Trump's advisors and Trump himself) sees as desirable. My point is that if you decide to read CAPITAL, and you should, you won't be descending into the Outer Darkness. The most radical ideas in CAPITAL are thing like the implication that capitalism is an inherently unstable economic system (something the conservative economist Joseph Schumpeter agreed with Marx on) or the suggestion, largely unspoken, that it isn't in the best interests of society for the Few to reap nearly all the benefits of capitalism.They major problem with CAPITAL is that parts are outdated. For instance, a Hegelian metaphysics underlay much of Marx, and I frankly intensely dislike Hegel (my earliest philosophical education came through reading Kierkegaard, who found much fault with his thoght). Also, the underlying assumption in Marx is that most workers are factory workers, which wasn't true in Marx's day and is even less true today, though in different ways. In the 19th Century most people were farmers, while today most people work in the service industry. The bedrock of the American economy is no longer growing things or making things, but finance. In some ways this is better than the plight of the worker in Marx's day, and in some ways worse. Harvey is not unaware of any of this and will sometimes make the proper adjustment. But in many ways Marx wrote about a Capitalism that no longer exists.

I was a bit hasty in my 5 star review of this book. I was getting stuck on David Harvey's explanations of simple and expanded reproduction, and began seeking out a different author who could help get me past this sticking point. Much to my delight, I came across Hadas Thier's "A Peoples Guide to Capitalism - and what a difference! When I came back to Harvey's work, I just didn't have the patience to try and shift through it. I'm sorry but trying to understand capitalism "on Marx's own terms" just doesn't work! And there are several reason why:1. Few visual aids. This is especially problematic when dealing with Marx's dialectic. Although Harvey explains that every concept has two aspects, he doesn't connect them together visually until well into the book. If you had no previous experience with Heigel, then you'd never know how the dialectic is supposed to work. Additionally, when Marx attempts to explain simple and expanded reproduction by setting up an economy consisting of two departments, there are no visual aids to be found at all! I had to do additional research online to find diagrams that laid out each of the departments and how they functioned cooperatively. This shouldn't be necessary when purchasing a book thats supposed to act as a "cliff notes" guide to Marxist thought.2. The dialectic itself. Frankly, I think Marx's dialectic is worthless. Yes, it's important to understand that commodities have use values and exchange values,, but Hadas Their managed to explain how capitalism operates in her book without any reference to the dialectic whatsoever. It's not necessary, and just makes everything harder to understand!3. No glossary. Harvey does his best to put Marx's analysis in plain English, but this is very difficult without some sort of glossary to explain the difference between "value" as a singular concept and other Marxian concepts that discuss value in some other way.4. The chronology. Understanding the commodity is important (as I said above), but I don't think it should be the starting point for diving into Marxist thought. It would be far more useful to follow the story from beginning to end (how capitalism developed --> how capitalism operates --> how the wheels of capitalism are lubricated so that they function properly --> how the system breaks down)Most of these issues are addressed by Hadas Their's book. She tells the story chronologically, ignores the dialectic completely, and offers a lot of visual aids (although I suppose she could've provided more). And while she doesn't offer a glossary in her book, everything is explained in such a way that you don't really need it. Under her guidance, the reader is all but guaranteed to come away understanding both how capitalism works, and the arguments that Marxists make against the system (even if the reader doesn't agree with them).Now, having laid out aspects of Harvey's work that I found problematic, let me explain where it shines. This book is rigorously academic in nature. It breaks down capitalism into 3 circuits (money capital, productive capital, and commodity capital), and explains how each operates on its own and collectively. Likewise, he goes into a lot of detail when discussing the surplus populations that capitalism produces and how each is important to the system. Additionally, he points out multiple areas where contradictions within the capitalist system can cause the whole edifice to break down. In particular, his analysis was at its most insightful when explaining how capitalists can either 1) sacrifice surplus value in order to ensure their workers are paid enough to purchase the commodities they produce OR 2) maximize surplus value, which impoverished the workers to the point that they are unable to buy commodities.So, should you buy this book? It depends. I would definitely recommend this book to people with a solid background in economics and/or philosophy (or people who just want a challenging read). But for the lay person who just wants to learn more about the arguments socialists or communists make in regards to capitalism, I'd recommend picking up Hadas Their's work instead.

As promised

A lot of people talk about Marxism but hardly anyone has actually read his stuff. Do yourself a favour. Make this a self education priority. David Harvey is the go-to guy for understanding how we got into this mess and some good ways forward.