EDITOR'S NOTE TO THE FIRST AMERICAN EDITION by Ernest Untermann - Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume I: The Process of Capitalist Production [1867]
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Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume I: The Process of Capitalist Production, by Karl Marx. Trans. from the 3rd German edition, by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, ed. Federick Engels. Revised and amplified according to the 4th German ed. by Ernest Untermann (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr and Co., 1909).
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- Editor's Note to the First American Edition By Ernest Untermann
- Author's Prefaces to the First and Second Editions, By Karl Marx
- I.—TO The First Edition.
- II.—TO The Second Edition.
- Editor's Prefaces, to the First English Translation and Fourth German Edition By Frederick Engels
- Editor's Preface to the First English Translation.
- Editor's Preface to the Fourth German Edition.
- Volume I. The Process of Capitalist Production.
- Book I. Capitalist Production.
- Part I. Commodities and Money.
- Part I, Chapter I Commodities.
- Section 1.—THE Two Factors of a Commodity: Use-value and Value (the Substance of Value and the Magnitude of Value).
- Section 2.—THE Twofold Character of the Labour Embodied In Commodities.
- Section 3.—THE Form of Value Or Exchange Value.
- A. Elementary Or Accidental Form of Value.
- 1. the Two Poles of the Expression of Value: Relative Form and Equivalent Form.
- 2. the Relative Form of Value.
- (a.) the Nature and Import of This Form.
- (b.) Quantitative Determination of Relative Value.
- 3. the Equivalent Form of Value.
- 4. the Elementary Form of Value Considered As a Whole.
- B. Total Or Expanded Form of Value.
- 1. the Expanded Relative Form of Value.
- 2. the Particular Equivalent Form.
- 3. Defects of the Total Or Expanded Form of Value.
- C. the General Form of Value.
- 1. the Altered Character of the Form of Value.
- 2. the Interdependent Development of the Relative Form of Value, and of the Equivalent Form.
- 3. Transition From the General Form of Value to the Money Form.
- D. the Money Form.
- Section 4.—THE Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof.
- Part I, Chapter Ii Exchange.
- Part I, Chapter Iii Money, Or the Circulation of Commodities.
- Section 1. The Measure of Values.
- Section 2.—THE Medium of Circulation.
- A. the Metamorphosis of Commodities.
- B. the Currency 82 of Money.
- C. Coin and Symbols of Value.
- Section 3.—MONEY.
- A. Hoarding.
- B. Means of Payment.
- C. Universal Money.
- Part II. the Transformation of Money Into Capital.
- Part Ii, Chapter Iv the General Formula For Capital.
- Part Ii, Chapter V Contradictions In the General Formula of Capital.
- Part Ii, Chapter Vi the Buying and Selling of Labour-power.
- Part III. the Production of Absolute Surplus-value.
- Part Iii, Chapter Vii the Labour-process and the Process of Producing Surplus-value.
- Section 1.—THE Labour-process Or the Production of Use-values.
- Section 2.—THE Production of Surplus-value.
- Part Iii, Chapter Viii Constant Capital and Variable Capital
- Part Iii, Chapter Ix the Rate of Surplus-value.
- Section 1.—THE Degree of Exploitation of Labour-power.
- Section 2.—THE Representation of the Components of the Value of the Product By Corresponding Proportional Parts of the Product Itself.
- Section 3.—SENIOR'S "last Hour."
- Section 4.—SURPLUS Produce
- Part Iii, Chapter X the Working Day
- Section 1—the Limits of the Working Day
- Section 2.—THE Greed For Surplus Labor, Manufacturer and Boyard
- Section 3.—BRANCHES Of English Industry Without Legal Limits to Exploitation
- Section 4.—DAY And Night Work. the Relay System
- Section 5.—THE Struggle For a Normal Working Day. Compulsory Laws For the Extension of the Working Day From the Middle of the 14th to the End of the 17th Century
- Section 6.—THE Struggle For the Normal Working Day. Compulsory Limitation By Law of the Working Time. the English Factory Acts, 1833 to 1864.
- Section 7.—THE Struggle For the Normal Working-day. Re-action of the English Acts On Other Countries.
- Part Iii, Chapter Xi Rate and Mass of Surplus-value.
- Part IV. Production of Relative Surplus-value.
- Part Iv, Chapter Xii the Concept of Relative Surplus-value.
- Part Iv, Chapter Xiii Co-operation.
- Part Iv, Chapter Xiv Division of Labour and Manufacture.
- Section 1.—TWOFOLD Origin of Manufacture.
- Section 2.—THE Detail Labourer and His Implements.
- Section 3.—THE Two Fundamental Forms of Manufacture: Heterogeneous Manufacture, Serial Manufacture.
- Section 4.—DIVISION Of Labour In Manufacture, and Division of Labour In Society.
- Section 5.—THE Capitalistic Character of Manufacture.
- Part Iv, Chapter Xv Machinery and Modern Industry.
- Section 1.—THE Development of Machinery.
- Section 2.—THE Value Transferred By Machinery to the Product
- Section 3.—THE Approximate Effects of Machinery On the Workman.
- A. Appropriation of Supplementary Labour-power By Capital. the Employment of Women and Children.
- B. Prolongation of the Working-day.
- C. Intensification of Labour
- Section IV.—THE Factory
- Section 5.—THE Strife Between Workman and Machine
- Section 6.—THE Theory of Compensation As Regards the Workpeople Displaced By Machinery.
- Section 7.—REPULSION And Attraction of Workpeople By the Factory System. Crisis In the Cotton Trade.
- Section 8.—REVOLUTION Effected In Manufacture, Handicrafts. and Domestic Industry By Modern Industry.
- A. Overthrow of Co-operation Based On Handicraft and On the Division of Labour.
- B. Re-action of the Factory System On Manufacture and Domestic Industries.
- C. Modern Manufacture.
- D. Modern Domestic Industry.
- E. Passage of Modern Manufacture, and Domestic Industry Into Modern Mechanical Industry. the Hastening of This Revolution By the Application of the Factory Acts to Those Industries.
- Section 9.—THE Factory Acts. Sanitary and Education Clauses of the Same. Their General Extension In England.
- Section 10.—MODERN Industry and Agriculture.
- Part V. the Production of Absolute and of Relative Surplus-value.
- Part V, Chapter Xvi Absolute and Relative Surplus-value.
- Part V, Chapter Xvii Changes of Magnitude In the Price of Labour-power and In Surplus-value.
- 1. Length of the Working Day and Intensity of Labour Constant. Productiveness of Labour Variable.
- II. Working-day Constant. Productiveness of Labour Constant. Intensity of Labour Variable.
- III. Productiveness and Intensity of Labour Constant. Length of the Working-day Variable.
- IV.— Simultaneous Variations In the Duration, Productiveness, and Intensity of Labour.
- (1). Diminishing Productiveness of Labour With a Simultaneous Lengthening of the Working-day.
- (2) Increasing Intensity and Productiveness of Labour With Simultaneous Shortening of the Working-day.
- Part V, Chapter Xviii Various FormulÆ For the Rate of Surplus-value.
- Part VI. Wages.
- Part Vi, Chapter Xix the Transformation of the Value (and Respectively the Price) of Labour-power Into Wages.
- Part Vi, Chapter Xx Time-wages.
- Part Vi, Chapter Xxi Piece-wages.
- Part Vi, Chapter Xxii National Differences of Wages.
- Part VII. the Accumulation of Capital.
- Part Vii, Chapter Xxiii Simple Reproduction.
- Part Vii, Chapter Xxiv Conversion of Surplus-value Into Capital.
- Section I.—CAPITALIST Production On a Progressively Increasing Scale. Transition of the Laws of Property That Characterise Production of Commodities Into Laws of Capitalist Appropriation.
- Section 2.—ERRONEOUS Conception By Political Economy of Reproduction On a Progressively Increasing Scale.
- Section 3.—SEPARATION Of Surplus-value Into Capital and Revenue. the Abstinence Theory.
- Section 4.—CIRCUMSTANCES That, Independently of the Division of Surplus-value Into Capital and Revenue, Determine the Amount of Accumulation. Degree of Exploitation of Labour-power. Productivity of Labour. Growing Difference In Amount Between Capital Empl
- Section 5.—THE So-called Labour Fund.
- Part Vii, Chapter Xxv the General Law of Capitalist Accumulation.
- Section 1.—THE Increased Demand For Labour-power That Accompanies Accumulation, the Composition of Capital Remaining the Same.
- Section 2.—RELATIVE Diminution of the Variable Part of Capital Simultaneously With the Progress of Accumulation and of the Concentration That Accompanies It.
- Section 3.—PROGRESSIVE Production of a Relative Surplus-population Or Industrial Reserve Army.
- Section 4.—DIFFERENT Forms of the Relative Surplus-population. the General Law of Capitalistic Accumulation.
- Section 5.—ILLUSTRATIONS Of the General Law of Capitalist Accumulation.
- ( A. ) England From 1846-1866.
- (b). the Badly Paid Strata of the British Industrial Class.
- C. the Nomad Population.
- (d). Effect of Crises On the Best Paid Part of the Working Class.
- (e.) the British Agricultural Proletariat.
- (1.) Bedfordshire.
- (2.) Berkshire.
- (3.) Buckinghamshire.
- (4.) Cambridgeshire.
- (5.) Essex.
- (6.) Herefordshire.
- (7.) Huntingdon.
- (8.) Lincolnshire.
- (9.) Kent.
- (10.) Northamptonshire.
- (11.) Wiltshire.
- (12.) Worcestershire.
- (f.) Ireland.
- Part VIII. the So-called Primitive Accumulation.
- Part Viii, Chapter Xxvi the Secret of Primitive Accumulation.
- Part Viii, Chapter Xxvii Expropriation of the Agricultural Population From the Land.
- Part Viii, Chapter Xxviii Bloody Legislation Against the Expropriated, From the End of the 15th Century. Forcing Down of Wages By Acts of Parliament.
- Part Viii, Chapter Xxix Genesis of the Capitalist Farmer.
- Part Viii, Chapter Xxx Reaction of the Agricultural Revolution On Industry. Creation of the Home Market For Industrial Capital.
- Part Viii, Chapter Xxxi Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist.
- Part Viii, Chapter Xxxii Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation.
- Part Viii, Chapter Xxxiii the Modern Theory of Colonisation. 70
- Works and Authors Quoted In "capital"
EDITOR'S NOTE TO THE FIRST AMERICAN EDITION
by Ernest Untermann
The original plan of Marx, as outlined in his preface to the first German edition of Capital, in 1867, was to divide his work into three volumes. Volume I was to contain Book I, The Process of Capitalist Production. Volume II was scheduled to comprise both Book II, The Process of Capitalist Circulation, and Book III, The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole. The work was to close with volume III, containing Book IV, A History of Theories of Surplus-Value.
When Marx proceeded to elaborate his work for publication, he had the essential portions of all three volumes, with a few exceptions, worked out in their main analyses and conclusions, but in a very loose and unfinished form. Owing to ill health, he completed only volume I. He died on March 14, 1883, just when a third German edition of this volume was being prepared for the printer.
Frederick Engels, the intimate friend and co-operator of Marx, stepped into the place of his dead comrade and proceeded to complete the work. In the course of the elaboration of volume II it was found that it would be wholly taken up with Book II, The Process of Capitalist Circulation. Its first German edition did not appear until May, 1885, almost 18 years after the first volume.
The publication of the third volume was delayed still longer. When the second German edition of volume II appeared, in July, 1893, Engels was still working on volume III. It was not until October, 1894, that the first German edition of volume III was published, in two separate parts, containing the subject matter of what had been originally planned as Book III of volume II, and treating of The Capitalist Process of Production as a whole.
The reasons for the delay in the publication of volumes II and III, and the difficulties encountered in solving the problem of elaborating the copious notes of Marx into a finished and connected presentation of his theories, have been fully explained by Engels in his various prefaces to these two volumes. His great modesty led him to belittle his own share in this fundamental work. As a matter of fact, a large portion of the contents of Capital is as much a creation of Engels as though he had written it independently of Marx.
Engels intended to issue the contents of the manuscripts for Book IV, originally planned as volume III, in the form of a fourth volume of Capital. But on the 6th of August, 1895, less than one year after the publication of volume III, he followed his co-worker into the grave, still leaving this work incompleted.
However, some years previous to his demise, and in anticipation of such a eventuality, he had appointed Karl Kautsky, the editor of Die Neue Zeit, the scientific organ of the German Socialist Party, as his successor and familiarized him personally with the subject matter intended for volume IV of this work. The material proved to be so voluminous, that Kautsky, instead of making a fourth volume of Capital out of it, abandoned the original plan and issued his elaboration as a separate work in three volumes under the title Theories of Surplus-value.
The first English translation of the first volume of Capital was edited by Engels and published in 1886. Marx had in the meantime made some changes in the text of the second German edition and of the French translation, both of which appeared in 1873, and he had intended to superintend personally the edition of an English version. But the state of his health interfered with this plan. Engels utilised his notes and the text of the French edition of 1873 in the preparation of a third German edition, and this served as a basis for the first edition of the English translation.
Owing to the fact that the title page of this English translation (published by Swan Sonnenschein 8 Co.) did not distinctly specify that this was but volume I, it has often been mistaken for the complete work, in spite of the fact that the prefaces of Marx and Engels clearly pointed to the actual condition of the matter.
In 1890, four years after the publication of the first English edition, Engels edited the proofs for a fourth German edition of volume I and enlarged it still more after repeated comparison with the French edition and with manuscript notes of Marx. But the Swan Sonnenschein edition did not adopt this new version in its subsequent English issues.
This first American edition will be the first complete English edition of the entire Marxian theories of Capitalist Production. It will contain all three volumes of Capital in full. The present volume, I, deals with The Process of Capitalist Production in the strict meaning of the term "production." Volume II will treat of The Process of Capitalist Circulation in the strict meaning of the term "circulation." Volume III will contain the final analysis of The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole, that is of Production and Circulation in their mutual interrelations.
The Theories of Surplus-Value, Kautsky's elaboration of the posthumous notes of Marx and Engels, will in due time be published in an English translation as a separate work.
This first American edition of volume I is based on the revised fourth German edition. The text of the English version of the Swan Sonnenschein edition has been compared page for page with this improved German edition, and about ten pages of new text hitherto not rendered in English are thus presented to American readers. All the footnotes have likewise been revised and brought up to date.
For all further information concerning the technical particulars of this work I refer the reader to the prefaces of Marx and Engels.
ERNEST UNTERMANN.
Orlando, Fla., July 18, 1906.