A Companion to Marx's Capital

by David Harvey

Overview

“My aim is to get you to read a book by Karl Marx called Capital, Volume 1, and to read it on Marx’s own terms…”

The biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression has generated a surge of interest in Marx’s work in the effort to understand the origins of our current predicament. For nearly forty years, David Harvey has written and lectured on Capital, becoming one of the world’s most foremost Marx scholars.

Based on his recent lectures, this current volume aims to bring this depth of learning to a broader audience, guiding first-time readers through a fascinating and deeply rewarding text. A Companion to Marx’s Capital offers fresh, original and sometimes critical interpretations of a book that changed the course of history and, as Harvey intimates, may do so again.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781844674725
Publisher:	Verso Books
Publication date:	03/01/2010
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
File size:	779 KB

About the Author

David Harvey teaches at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and is the author of many books, including Social Justice and the City, The Condition of Postmodernity, The Limits to Capital, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Spaces of Global Capitalism, and A Companion to Marx’s Capital. His website is davidharvey.org.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Introduction 1

Capital, Part I

l Commodities and Exchange 15

2 Money 55

Capital Part II

3 From Capital to Labor Power 85

Capital, Part III

4 The Labor Process and the Production of Surplus Value 109

5 The Working Day 135

Capital, Part IV

6 Relative Surplus-Value 163

7 What Technology Reveals 189

8 Machinery and Large-Scale Industry 213

Capital, Part V-VIII

9 From Absolute and Relative Surplus Value to The Accumulation of Capital 237

10 Capitalist Accumulation 263

11 The Secret of Primitive Accumulation 289

Reflections and Prognoses 315

Index 345

Editorial Reviews

Harvey is a scholarly radical; his writing is free of journalistic clichés, full of facts and carefully thought-through ideas.”—Richard Sennett

“Without a doubt one of the two best companions to Marx’s [Capital].”—Joshua Clover, Nation

“No short review can do justice to this outstanding book ... Essential.”—Michael Perelman, Choice

“A valuable guide.”—Aaron Hess, SocialistWorker.org

From the Publisher

Harvey is a scholarly radical; his writing is free of journalistic clichés, full of facts and carefully thought-through ideas.

Richard Sennett

A Companion to Marx's Capital is at once sleeker and more lucid, communicating the theoretical nuances of dialectical thought and the history of struggles over the length of the working day with marvelous grace. It is without a doubt one of the two best companions to Marx's pivotal work.

The Nation