Das Kapital

Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (German: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie), also known as Das Kapital (German: [das kapiˈtaːl]), is a foundational text in Marxist theory by Karl Marx. His magnum opus, the work is a critical analysis of political economy, meant to reveal the economic patterns underpinning the capitalist mode of production. Capital is divided into three volumes, of which only the first was published during Marx's lifetime, in 1867; the others were completed from his manuscripts and published by his collaborator Friedrich Engels in 1885 and 1894. The central argument of Capital is that the motivating force of capitalism is in the exploitation of labour, whose unpaid work is the ultimate source of surplus value and profit. Beginning with an analysis of the commodity, Marx argues that the capitalist mode of production is a historically specific system where social relations are mediated by commodity exchange. He posits a labour theory of value, contending that the economic value of a commodity is determined by the socially necessary labour time required for its production. Under this system, the worker's capacity to labour (their labour power) is sold as a commodity, but its use-value—the ability to create new value—is greater than its exchange-value (the wage), allowing the capitalist to extract surplus value. This process drives capital accumulation, which in turn fosters technological change, the creation of a reserve army of labour, and a long-term tendency of the rate of profit to fall, leading to economic crises and intensifying class conflict. In developing his critique, Marx synthesised and critiqued three main intellectual traditions: the classical political economy of thinkers like Adam Smith and David Ricardo, the German idealist philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and French socialist thought. His dialectical method aimed to uncover the internal contradictions and historical transience...