This book provides a comprehensive guide to all three volumes of Karl Marx’s ‘Capital’, with advice on further reading and points for further discussion. Recognizing the contemporary relevance of ‘Capital’ in the midst of the current financial crisis, Kenneth Smith has produced an essential guide to Marx’s ideas, particularly on the subject of the circulation of money-capital. This guide uniquely presents the three volumes of ‘Capital’ in a different order of reading to that in which they were published, placing them instead in the order that Marx himself sometimes recommended as a more user-friendly way of reading. Dr Smith also argues that for most of the twentieth century, the full development of the capitalist mode of production (CMP) has been undermined by the existence of a non-capitalist ‘third world’, which has caused the CMP to take on the form of what Marx called a highly developed mercantile system, rather than one characterized by an uninterrupted circuit of industrial capital of the kind he expected would develop. While the guide can be read as a book in its own right, it also contains detailed references to Volumes I–III so that students, seminars and discussion groups can easily make connections between Smith’s explanations and the relevant parts of ‘Capital’.

Dr Kenneth Smith is Reader in Criminology and Sociology at Buckinghamshire New University, High Wycombe, UK.

Key Issues in Modern Sociology

Introduction; Reading ‘Capital’; A Note on Marx’s Method; A Note on Social Class; A Note on the English Translations of ‘Capital’; PART I: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAPITALIST MODE OF PRODUCTION: 1. Absolute and Relative Surplus Value in ‘Capital’, Vol. I, Ch. 10 and 12; 2. Cooperation and the Division of Labour in ‘Capital’, Vol. I, Ch. 13–14; 3. Machinery and Modern Industry in ‘Capital’, Vol. I, Ch. 15; 4. Primitive Accumulation in ‘Capital’, Vol. I, Part VIII, Ch. 26–33; PART II: THE CAPITALIST MODE OF PRODUCTION: 5. Simple Reproduction in ‘Capital’, Vol. I, Ch. 7, 11 and 23; 6. Extended Reproduction in ‘Capital’, Vol. I, Ch. 24; 7. Simple Reproduction in ‘Capital’, Vol. II, Sections 1–8; 8. Extended Reproduction in ‘Capital’, Vol. II, Ch. 21, Section 3; 9. The Precipitation of Fixed Capital in ‘Capital’, Vol. II, Ch. 21, Sections 1–2; Ch. 20, Section 11; PART III: THE UNDERDEVELOPMENT OF THE CAPITALIST MODE OF PRODUCTION: 10. Mercantilism and the Circuit of Industrial Capital in ‘Capital’, Vol. II, Part I, Ch. 1–4; 11. Credit and the Dissolution of the CMP in ‘Capital’, Vol. III, Ch. 27; 12. Rudolf Hilferding and ‘Finance Capital’: ‘Capital’, Vol. I, Ch. 25, Section 2; 13. Marx on Development and Underdevelopment in ‘Capital’, Vol. I, Ch. 25, Section 5; 14. The Tendency of the Rate of Profi t to Fall in ‘Capital’, Vol. III, Parts I–III, Ch. 1–15, but especially Ch. 14–15; PART IV: THE VALUE THEORY OF LABOUR: 15. The Rate of Profi t and the Rate of Surplus Value in ‘Capital’, Vol. I, Ch. 9, Section 3, and Vol. III, Parts I and III; 16. The Degree of Exploitation of Labour by Capital in ‘Capital’, Vol. I, Ch. 9, Section 1; Ch. 6–7; 17. The Labour Theory of Value and the Value Theory of Labour in ‘Capital’, Vol. I, Ch. 1, Sections 1–3; 18. The Reifi cation of Commodity Fetishism in ‘Capital’, Vol. I, Ch. 1, Section 4, and Vol. III, Ch. 24; Conclusion; Appendix: On Social Classes; Notes; Bibliography; Index