A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of…
Wait, what do you mean that’s the wrong book? Aren’t they basically the same thing? No? So I read this entire manifesto for nothing? Psssh, okay, give me a second.
Oh wow, this thing is heavy.
And long.
Really, really, really long.
Still reading, hold tight.
…
Right, I’ve made it through the Foreword, the Editor’s Introduction, the Translator’s Preface, the Edition Introduction, a note on “Quotations, Numerals, and Symbols” in the text, and the Preface to the 1867 Edition. Only 800+ pages more and I’m done with…Volume One?!?! Man, the things I do for you.
The Book
Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1, by Karl Marx (Otto Meissner, 1867[Germany] / Macmillan & Co., 1887 [US])*
*for this review I’m using Paul Reitter’s English translation, edited by Paul North and the translator (Princeton University Press, 2024)
The Numbers
Yikes, I’m not even sure how to quantify this: one of the most influential books ever published, being the main textual inspiration for countless movements, theories, organizations, political parties, social developments, strikes, protests, uprisings, revolutions, and overall worldviews; among the most important economic works ever produced, and likewise a pillar of social science and the humanities in general; translated into more than 70 languages; Goodreads rating of 4.09.
The Spoiler-Free Skinny
This is normally the most straightforward section of a Culling the Classics review: “Here’s what the book is.” For Capital, however, I think it’s equally important to mention what the book is not.
Contrary to what one might think, it is not a revolutionary text in the political sense, although many of its ideas are revolutionary (even today!). It is not a call to arms or dictum on how to live in or shape the world, despite how much it has shaped the world.
It is definitely not a manifesto, and you don’t need to be of any particular group, leaning, party, or persuasion to appreciate it. All of this was incredibly surprising to me given what I’d heard and learned — or not learned, really — about Marx, communism, capitalism, etc. before picking up a very hefty copy.
So what is it, then? Pretty much exactly what it says on the cover: a critique of political economy. It’s an economics book.
More specifically, it’s an economics book that takes a deeply searching and critical look at the socioeconomic behemoth that has dominated the last half-millennium: capitalism. Like Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, a book I actually did learn about in school, Capital strives to uncover and communicate what makes this massive and ever-expanding system tick.
The project took Marx decades, and much of what he was able to get done wasn’t even published until after his death. With no real precedent to guide him, he took a novel approach that all but invented our understanding of the social sciences today, diving deep into history, philosophy, labor, production, trade, industrialization, and loads of other subjects.
This was all in the service of explaining (at long last) what exactly capitalism is, how it works, and why its influence is so far-reaching and unavoidable.
You’ll Love It
In the immortal words of Richard Scarry:
Capital takes a deep dive into capitalism’s many branches, modes, and of course, participants. It analyzes causes and effects with historical minutiae and rigor. It’s not an impassioned text, per se — more on this below — but if you are looking for a comprehensive history (well, comprehensive before the 1860s) of the world economy’s driving force, there’s no better text than this one.
You’ll Loathe It
In the equally immortal words of Jeudy Viquez:
Read It Or Leave It?
Man, this book. Capital was first published 20 years after the Communist League put out their famous 1848 manifesto. So I thought going in that this was going to be The Communist Manifesto 2: Socialist Boogaloo.
It is not. Capital is so thorough, its assessments so well-presented, that it’s frankly hard to imagine how communism even existed prior to its publication. It would be like learning that Christianity somehow predated the Bible or that there were memes before the internet.
But the craziest thing about Capital is that it is not actually a communist text. Like at all. The Communist Manifesto work is short and fiery, filled with passion and power. It famously calls for “the workers of the world [to] unite” and gives a brief but bold explanation as to why. It is a text meant to spur action.
Capital, on the other hand, is massive and masterful, complex and considered. It is extremely technical but also more approachable than one might expect — containing jokes, allusions, and quirky examples in abundance.
Perhaps most surprisingly, Marx comes off as incredibly detached from his subject, even apathetic at times. He is clearly devoted to analyzing capitalism’s methods and madnesses to the smallest detail, obsessing over language and explanation to communicate ideas as clearly as possible — but he doesn’t ascribe moral judgment to any element of the process or make demands that the reader take up arms to dismantle the system.
Marx’s position in this book seems to be that the system exists, like it or not, and he wants it to be understood as it truly is: a complex series of social interactions and ideas. Capitalism was not, as economists both before and after Marx would propound, a “natural” thing. He wanted to turn every assumption and prevailing belief about capitalism on its head, and to do so he needed to treat it as the “science” he knew it wasn’t.
I think. Honestly, it’s hard to know. There’s a lot going on here.
The Final Verdict
I haven’t talked much about the ideas within Capital in this review because they are huge and layered and complex and earth-shattering. The Foreword alone changed my life. The first chapter radically altered my understanding of the world. It’s like learning a new language or seeing a new color or putting Reagan on graphs. Everything is different now, and I can never unsee it.
Also, to be straight with you, I have not actually finished reading the book and cannot imagine how I ever would. It’s so much. The author knew it, too, and wrote about it in the Preface: “‘All beginnings are difficult’ holds for every branch of science and scholarship. The first chapter — and especially the section that contains my analysis of the commodity — will therefore be the hardest to understand.” Yeah, great, thanks Karl.
Marx writes a lot about the duality of things in capitalism — for example, how a commodity has both a use-value and an exchange value, two properties that are essentially at odds with each other. It’s fitting that my own relationship to this book contains a similar dichotomy.
Do I think you should read this book? Yes, absolutely, everyone should read this book.
Do I think you should read this book? No, I don’t understand how anyone can read this book.
Both are equally true at the exact same time. Hope that helps!
About the author
Brian McGackin is the author of BROETRY (Quirk Books, 2011). He has a BA from Emerson College in Something Completely Unrelated To His Life Right Now, and a Masters in Poetry from USC. He enjoys Guinness, comic books, and Bruce Willis movies.
