Das Kapital (Capital)

English edition. Das Kapital is "a groundbreaking work of economic analysis, but also an unfinished literary masterpiece which, with its multi-layered structure, can be read as a Gothic novel, a Victorian melodrama, a Greek tragedy or a Swiftian satire." Francis Wheen, The Guardian. Though he died in 1883, Karl Marx's Das Kapital, "the Bible of the working class," has been the book that most shaped twentieth-century history. His theories divided much of the world into two blocs, one embracing communism and the other fearing it, and cast a shadow into the twenty-first century. Although Marx wri...

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English edition. Das Kapital is "a groundbreaking work of economic analysis, but also an unfinished literary masterpiece which, with its multi-layered structure, can be read as a Gothic novel, a Victorian melodrama, a Greek tragedy or a Swiftian satire." Francis Wheen, The Guardian. Though he died in 1883, Karl Marx's Das Kapital, "the Bible of the working class," has been the book that most shaped twentieth-century history. His theories divided much of the world into two blocs, one embracing communism and the other fearing it, and cast a shadow into the twenty-first century. Although Marx writes as a philosopher and economist presenting an analysis of an economic system, the book is surprisingly readable. It reads like a Gothic novel "whose heroes are enslaved and consumed by the monster they created." Though many disagree with Marx's conclusions, his analysis has been almost universally respected. Surprisingly, it is Marx, and not Adam Smith who understood the central role of capital. The historian Gareth Stedman Jones wrote: "What is extraordinary about Das Kapital is that it offers a still-unrivalled picture of the dynamism of capitalism and its transformation of societies on a global scale. Das Kapital has now emerged as one of the great landmarks of nineteenth century thought." Das Kapital is a revolutionary book; forged during the political and industrial revolutions of the nineteenth century, it became the keystone of many Communist revolutions of the twentieth century. In this comprehensive analysis of capitalist economics and articulation of his theory of class conflict, Karl Marx (1818-1883) relentlessly argues that the accumulation of capital can only be achieved by bourgeoisie exploitation of the working classes. Das Kapital has not only changed history, but also human thought, becoming a foundational text in materialist philosophy, economics and politics. This volume includes The Communist Manifesto, written with his friend and colleague, Frederick Engels, which not only envisions a wholly equal society in which neither property nor money exist, but suggests that this will be a natural and inevitable consequence of the class struggle that dominates human history. Karl Heinrich Marx (1818 - 1883) was a German-born philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist. He lived in poverty with his wife and four young children in a two-room flat in Soho, London, while writing Das Kapital. In 1845, he wrote, "Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it," words that capture his spirit and are inscribed on his grave. Later in 1848, in The Manifesto of the Communist Party, with Engels, he famously wrote: "Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers of the world, unite!" Had he lived to see the Russian and Chinese Revolutions, he would have felt vindicated!

Weniger Details

Karl Heinrich Marx (5 May 1818 - 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist and socialist revolutionary. Born in Trier, Germany, Marx studied law and philosophy at university. He married Jenny von Westphalen in 1843. Due to his political publications, Marx became stateless and lived in exile with his wife and children in London for decades, where he continued to develop his thought in collaboration with German thinker Friedrich Engels and publish his writings, researching in the reading room of the British Museum. His best-known titles are the 1848 pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto, and the three-volume Das Kapital. His political and philosophical thought had enormous influence on subsequent intellectual, economic and political history, and his name has been used as an adjective, a noun and a school of social theory. Marx's critical theories about society, economics and politics - collectively understood as Marxism - hold that human societies develop through class struggle. In capitalism, this manifests itself in the conflict between the ruling classes (known as the bourgeoisie) that control the means of production and the working classes (known as the proletariat) that enable these means by selling their labour power in return for wages.[13] Employing a critical approach known as historical materialism, Marx predicted that, like previous socio-economic systems, capitalism produced internal tensions which would lead to its self-destruction and replacement by a new system known as socialism. For Marx, class antagonisms under capitalism, owing in part to its instability and crisis-prone nature, would eventuate the working class' development of class consciousness, leading to their conquest of political power and eventually the establishment of a classless, communist society constituted by a free association of producers. Marx actively pressed for its implementation, arguing that the working class should carry out organised revolutionary action to topple capitalism and bring about socio-economic emancipation.

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Produktdetails

Verlag: Benediction Classics
Seitenzahl: 594
Erscheinungstermin: 18. November 2019
Englisch
Abmessung: 234mm x 156mm x 35mm
Gewicht: 890g
ISBN-13: 9781789430646
ISBN-10: 178943064X
Artikelnr.: 58286387

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Libri GmbH

Europaallee 1

36244 Bad Hersfeld

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Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - Rezension

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung | Besprechung von 02.07.2008

Kapitaler Schmöker

"Aller Anfang ist schwer", hieß es im Vorwort zur 1867 erschienenen ersten Auflage des "Kapitals". Gemeint aber war nicht der langjährige, nun ja: Produktionsprozess dieses Megawerks über die Anatomie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft. Karl Marx hatte den Theoriekonsumenten im Sinn: "Das Verständnis des ersten Kapitels, namentlich des Abschnitts, der die Analyse der Ware enthält, wird daher die meiste Schwierigkeit machen." "Wertsubstanz" und "Wertgröße" allerdings habe er bereits "möglichst popularisiert". Und selbst die im ersten Kapitel analysierte "Wertform" - die Ware als Doppel aus Gebrauchsgegenstand und Wertträger - sei im Grunde "inhaltslos und einfach". Man möge ihm nicht mit "Schwerverständlichkeit"