Karl
Marx (1818–1883) was living in exile in England when he embarked on
an ambitious, multivolume critique of the capitalist system of
production. Though only the first volume saw publication in Marx’s
lifetime, it would become one of the most consequential books in
history. This magnificent new edition of Capital
is a translation of Marx for the twenty-first century. It is the
first translation into English to be based on the last German edition
revised by Marx himself, the only version that can be called
authoritative, and it features extensive commentary and annotations
by Paul North and Paul Reitter that draw on the latest scholarship
and provide invaluable perspective on the book and its complicated
legacy. At once precise and boldly readable, this translation
captures the momentous scale and sweep of Marx’s thought while
recovering the elegance and humor of the original source.
For
Marx, our global economic system is relentlessly driven by “value”—to
produce it, capture it, trade it, and most of all, to increase it.
Lifespans are shortened under the demand for ever-greater value. Days
are lengthened, work is intensified, and the division of labor
deepens until it leaves two classes, owners and workers, in constant
struggle for life and livelihood. In Capital,
Marx reveals how value came to tyrannize our world, and how the
history of capital is a chronicle of bloodshed, colonization, and
enslavement.
With
a foreword by Wendy Brown and an afterword by William Clare Roberts,
this is a critical edition of Capital
for our time, one that faithfully preserves the vitality and
directness of Marx’s German prose and renders his ideas newly
relevant to modern readers.