Capital : Volumes One and Two

First published in German in 1867, Karl Marx’s Capital, Volume I is a monumental critique of the economic system reshaping the industrial world. Beginning with the humble commodity, Marx investigates how goods acquire value, how labour becomes a commodity itself, and how the pursuit of profit structures the relationship between workers and those who own the means of production. He traces the mechanisms of exploitation and accumulation beneath the apparent freedom of the marketplace, revealing the social relations concealed within everyday economic life.

Written after decades of research and political struggle, Capital combines economic analysis, historical investigation and fierce moral scrutiny, at times enlivened by irony, literary allusion and startling imagery. Its account of capitalism’s restless expansion, its concentration of wealth and its dependence on labour became foundational to socialist thought and generations of political debate. Although demanding in scope, the first volume remains a landmark in the history of modern ideas: a work that asks not merely how wealth is produced, but who pays its price.

From the book

“A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood. Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.”

— Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I

On Capital, Volume I

“It is full of biting wit and passionate denunciations of the brutality of nineteenth-century capitalism, based on a penetrating account of its inner workings.”

— Phil Gasper, International Socialist Review