Karl Marx - Capital Volume II

In his preface to the Penguin edition of the second volume of Karl Marx's Capital, the translator David Fernbach notes, with palpable frustration that it is a difficult book to read. Those readers who have finished the first volume will know that one of the great triumphs of that book is that it is a work of political economy, and literature. It is full of references to history, legend and culture and rages, in places, with anger at the conditions in which the proletariat live and work. Capital II, Fernbach says, is not like this, it is "remowned for the arid deserts between its oases". Many a "non-specialist" says Fernbach has been defeated.

I don't disagree with Fernbach at all here. Capital II is undoubtably a work of great intellectual power and weight. There is no doubt that had Marx finished it, it would have been imbibed with purple passages, allusions and the reader would have been eased through the technical parts much more. It also, no doubt, suffers from its origins in the collection of notebooks that Engels edited after Marx death. But for this reader it must be said it was a very challenging read.

The book is clearly intended as a direct follow on from Volume I. Marx references that earlier work frequently, and the reader is assumed to be familiar with the topic. But this is a much more focused work, dealing with the circulation of capital within capitalism in a variety of different contexts and situations. Key to this analysis is how, and when, the value of commodities can be realised. Marx then discusses various scenarios of what the capitalists are able to do with this value, and how they can reinvest in different parts of production in order to continue their search for profit.

While Marx never loses sight of the role of workers ("the first precondition of M-C... P... C'-M' is the continuous availability of the ckass of wage-labourers") this is not the primary, or even secondary focus of the book. Marx is more concerned with drawing out the real nature of production, and he criticises the classical economists for obscuring, or not seeing, the drive for profit and accumulation. Take this section:

The general form of the movement P ... P is the form of reproduction and, unlike M ... M', does not indicate that valorisation is the prupose of the process. For this reason, classical economics found it all the more easy to ignore the specifically capitalist form of the production process, and to present production as such as the purpose of the porcess - to produce as much and as cheaply as possible and to exchange the production for as many other products as possible, partly for th ereptition of production (M-C), partly for consumption (m-c). 

The whole process then appearing simple and natural, i.e. possessing the naturalness of superficial rationality... Accumulation, of course, appeared in the same light as production.

Classical economics presents "production" as the purpose, not the making of profits. Here Marx uses the notation M... M' to refer to the circuit of Money-Capital, P... P' for the circuit of Productive-Capital and C...C' for the circut of Commodity-Capital. 

In noting the circulation of capital, Marx has to take up some interesting questions. For instance time becomes a factor. How does capitalism work when capital is locked up on productions on ships on the sea, or waiting for beer to brew or crops to grow. Marx emphasises that "the nearer production time and working time approach to eqaulity, the greater the productivity and valorisation of a given productive capital in a given space of time". He continues that the tendency is for the system to "shorten as much as possible the excess of production time over working time".

Examples such as these exist in the book, but as the work progresses it becomes harder and much more abstract. The pages are peppered with equations and calculations, and few readers will be able to follow the detail of Marx's arguement. This is further complicated by Engels' admission that while Marx had a "firm grasp of algebra, he was never at ease in recokoning with figures" and "in his turnover calculations Marx became confused". Thus Engels only includes the "correct calculations". He also points to further problems because he argues Marx gives too much significance to something Engels considers of "little importance", the "setting-free of money capital". This reader is happy to let Engels have the last word here.

Capital II is a difficult read. Readers will, especially if familiar with the first volume, get something from it. I found Marx's writing on natural processes, such as crops and trees growing, to the production system illuminating. But I was much defeated by the later passages. Though even there I found the occasional gem. While there were few oases I did, at least occasionally, drink.

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Marx - Capital Volume I
Marx - Value, Price and Profit
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