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inquiry_from_an_anti_library's review
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
2.0
This volume looks at how capital moves through the capitalist system. Rather than identifying how surplus value is created, identifying how surplus value is transferred. From the various circuits that capital and money go through and their interactions, to different costs of maintenance of capital and its mobility, Marx goes to extreme detail to describe circulation of capital.
The most important idea from this volume is the distinction between productive and unproductive capital, which are now more formally known as production and nonproduction activities. Production involves in bringing goods to market, from the various materials and services needed for the product. Nonproduction involves costs to capital and can indirectly increase the amount of productive capital there is.
Examples and details do make the book difficult to understand. The core ideas are easily lost within the all the explanations. The introduction by Ernest Mandel does a wonderful job at expressing concise the details in the book without losing much meaning.
The most important idea from this volume is the distinction between productive and unproductive capital, which are now more formally known as production and nonproduction activities. Production involves in bringing goods to market, from the various materials and services needed for the product. Nonproduction involves costs to capital and can indirectly increase the amount of productive capital there is.
Examples and details do make the book difficult to understand. The core ideas are easily lost within the all the explanations. The introduction by Ernest Mandel does a wonderful job at expressing concise the details in the book without losing much meaning.
zimaconfession's review
4.0
There are some interesting historical stuff in this volume. Some of the information is relevant to the modern world but there is nothing that requires one to conclude that revolution towards an unspecified Socialist future is the best solution. Indeed, it is obvious, from the fact that the information comes from inspectors and enquires shows that the existing system was trying to fix itself (and continued to do so). Therefore conditions for the "working class" continued to improve. Wages continued to acquire greater buying power.
blandinus's review
5.0
As the preface says, more technical and less polemic than vol 1 but very worthwhile for any serious Marxist. Expands the scope of the analysis from the commodity production to the overall circulation of capital, dealing with turnover rates, exchange between departments within the production spheres, and the general accumulation that starts up with the surplus value that is accumulated in the mode of production and how that helps with the production of surplus value and accumulation in the mode of consumption. With capital's increasingly constant need to valorize its value, it really puts in perspective of how overproduction, crises, and disasters are inevitable in this system. Also adds more in how crucial the worker is in renewing the constant capital, variable capital, and producing the surplus value of the capitalists.
I hope you like math though. As said very technical to the point I needed to go through some notes and ruminations to figure it out.
I hope you like math though. As said very technical to the point I needed to go through some notes and ruminations to figure it out.