Karl Marx’s three volumes of Kapital [Capital] (1867-94) stand as the most influential set of left-wing analyses of the capitalist economy. Written as a rebuttal to liberal political economy mainly represented by Adam Smith’s Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations (1776), Marx’s Capital devotes itself to a forensic demolition of political and economic liberalism that celebrates the marketplace as a naturally harmonizing sphere and idealizes the sanctity of private property. Although Marx meant Capital to form an integral part of his explicitly political and historical writings in support of the international communist movement, the works have little to say about political activism. Yet the t…
4545 words
Citation: Shapiro, Stephen. "Das Kapital (Volume One)". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 February 2010 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4271, accessed 26 November 2024.]
