page_title: Das Kapital, Volume I
hierarchical_section_title: Das Kapital, Volume I
caption_attribution_description: «Das Kapital» von Karl Marx in einer Ausgabe von 1867 aus der Sammlung Saitzew in der Zentralbibliothek Zürich
context_page_description: Capital. Volume I: The Process of Production of Capital is a treatise written in the tradition of classical political economy first published on 14 September 1867 by German communist Karl Marx. The product of a decade of research and redrafting, the book applies class analysis to capitalism focusing upon production processes, making the capitalist mode of production historically specific. Particularly, the sources and forms of surplus value in the context of explaining the dynamics of capital accumulation characterizing economic development over a long period of time are key themes developed analytically throughout the work.
  These themes are developed on the basis of the abstract labour theory of value Marx presents differently across three editions in German and one in French. Among scholars, there exists controversy over whether the third German edition should be treated as the source for major English translations when the French translation was in fact Marx's last version. In all editions, Marx deploys logical, historical, literary and other illustrative strategies to facilitate delivery of the book's complex and frequently metatheoretical argument.
context_section_description: Capital. Volume I: The Process of Production of Capital (German: Das Kapital. Erster Band. Buch I: Der Produktionsprocess des Kapitals) is a treatise written in the tradition of classical political economy first published on 14 September 1867 by German communist Karl Marx. The product of a decade of research and redrafting, the book applies class analysis to capitalism focusing upon production processes, making the capitalist mode of production historically specific. Particularly, the sources and forms of surplus value in the context of explaining the dynamics of capital accumulation characterizing economic development over a long period of time are key themes developed analytically throughout the work.
  These themes are developed on the basis of the abstract labour theory of value Marx presents differently across three editions in German and one in French. Among scholars, there exists controversy over whether the third German edition should be treated as the source for major English translations when the French translation was in fact Marx's last version. In all editions, Marx deploys logical, historical, literary and other illustrative strategies to facilitate delivery of the book's complex and frequently metatheoretical argument.
  Since its publication, Capital, Volume I has become recognized as a major work of political economy on par with Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), David Ricardo's On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817), John Stuart Mill's Principles of Political Economy (1848) and John Maynard Keynes's The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936). It is a central theoretical text in academic Marxian economics, economic sociology, historiography, dialectical logic and other fields. Capital, Volume I lists consistently high in rankings by economists, philosophers and others naming great books of lasting importance to modernity.
caption: The first edition of Capital, Volume I published in German
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