Capital, Volume II, subtitled The Process of Circulation of Capital, was prepared by Friedrich Engels

Friedrich Engels

Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...

 from notes left by Karl Marx

Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...

 and published in 1885. It is divided into three parts:

1. The Metamorphoses of Capital and Their Circuits
2. The Turnover of Capital
3. The Reproduction and Circulation of the Aggregate Social Capital

In Volume II, the main ideas behind the marketplace are to be found: how value and surplus-value are realized. Its dramatis personae, not so much the worker and the industrialist (as in Volume I), but rather the money owner (and money lender), the wholesale merchant, the trader and the entrepreneur or 'functioning capitalist.' Moreover, workers appear in Volume II, essentially as buyers of consumer goods and, therefore, as sellers of the commodity labour power, rather than producers of value and surplus-value (although, this latter quality, established in Volume I, remains the solid foundation on which the whole of the unfolding analysis is based).

Reading Volume II is of monumental significance to understanding the theoretical construction of Marx's whole argument. Marx himself quite precisely clarified this place, in a letter sent to Engels on 30 April 1868: 'In Book 1. . . we content ourselves with the assumption that if in the self-expansion process €100 becomes €110, the latter will find already in existence in the market the elements into which it will change once more. But now we investigate the conditions under which these elements are found at hand, namely the social intertwining of the different capitals, of the component parts of capital and of revenue (= s).' This intertwining, conceived as a movement of commodities and of money, enabled Marx to work out at least the essential elements, if not the definitive form of a coherent theory of the trade cycle, based upon the inevitability of periodic disequilibrium between supply and demand under the capitalist mode of production (Mandel, 1978, Intro to Vol. II of Capital).

Volume II of Capital has indeed been not only a 'sealed book', but also a forgotten one. To a large extent, it remains so to this very day.

Part 3 is the point of departure for a topic

Capital accumulation

The accumulation of capital refers to the gathering or amassing of objects of value; the increase in wealth through concentration; or the creation of wealth. Capital is money or a financial asset invested for the purpose of making more money...

 given its Marxist treatment later in detail by, among others, Rosa Luxemburg

Rosa Luxemburg

Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen...

.

See also

• The Accumulation of Capital
  The Accumulation of Capital
  The Accumulation of Capital is the principal book length work of Rosa Luxemburg first published in 1913.It is in three sections as described below :# The Problem of Reproduction#...
  
  
• Das Kapital
  Das Kapital
  Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie , by Karl Marx, is a critical analysis of capitalism as political economy, meant to reveal the economic laws of the capitalist mode of production, and how it was the precursor of the socialist mode of production.- Themes :In Capital: Critique of...
  
  
  • Capital, Volume I
    Capital, Volume I
    Capital, Volume I , by Karl Marx, is a critical analysis of capitalism as political economy, meant to reveal the economic laws of the capitalist mode of production, how it was the precursor of the socialist mode of production, and of the class struggle rooted in the capitalist social relations of...
    
    
  • Capital, Volume III
    Capital, Volume III
    Capital, Volume III, subtitled The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole, was prepared by Friedrich Engels from notes left by Karl Marx and published in 1894...
    
    
• Marxian economics
  Marxian economics
  Marxian economics refers to economic theories on the functioning of capitalism based on the works of Karl Marx. Adherents of Marxian economics, particularly in academia, distinguish it from Marxism as a political ideology and sociological theory, arguing that Marx's approach to understanding the...
  
  

Further reading

• Althusser, Louis and Balibar, Étienne. Reading Capital. London: Verso, 2009.
• Louis Althusser
  Louis Althusser
  Louis Pierre Althusser was a French Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy....
  
   (1969) How to Read Marx's Capital from Marxism Today
  Marxism Today
  Marxism Today was the theoretical journal of the Communist Party of Great Britain and was disestablished in 1991. It was particularly important during the 1980s under the editorship of Martin Jacques...
  
  , October 1969, 302-305. Originally appeared (in French) in Humanité on April 21, 1969.
• Bottomore, Tom, ed. A Dictionary of Marxist Thought. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.
• Fine, Ben
  Ben Fine
  For the New York Times reporter see Benjamin FineBen Fine is Professor of Economics at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies. He is the author of a number of works in the broad tradition of Marxist economics, and has made contributions on economic imperialism and social...
  
  . Marx's Capital. 5th ed. London: Pluto, 2010.
• Harvey, David
  David Harvey (geographer)
  David Harvey is the Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York . A leading social theorist of international standing, he received his PhD in Geography from University of Cambridge in 1961. Widely influential, he is among the top 20 most cited...
  
  . A Companion to Marx's Capital. London: Verso, 2010.
• Harvey, David. The Limits of Capital. London: Verso, 2006.
• Mandel, Ernest
  Ernest Mandel
  Ernest Ezra Mandel, also known by various pseudonyms such as Ernest Germain, Pierre Gousset, Henri Vallin, Walter , was a revolutionary Marxist theorist.-Life:...
  
  . Marxist Economic Theory. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970.
• Postone, Moishe. Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
• Shipside, Steve. Karl Marx's Das Kapital: A Modern-day Interpretation of a True Classic. Oxford: Infinite Ideas, 2009. ISBN 978-1-906821-04-3
• Wheen, Francis. Marx's Das Kapital--A Biography. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006. ISBN 0802143946; ISBN 978-0802143945.

External links

• Full Text