I have just finished my book and plan on reading Das Kapital. I did some research on wikipedia and would like to know which volume I should read and what the main differences are between them.
Also, should I read it in my native language Dutch or in English? I can read German but not good enough to understand the book fully I am afraid.
>>8216987
>Also, should I read it in my native language Dutch or in English? I can read German but not good enough to understand the book fully
While you will have a greater selection of translations in English, read in your native language unless you are very confident in your English, as Marx is a genius with language so you may miss a lot of what he says.
>I am afraid
Don't be afraid, Anon. History calls those men the greatest who have ennobled themselves by working for the common good; experience acclaims as happiest the man who has made the greatest number of people happy.
Read the English translation of the French translation (the last edition Marx oversaw and put out in his lifetime), or if you can read French just read that edition
http://digamo.free.fr/penguin1.pdf
Volume 1 and 2 essentially deal with a closed off model of capitalism... the 3rd deals with an open model.
The presentation in volume 1 was centered on the process of capitalist production ITSELF avoiding secondary admixtures. This was to get the idea across that the wage-labour relation was the central source of capitalist dynamics. The process of extended reproduction and the circuits of capital are dealt with in volume 2. The more messy theoretical issues of finance and land-rent are left for volume 3.
Remember only volume 1 was fully complete and published during Marxs life... the other 2 volumes were not fully finished and were edited and published by Engels from unfinished notebooks after Marxs death.
Marx's reproduction schemes are the real starting-point of his entire analysis but it's important to remember they make theoretical assumptions:
1) the capitalist mode of production exists in an isolated state (so foreign trade is ignored)
2) that society consists of capitalists and workers alone (so you abstract from all "third persons" in the course of the analysis)
3) that commodities exchange at their value (so credit is ignored)
4) that the value of money is assumed constant
With these fictitious assumptions you obviously achieve a distance from empirical reality even while this remains the target of explanation. These set of simplifying assumptions will go together with a subsequent process of correction that takes account of the elements of actual reality that were disregarded initially so that each of the several fictitious, simplifying assumptions is subsequently modified.
>>8216987
>and plan on reading Das Kapital
You'll never get that time back.
Do yourself a favour.
http://davidharvey.org/reading-capital/
>>8217296
definitely don't do this
>>8217300
second this. harvey is a hack and capital isnt that hard.
>>8216987
Read it in dutch. The languages are so closely related, that a translator does not need to invest too much to keep the exact meanings and nuances. The Dutch translations of German boos tend to be very good. English sometimes looses the "preciseness" of the German language, at least from translations of German books I read so far.
Cannot comment on the Translations of Das Kapital never read it in English.
