Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Introduction
- Part I The Development of the Capitalist Mode of Production
- Part II The Capitalist Mode of Production
- Part III The Underdevelopment of the Capitalist Mode of Production
- Part IV The Value Theory of Labour
- Conclusion to Part IV
- Conclusion
- Appendix: On Social Classes
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Introduction
- Part I The Development of the Capitalist Mode of Production
- Part II The Capitalist Mode of Production
- Part III The Underdevelopment of the Capitalist Mode of Production
- Part IV The Value Theory of Labour
- Conclusion to Part IV
- Conclusion
- Appendix: On Social Classes
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Having considered in some detail in Part I of this book those more descriptive chapters in Capital, Vol. I concerned with the question of the development of the capitalist mode of production, we can now go on to look at the question of what it is that distinguishes the capitalist process of production proper from all previous modes of production.
In Part II of this book we will look at two major questions. Firstly, how is it possible that a single primitively accumulated investment and/or the hard work of a small master-capitalist prior to the development of a capitalist process of production proper is able to support the capitalist and his or her family (and all their descendants in perpetuity as it seems) without ever apparently becoming worn out or exhausted, even after the capitalist who made the original investment has long since ceased to work themselves and may in fact have died? Secondly, how is it possible that capitalists are apparently compelled to accumulate their surplus value without as it seems having any choice in the matter, and in what way this feature of the CMP distinguishes it from the type of accumulation that takes place in a highly developed mercantile process of production where the merchant capitalists can withdraw their surplus value from the process of production and realize its value in its money form?
We will begin therefore with the question of the apparent immortality of the capitalist's initial, primitively accumulated, investment.
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- Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2021