Capital Vol. 1, 2, & 3: The Only Complete and Unabridged Edition in One Volume!

From my FB page, “Race for Equality”.Never in all my life would I have thought that reading Karl Marx’s, “Communist Manifesto”, would be something I would like, let alone feel inspired to read more on the subject. Again, at its core is fundamentally egalitarian thought and practice that directly addresses our social ills. As I said in my last post, I would love to create some kind of economic and social structure just for fun after reading Engle and Marx. Even though I think there are a very small handful of their constructs that are more ideological than practical (perhaps even questionable), I do believe that overall they are right on every theoretical platform they discuss. (I use the word “they” as Marx died before he was able to complete his manifesto. His very good friend, Friedrich Engels, finished the book.)One of the things that fascinates me is how it teases my theological views. Karl Marx regularly suggests that implicit within the bourgeoisie is a mechanism within human nature for greed, meaning that a thirst for money creates the ultimate capitalist. I wholeheartedly agree with that conclusion.However, Marx conveniently ignores the fact that if greed is a part of human nature, then it follows that any economic structure can theoretically lead to dead ends for the same reason. In fact, that same principle is implicit in bible doctrine; although not always for money, every economy and social structure, to include “attempted” theocracies, have fallen flat on their face because of human nature’s inability to reconcile himself with his own frailties. If logic follows, then Marx’s push for an ideal society wouldn’t work anyway.It is well known that Marx and probably most Communists take a condescending attitude towards religion. While I can not defend those suppositions, I would agree that other than economic structures, religion has been the most abused “tool” for self-gain than any other moral paradigm I can think of. In an American context (though not limited to American culture), religion was used more than any other premise prior to the Civil War as a way to keep the slave population under control. Slave holders loved to use it as a way of “spiritual” freedom against “physical” bondage. In other words, if you behave in your shackles now, God will break them for you upon death. That was among the most reprehensible uses of Christianity in its 2000 year history.The point to this post is that Karl Marx has definitely influenced me on many levels and I think any discriminating thinker, or even a curious mind, could benefit from reading this book. I would even argue that Communism “could” work but it would take a global effort. Without that, it will probably fail as demonstrated in very recent human history. Because it was written so long ago, I though it would’ve been poorly written but I suspect that the German language had evolved more than the English language during that time, making it less awkward to read. In fact, there were passages that were actually pleasant and for a book on economics, that says a lot!The book is only about 50 pages long and thankfully, it is well organized, even if wordy in some places. This is a book that will actually cultivate empathy in unexpected ways and open your mind to alternative, legitimate social and ideological frameworks. I read it in one and a half days and I would suggest to anyone to follow suit.

This is an excellent edition of a text where usually only vol 1 is read or is taken to be Marx and the rest is thought of as a fill in by Engels. Actually all three volumes fit together as a whole. It is as Richard D Wolff the prominent Economic Marxist in America says Marx wrote a “critique” of Capitalism. Just as Kant wrote a Critique of Pure Reason to better understand the basis of human knowledge. Marx wanted to better understand the economic process we call Capitalism. In fact, a great supplement to this reading of Capital is Richard Wolff’s book Contending Economic Theories which he wrote with Stephen A Resnick. It covers Neoclassical, Keynesian and Marxian economic theories. This along with YouTube sessions conducted by Richard Wolff about Capitalism, Socialism and Marxism goes a long way in simplifying and filling in the gaps to one’s economic understanding. I also found that reading the German Ideology by Karl Marx greatly helps in understanding the social, political and psychological aspects and ramifications of the basic economic rationale. There is to much misunderstanding of what certain terms mean and represent like “communist” or “socialist “ let alone the “isms” attached to these terms. However an open and careful reading of the basic Marxian texts are very revealing of an underlying humanism that is often forgotten in the rush to label and categorize Marxism in certain set ways which upon examination turn out to be not true or misleading. That’s why certain books like those by Sidney Hook a prominent American Marxist Philosopher like his Marxism and Beyond are helpful in this regard.

I needed a cheap reading copy of Capital and this was what I had money for. This book is definitely worth reading even with the mistakes and missing material. I probably won't buy from this publisher again, but just this once was worth it for such a thought provoking read.

While I'm glad to have all three volumes in one book, the publisher would have been better off using thinner paper and a larger typeface. I have the first volume of Capital as part of the old Britannica set "Great Books of the Western World", and they managed to print volume 1 of Capital using a larger (but still small) font size than is present in this book, while at the same time taking up the same amount of physical space as this book does for that same first volume. The even smaller typeface of the footnotes in the Great Books is the size of all of the text in this book. While the book is still readable without magnification, if you have trouble reading small type, you should probably pass this book by.

Font is a bit small for my comfort.

Needed to find out why Socialism is so popular, when capitalism is not doing well for so many.

Not much to say other than what's on the cover page. It's the complete and unabridged copy in one volume. Naturally, the text is small. Honestly, I think it's remarkable that the book isn't too terribly unwieldy while having small but readable text.

I was reading a review earlier before I got the product saying it’s too small to read, bull crap.Any fool with a 20/20 vision can read it the words aren’t too smallThis only applies to you if you have good eyesAnyway the author do a great job with everything else

Recommended.

Terrible font, paragraphs cut off, impossible to read.

In depth read!