Understanding Capital, Volume II: A Reader's Guide

by John Fox

This guide continues the work of: Understanding Capital: a guide to volume I / J. Fox and W. Johnston.

Text originated in courses on Capital taught under the auspices of the Toronto Marxist Institute.

Available on Marxists Internet Archive.

Genres: Economics

136 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

Reviews

[Carlos Martinez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't think I'd have made it through Capital: Volume 2 without this brilliant summary.

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Volume II, it is safe to say, is the least read of the three main volumes of Marx's Capital. This relative neglect is unfortunate, because many issues of concern to contemporary Marxists -- the distinction between productive and unproductive labor, the causes of economic crises, the conceptualization of fixed capital, the treatment of social reproduction -- are addressed in Volume II of Capital. Furthermore, a full appreciation of some of the material in Volume III depends upon concepts treated by Marx in the second volume."

This book is a waterfall in the desert of Marxian economics, a readable and digestible guide to much of the difficult passages in Karl Marx's second volume of Capital. Whilst Fox's writing is brief (necessarily abridging much of Marx's frantic and poorly edited analysis), Fox refuses to simplify the complexities of Marx, instead providing a sketch to make Volume 2 significantly more approachable for mere mortals. For those who want help with all three volumes however, I cannot recommend A Guide to Marx's 'Capital' enough!

[Jasmine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a helpful chapter-by-chapter summary of *Capital* Volume 2. Volume 2 was assembled posthumously from draft notes, and unfortunately the text suffers for it. Volume 1 is considerably more polished, with a good balance of general laws and particular examples. This volume, on the other hand, is far less focused and sometimes concepts are illustrated only by example, or only by general law (and thus the application, implication, and importance of the laws are less clear, or appear less grounded in data). Fox's chapter summaries help isolate the main ideas from each chapter, and I often referenced them when I felt a bit stuck or lost. His diagrams are similarly useful for visualizing flows, and it is easy to imagine that Marx would have embellished his work with such graphical methods if it were more conventional at that time.

It's worth noting that Fox sticks strictly to the work at hand, without putting it into the context of our modern day or of subsequent Marxist/Marxologist debates. As a result, there isn't much in these pages if you are already familiar with the arguments in Volume 2, and don't need a chapter-by-chapter summary.

[Henrik Lindberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe a tad high-level, but with Capital vol 1 and David Harvey's video lectures, the summaries were quite enlightening.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tackling Marx Capital Volume 2 this was a much needed read alongside David Harvey's companion to help bring another perspective and help bring more clarity to the chapters Marx (and Engles) had written. I would recommend anybody read this as they read Volume 2 of capital.

[ben.wmv · Rating 4 out of 5]

combine this with Harvey and Otani and you'll be set for Dr. Marx's Wild Ride