Capital - volume I

Penguin's Edition Preface by Ernest Mandel

Capital. Volume I: The Process of Production of Capital (German: Das Kapital. Erster Band. Buch I: Der Produktionsprocess des Kapitals) is an 1867 economics book by German philosopher Karl Marx. In Volume I, the only part of Marx's multi-volume Capital: Critique of Political Economy to be published during his lifetime, Marx critiques capitalism chiefly from the standpoint of its production processes. After Marx's death, Friedrich Engels compiled and expanded his friend's notes into volumes II (1885) and III (1894). In the years since its publication, Capital, Volume I has come to be considered as a major work of modern economic thought, alongside the likes of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations (1776) and John Maynard Keynes's The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936). It is the central text of the field of Marxian economics.