Gabriel Deville (1883)

The People's Marx

A Popular Epitome of Karl Marx's Capital


Written: 1883
Translated: by Robert Rives La Monte
Published: by The International Library Publishing Co., 23 Duane Street, New York
Published: in 1900
Transcribed: by David Balmer and Jasminder Kandola


Table of Contents

Introductory Note
Preface

Development of Capitalist Production

First Section. Commodities and Money

Chapter I: Commodities

I: Use-value and exchange-value. —The substance of value. —Magnitude of value, labor-time socially necessary.
II: Two-fold aspect of labor. —Two-fold social character of specific labor. —Reduction of all labor to a certain quantity of simple labor.
III: Value, a social reality, appears only in exchange. —The form of value.
V: The material appearance of the social character of labor.

Chapter II: Exchange

The relations of the owners of commodities, and the conditions of these relations. —The exchange-relation involves necessarily the money-form. —The money-form attaches itself to the precious metals.

Chapter III: Money or the Circulation of Commodities

I: The measure of values. —The price-form.
II: The circulation of commodities. —The currency of money. —Legal-tender or coins and paper-money.
III: Reserves of gold and silver, or hoards. —Money as the means of payment. —Universal money.

Second Section. The Transformation of Money into Capital

Chapter IV: The General Formula for Capital

The simple circulation of commodities, and the circulation of money as capital. —Surplus-value.

Chapter V: Contradictions in the General Formula for Capital

The circulation of commodities is based on the exchange of equivalent values. —Even admitting the exchange of unequal values, the circulation of commodities cannot create surplus-value.

Chapter VI: Purchase and Sale of Labor-Power

The source of surplus-value is labor-power. —The value of labor-power.

Third Section. The Production of Absolute Surplus-Value

Chapter VII: The Production of Use-Values and the Production of Surplus-Value

I: Labor in general and Its elements. —Labor performed for the profit of the capltalist.
II: The analysis of the value of the product. —Difference between the value of labor-power, and the value that it is capable of creating. —The problem of the transformation of money into capital is solved.

Chapter VIII: Constant Capital and Variable Capital

The preservation of value, and the creation of value by labor. —Value simply preserved, and value reproduced and increased.

Chapter IX: The Rate of Surplus-Value

I: Necessary labor and surplus-labor. —The degree of exploitation of labor-power.
II: The elements of the value of the product expressed in portions of this product and in fractions of the working-day.
III: The "last-hour".
IV: The net product.

Chapter X: The Working-Day

I: The limits of the working-day.
II: The greed of capital for surplus-labor.
III: The exploitation of the free laborer in form and in fact. —Day and night work.
IV: Regulation of the worktng-day.
V: The struggle for the limitation of the working-day.

Chapter XI: Rate and Mass of Surplus-Value

The prolongation of the working-day counterbalances a decrease in the number of the laborers. —A certain minimum of money necessary for the transformation of money into capital.

Fourth Section. The Production of Relative Surplus-Value

Chapter XII: Relative Surplus-Value

Reduction of the necessary labor-time. —Increase of the productiveness of labor andof surplus-value.

Chapter XIII: Co-operation

The collective power of labor. —Results and conditions of collective labor. —The leadership in industry belongs to capital. —The collective power of labor appears as a power immanent in capital.

Chapter XIV: Division of Labor and Manufacture

I: Two-fold origin of manufacture.
II: The detail laborer and his implements.
III: The two fundamental forms of manufacture. —General mechanism of manufacture. —Effect of manufacture on labor.
IV: Division of labor in manufacture and in society.
V: The capitalist character of manufacture.

Chapter XV: Machinery and Modern Industry

I: The development of machinery. —The development of modern industry.
II: The value transferred by machinery to the product.
III: The labor of women and children. —The prolongation of the working-day. —The intensification of labor.
IV: The factory.
V: The strife between workman and machinery.
VI: The theory of compensation.
VII: Repulsion and attraction of work-people by the factory system.
VIII: Suppression of co-operation based on handicrafts and division of labor. —Reaction of the factory system on manufacture and domestic industries. —Transition from modern manufacture and domestic industry to modern mechanical industry.
IX: Contradiction between the nature of modern industry and its capitalist form. —The factory system and education. —The factory system and the family. —Revolutionary consequences of factory-legislation.
X: Modern industry and agriculture.

Fifth Section. Additional Consideration of the Production of Surplus-Value

Chapter XVI: Absolute and Relative Surplus-Value

The distinctive characteristic of productive labor. —The productiveness of labor and surplus-value.

Chapter XVII: Changes of Magnitude in the Value of Labor-Power and in Surplus-Value

I: Duration and intensity of labor constant. Productiveness variable.
II: Duration and productiveness of labor constant. Intensity variable.
III: Intensity and productiveness of labor constant. Duration variable.
IV: Simultaneous variations in the duration, intensity and productiveness of labor.

Chapter XVIII: Modes of Expressing the Rate of Surplus-Value

Various formulae expressing this rate. —Surplus-value has its source in unpaid labor.

Sixth Section. Wages

Chapter XIX: The Transformation of the Value or Price of Labor-Power into Wages

Wages are the price, not of labor, but of labor-power. —The wage-form conceals the real relation between capital and labor.

Chapter XX: Time-Wages

The price of labor. —Working only part-time contrasted with a general curtailment of the working-day. —Low price of labor and prolongation of the day.

Chapter XXI: Piece-Wages

This change in the form of wages in no wise alters their nature. —Special characteristics of this form of wages that make it the form best adapted to capitalist production.

Chapter XXII: National Differences of Wages

How to compare the rates of wages in different nations. —Modifications of the law of value in its international application. —Apparent wages and real wages.

Seventh Section. The Accumulation of Capital

Introduction

The circulation of capital. —Examination of the fundamental mechanism of accumulation.

Chapter XXIII: Simple Reproduction

The part of capital advanced in wages is only a part of the past labor of the laborer. —All capital advanced is transformed sooner or later into accumulated capital. —The productive consumption and the individual consumption of the laborer. —Simple reproduction keeps the workingman in the situation of a wage-laborer.

Chapter XXIV: Transformation of Surplus-Value into Capital

I: Reproduction on an increasing scale. —The more the capitalist has accumulated, the more he can accumulate. —Capitalist appropriation is only the application of the laws of the production of commodities.
II: False ideas concerning accumulation.
III: Division of surplus-value into capital and revenue. —The abstinence theory.
IV: Circumstances which affect the extent of accumulation. —Degree of exploitation of labor-power. —Productivity of labor. —Growing difference between capital employed and capital consumed. —Magnitude of capital advanced.
V: The labor-fund.

Chapter XXV: The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation

I: The composition of capital. —Circumstances under which the accumulation of capital may induce a rise in wages. —The magnitude of capital does not depend on the number of the working population.
II: Diminution of the variable part of capital compared to the constant part. —Concentration and centralization.
III: Relative and actual demand for labor. —The law of population peculiar to the capitalist period. —Formation of an industrial reserve army. —How the general rate of wages is determined. —Delusion of the law of supply and demand.
IV: Different forms of the relative surplus-population. —Pauperism is the inevitable consequence of the capitalist system.

Eighth Section. Private Accumulation

Chapter XXVI: The Secret of Primitive Accumulation

I: Divorce of the producer from the means of production. —Explanation of the historical process which has superseded the feudal regime by the capitalist regime.
II: Brute force succeeded by the exploiting process as a subjugating agency.
III: Establishment of the home market for industrial capital.

Chapter XXVII: Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist

Primitive accumulation is accomplished by force. —The colonial regime, public debts and the protectionist system.

Chapter XXVIII: Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation

Private property based on personal labor superseded by capitalist property. —The transformation of capitalist ownership into social ownership.

Chapter XXIX: The Modern Theory of Colonization

The necessity of the conditions that we have recognised as indispensable to capitalist exploitation clearly appears in the colonies. —Confessions of political economy.