Louis Althusser, Étienne Balibar 1968

Reading Capital

First published: by Librairie François Maspero, Paris, 1968;
Translated: by Ben Brewster;
This translation first published New Left Books 1970.

Foreword to the Italian Edition
Note to the English Edition

Part I: From Capital to Marx’s Philosophy

Part II: The Object of Capital

1. Introduction
2. Marx and his Discoveries
3. The Merits of Classical Economics
4. The Errors of Classical Economics: An Outline for a Concept of Historical Time
5. Marxism is not a Historicism
6. The Epistemological Propositions of Capital (Marx, Engels)
7. The Object of Political Economy
8. Marx’s Critique
9. Marx’s Immense Theoretical Revolution
Appendix: On the ‘Ideal Average’ and the Forms of Transition

Part III: The Basic Concepts of Historical Materialism

1. From Periodization to the Modes of Production
2. The Elements of the Structure and their History
3. On Reproduction
4. Elements for a Theory of Transition