Karl Marx's "Capital"

This summer I'm slogging through Karl Marx's masterpiece (aka "Das Capital"). I borrowed it from the library, and it seems that I have a first American printing from 1911. All the name calling and stupidity from the right wing over the first few months of the Obama Administration made it an attractive thing to do. I am about half way through.

The pages of the copy are thin and fragile. There is at least one section of pages that are missing. Some of the print is spotty, maybe due to age or poor quality of printing in the first place. I feel like I have something beautiful and original in my hands and am eagerly trying to take it into my brain. All this made more fun by the idea that nearly 150 years after it was written, this book is a bit naughty. Marx is a man who is especially vilified by the American right wing; so much so that the left can barely speak his name.

This is some early, crude economic thought and sophisticated political thought that was (like every intellectual pursuit) a product of the time it was conceived and written. Lifting the ideas and placing them into a different historical context twists the beauty of its originality. This is especially true of Marx. I'm trying to keep in mind that it was written in the middle of the 19th century.

It was a time of early industrialism and international trade. It was marked by slave trading, child exploitation, racism, sexism, pollution, dangerous working conditions and near feudal politics in much of Europe. Given that context, it was entirely sensible to make labor vs capital the central antagonism is his economic model.