This book covers a selection of the articles that I wrote on Marx’s Capital dating from 1991 to 2019.1 The articles are organised in the systematic order of the three volumes of Marx’s Capital, rather than in the historical order of their writing. Each single volume of Capital is treated in Parts B–D of the book. Part A covers articles that regard all or several volumes.
My own appreciation of Marx’s Capital has been influenced by at least two factors. First, the publication of Marx’s manuscripts in the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA).2 These reveal especially for Volumes II and III (edited by Engels) to what extent Engels had a mark on their initial publication (1885 and 1894). The MEGA is an enormously rich source for the student of Capital, and I have also learned a lot from the MEGA editors’ thorough comments on the editing.
Second, over the years my appreciation of Marx’s writings has increased enormously. This has to do with the distinct research phases of ‘investigation’ (Forschung) and ‘systematic exposition’ (Darstellung) and the problems thereof for a grand work such as Capital. I have experienced some of these problems for my own (relatively minor) endeavours in systematic exposition.3
For many of the current book’s chapters dated 1993–2014, I benefitted a lot from the contributors to the annual meetings of the ‘International symposium on Marxian theory’ each of which used to be devoted to a particular volume or a specific aspect of Marx’s Capital.4
Given that the articles included in the book have previously been published separately, they can be read in any preferred order. For that purpose, the next but one section includes the abstracts of all chapters of the book.
Format matters. References: a superscript after a year of publication refers to the edition of a work (e.g. Marx 18671; Marx 18904). Quotation marks: double quotation marks refer to citations, including cited phrases; phrases in single inverted commas are mine and are used to emphasise some concept. Cross-references to sections within a chapter are as, e.g., §3. References to a section of Capital are written in full, e.g. Section 3.
Acknowledgements. I have expressed my gratitude to the respective commentators on each chapter of the book.5 I also thank the editors of the Historical Materialism Book Series (see p. ii) for including the book in the series. Those acknowledgements relate to the academic content of the book. English not being my native language, Simon Mussell has for the last decade been my standing copy-editor and I am very grateful to him for polishing my English, which applies to various original articles from which some of the following chapters derive, as well as to the current book overall. For the material production and publication of the book, I thank Danny Hayward (manager of the Historical Materialism book series) and the for Brill working staff members Bart Nijsten (production editor) and Debbie de Wit (associate editor). Finally, I thank the (for me) anonymous production workers for materialising the book.
Geert Reuten
July 2023
Articles not collected here are listed in Appendix A.
My first endeavour was Value-form and the state: the tendencies of accumulation and the determination of economic policy in capitalist society (1989, 325 pages, with Michael Williams). The second was The unity of the capitalist economy and state: a systematic-dialectical exposition of the capitalist system (2019, 665 pages). My endeavours are, in comparison with Marx, minor because of the size of the works, but foremost because Marx founded a major paradigmatic shift that I could build on.
In those years the group published 11 books on Marx’s Capital – for these, and their contributors, see
Summed up, in alphabetical order, these commentators are: Alexander van Altena (1×); Christopher J. Arthur (10×); Riccardo Bellofiore (6×); Jurriaan Bendien (1×); Mark Blaug (3×); Marcel Boumans (1×); Andrew Brown (1×); Suzanne de Brunhoff (1×); Sebastian Budgen (1×); Martha Campbell (6×); Guglielmo Carchedi (2×); John B. Davis (1×); Ben Fine (1×); Roberto Finelli (1×); Roberto Fineschi (1×); Duncan Foley (1×); Claus Germer (1×); Jörg Glombowski (1×); Rolf Hecker (1×); Michael Heinrich (1×); Makoto Itoh (1×); Costas Lapavitsas (1×); Gerald Levy (1×); Pichit Likitkijsomboon (1×); Francisco Louçã (1×); Paul Mattick Jr. (6×); Mary Morgan (4×); Margaret Morrison (1×); Fred Moseley (8×); Patrick Murray (10×); Anitra Nelson (1×); Regina Roth (1×); Warren Samuels (1×); Tony Smith (10×); Nicola Taylor (2×); Boe Thio (1×); Massimiliano Tomba (1×); Michael Williams (3×).