Colossal final volume

Weighing in at just over 50 hours, this is the colossal final volume of Marx’s ‘Capital.’ In this volume, published posthumously by Friedrich Engels in 1894, Marx tackles various aspects of the analysis of capital hanging over from Volumes 1 and 2. These include:—

- Cost price and profit
- Average profit
- Rate of profit
- Merchant’s capital
- Interest-bearing capital (what he calls the most “fetishistic” form of capital)
- The credit system
- Ground rent

During the lengthy analysis of these features of capital, he attempts to show how the capitalist mode of production contains the seeds of its own self-destruction; thus, how it must inevitably give way to the communistic form of production.

I was expecting, in this volume, to get a detailed and systematic prophecy into how precisely the capitalist mode of production would give way to the communistic mode, and how the communistic mode of production would be established and become the final form of social production. There is no such detailed prophecy here. We only get hints of this appearing from time to time: for instance, and most notably, in Chapter 15. It is here that he starts to foresee the overproductive excesses, and therefore eventual doom, of the capitalist system. It is notable how mechanistically he treats both the capitalist class and the labouring class in this chapter. For example, he predicts with ideological certainty how the capitalist class will behave during such crises; whilst at the same time, and without offering any evidence, he predicts what effect these same crises will have on rates of marriage, and therefore population, among the working class. However, this is as much predicting the future as he does in this book, and we never get a systematic account of how all this would take place.

One of the curiosities of this third volume is how incomplete it is in certain places. We see this particularly from Chapter 27 onwards. Towards the end of this chapter we have entire subsections reduced to a few sentences, or, in one case, a mere heading. It is clear that Marx left these sections as thought-markers, intending to return to them later, but never did. Still later, in the final chapter (52), Engels records a passage from Marx about the three major social classes which terminates abruptly mid-paragraph!

It is clear from all this — as Engels himself declares in the Supplement — that Engels wanted to publish this final volume of Marx’s manuscript just as he found it, with the minimum possible interposition by himself.

There is a most curious error in Chapter 9 (at 10’47” into the chapter; 42°27’ remaining in the book). In this chapter, Marx sets up an illustration involving five advanced capitals, each of £100, each with a rate of surplus value of 100%, but with differing ratios of constant to variable capital. He then combines them into a combined capital of £500, comprising £390 constant + £110 variable capital with, therefore, a surplus value of £110. All fine so far. But he then (at 10’54”) claims that this gives a rate of profit of 110%. This is transparently incorrect: a surplus value (and therefore profit) of £110 on an advanced capital of £500 gives a rate of profit of £110 / £500 = 22%, not 110%! It seems incredible that Engels failed to spot this error when compiling Marx’s notes for publication as Capital Volume 3. Although it does not materially affect Marx’s overall argument, still it is an extremely odd mistake to find uncorrected in the text.

Even given the rather dry subject matter of ‘Capital,’ I did find Chapter 10 of this volume (“Equalisation of the General Rate of Profit Through Competition, &c.”) exceedingly boring. (It weighs in at just under 91 minutes.) It is, however, key to his subsequent analysis of the difference between a commodity’s ‘value’ and its ‘price.’ Even so, it would have been more digestible broken up into several chapters.

Overall, though, this final volume is a monumental achievement, as well as being a very important work for anybody wanting to understand thoroughly Marx’s belief system and his view of the capitalist mode of production.

Narration

Derek le Page’s narration is, as with the previous two volumes, clear and measured. Without doubt he makes a very dry work of economic theory much, much easier listening than it might have been.

At the same time, and given the colossal length of this work, it was perhaps inevitable that we would really start to see narration errors and editing errors creeping in with this volume.

Thus in chapter 20, at 32°35’ from the end of the audiobook, there is an alarmingly long pause. Le Page finishes a sentence, and suddenly there are 11 seconds of absolute radio silence before he resumes the next sentence. I consider this the first serious editing flaw in the series. At first I thought a new chapter was about to begin. Then I thought my Bluetooth had disconnected. Then I thought my device had jumped a few phrases. But no; it really is eleven seconds of total silence.

A further narrative oddity occurs near the beginning of chapter 27 (at 26°11’ from the end of the audiobook). Here he reads: “Footnote: The average of notes in circulation during the year was:— In 1812, one hundred and six million, five hundred and thirty-eight thousand francs; in 1818, one hundred and one million, two hundred and five thousand francs. Whereas the movement of the currency, or the annual aggregate of disbursements and upon all accounts, was:— In 1812, two thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven million, seven hundred and twelve thousand francs; in 1818, nine million, six hundred and sixty-five thousand, thirty thousand francs.” What does this last number mean?!

[The actual text here reads: “The average of notes in circulation during the year was, in 1812, 106,538,000 francs; in 1818, 101,205,000 francs; whereas the movement of the currency, or the annual aggregate of disbursements and upon all accounts, was, in 1812, 2,837,712,000 francs; in 1818, 9,665,030,000 francs.” The final number, therefore, was simply read incorrectly. This completely bamboozled me when listening to it.]

However, set in the scope of the entire work of narration — le Page has been narrating Marx for 122½ hours by the time he finishes this volume! — these are minor faults, and overall the narration is excellent.

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