Das Kapital

In a complete polarizing move, this is the exact opposite of my previous reviewed book, because capitalism now gets criticized by the most prominent figure of communism. As antagonistic extremes, going from Wealth of Nations towards Das Kapital is quite ironic.

As this is considered the bible of communistic ideological thinking, one might wonder at first what the difference is between The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, which is comprised in it's fullest as three volumes.

Where as the former is more of a political revolutionary way of critical thinking, the latter is a direct critique aimed at capitalism, as Karl Marx deepfully analyses every aspect of the economical system, going through all the stages that seem orderly at first, but become more distorted as the reader uncovers more.

For instance, the mystery surrounding commodities(and consequently the mystery surrounding money and values), how they are formed, how they function, what purpose they serve, what is their meaning, what conspiracy goes behind them, and so on.

Marx criticizes the usage of commodities as Bourgeois characteristics and the economy is portrayed as being illusional, almost superstitious towards the monetary system of how their value is formed, in that period of time.

Another example is surplus-value, which is described as unpaid labor power as seen or unforeseen by the capitalist. Through circumstances, either by machinery, production, subsistence, cooperation or else, surplus-value is naturally apparent in what a "normal" working day would formulate into.

Das Kapital is presumed to be the work that shaped half of the world through the 20th century consequentially through ideological and criticizing thinking, shaping up many important conflicting events.

Aside from pure critique being offered in general, it is also once again Marx's philosophical perception that "subordinates the problems of human freedom and dignity to the issues of who should own the means of production and how wealth should be distributed accordingly."

It is no easy read and it's also old fashioned, yet it is once again one of the books that changed the world, for better or worse.

Rating: ***(out of 4)