The most technical of the three volumes

Volume 2 of ‘Capital’ is seemingly the most technical of the three, since in this one he almost exclusively talks about concepts of political economy in the abstract, and very seldom diverts into the sort of tirades on the miserable condition of the working classes which we found in Volume 1 and will find again in Volume 3. It was published by Friedrich Engels in 1885 based on the notes left by Marx when he died.

In this volume he introduces a number of new concepts which are important for the remainder of his analysis. The first of these is the distinction between ‘fixed’ and ‘circulating’ capital — as opposed to (and often confused with) ‘constant’ and ‘variable’ capital, which concepts he introduced in the first volume.

The other key concept which he introduces here is that of ‘turnover,’ i.e., the period required for a given circulating capital to iterate through the process of production and circulation — or, inversely, the number of times such an iteration occurs in a given period (say, per annum).

He spends a great deal of this volume, perhaps 50% of it, discussing turnover and its effect on the surplus value which can be produced from a given starting capital. This is actually less dull than it sounds, even if he does pick over the effects produced by variations in turnover time in laborious and minute detail.

From about chapter 70 of the audiobook onwards, Marx begins an analysis of the circulation of capital around society at large, mathematically, by employing some basic assumptions. Although the maths. here is straightforward, using very simple numbers, nonetheless it gets very hard to follow henceforward. This is the point — perhaps the final five hours — at which it no longer really works as an audiobook, as it’s just too hard in narrated form to follow the flow of various chunks of social capital around the different branches and subdivisions of society. This is not the fault of the narration — which is, as ever, excellent — but simply the effect of the subject matter at this point.

One irritation with this audio edition of Volume 2 is that the chapters of the audiobook are not named. Volume 1 in the same series had the names of the chapters and sections of the book neatly encoded into the audiobook as an aid to navigation. So does Volume 3 in the series. But here, the chapter listing just reads, “Chapter 1,” “Chapter 2,” down to “Chapter 92.” Given that this volume is 29½ hours long in narrated form, this is rather disappointing.

On the whole, however, this is a fine audio production of this volume of Marx’s work, and well worth the purchase if you want to understand his philosophy in its original and undiluted form.

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best narration out there

Derek Le Page narrates this pivotal text better than any other narration of Marx's work I have ever listened to

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