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Volume III: Chapter 52. Classes

Volume III
Chapter 52. Classes
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table of contents
  1. Contents
  2. Preface
  3. Part I. The Conversion of Surplus-Value into Profit and of the Rate of Surplus-Value into the Rate of Profit
    1. Chapter 1. Cost-Price and profit
      1. Notes
    2. Chapter 2. The Rate of Profit
    3. Chapter 3. The Relation of the Rate of Profit to the Rate of Surplus-Value
      1. Notes
    4. Chapter 4. The Effect of the Turnover on the Rate of Profit
    5. Chapter 5. Economy in the Employment of Constant Capital
      1. I. In General
      2. II. Savings In Labour Conditions At The Expense Of The Labourers.
      3. III. Economy In The Generation And Transmission Of Power, And In Buildings
      4. IV. Utilisation Of The Excretions Of Production
      5. V. Economy Through Inventions
      6. Notes
    6. Chapter 6. The Effect of Price Fluctuation
      1. I. Fluctuations in the Price of Raw Materials, and their Direct Effects on the Rate of Profit
      2. Experiments in corpore vili
      3. Notes
    7. Chapter 7. Supplementary Remarks
  4. Part II. Conversion of Profit into Average Profit
    1. Chapter 8. Different Compositions of Capitals in Different Branches of Production and Resulting Differences in Rates of Profit
      1. Notes
    2. Chapter 9. Formation of a General Rate of Profit (Average Rate of Profit) and Transformation of the Values of Commodities into Prices of Production
    3. Chapter 10. Equalisation of the General Rate of Profit Through Competition. Market-Prices and Market-Values. Surplus-Profit
      1. Notes
    4. Chapter 11. Effects of General Wage Fluctuations on Prices of Production
      1. Notes
    5. Chapter 12. Supplementary Remarks
      1. I. Causes Implying a Change in the Price of Production
      2. II. Price of Production of Commodities of Average Composition
      3. III. The Capitalist's Grounds for Compensating
  5. Part III. The Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall
    1. Chapter 13. The Law As Such
      1. Notes
    2. Chapter 14. Counteracting Influences
      1. I. INCREASING INTENSITY OF EXPLOITATION
      2. II. DEPRESSION OF WAGES BELOW THE VALUE OF LABOUR-POWER
      3. III. CHEAPENING OF ELEMENTS OF CONSTANT CAPITAL
      4. IV. RELATIVE OVER-POPULATION
      5. V. FOREIGN TRADE
      6. VI. THE INCREASE OF STOCK CAPITAL
      7. Notes
    3. Chapter 15. Exposition of the Internal Contradictions of the Law
      1. I. General
      2. II. Conflict Between Expansion Of Production And Production Of Surplus-Value
      3. III. Excess Capital And Excess Population
      4. IV. Supplementary Remarks
      5. Notes
  6. Part IV. Conversion of Commodity-Capital and Money-Capital into Commercial Capital and Money-Dealing Capital (Merchant's Capital)
    1. Chapter 16. Commercial Capital
      1. Notes
    2. Chapter 17. Commercial Profit
      1. Notes
    3. Chapter 18. The Turnover of Merchant's Capital. Prices.
      1. Notes
    4. Chapter 19. Money-Dealing Capital
      1. Notes
    5. Chapter 20. Historical Facts about Merchant's Capital
      1. Notes
  7. Part V. Division of Profit into Interest and Profit of Enterprise. Interest-Bearing Capital
    1. Chapter 21. Interest-Bearing Capital
      1. Notes
    2. Chapter 22. Division of Profit. Rate of Interest. Natural Rate of Interest.
      1. Notes
    3. Chapter 23. Interest and Profit of Enterprise
      1. Notes
    4. Chapter 24. Externalization of the Relations of Capital in the Form of Interest-Bearing Capital
      1. Notes
    5. Chapter 25. Credit and Fictitious Capital
    6. Chapter 26. Accumulation of Money-Capital. Its Influence on the Interest Rate
      1. Notes
    7. Chapter 27. The Role of Credit in Capitalist Production
      1. Notes
    8. Chapter 28. Medium of Circulation and Capital; Views of Tooke and Fullarton
      1. Notes
    9. Chapter 29. Component Parts of Bank Capital
      1. Notes
    10. Chapter 30. Money-Capital and Real Capital. I.
      1. Notes
    11. Chapter 31. Money Capital and Real Capital. II.
      1. 1. TRANSFORMATION OF MONEY INTO LOAN CAPITAL
      2. 2. TRANSFORMATION OF CAPITAL OR REVENUE INTO MONEY THAT IS TRANSFORMED INTO LOAN CAPITAL
    12. Chapter 32. Money Capital and Real Capital. III.
      1. Notes
    13. Chapter 33. The Medium of Circulation in the Credit System
      1. Notes
    14. Chapter 34. The Currency Principle and the English Bank Legislation of 1844
    15. Chapter 35. Precious Metal and Rate of Exchange
      1. I. MOVEMENT OF THE GOLD RESERVE
      2. II. THE RATE OF EXCHANGE
      3. RATE OF EXCHANGE WITH ASIA
      4. ENGLAND'S BALANCE OF TRADE
      5. Notes
    16. Chapter 36. Pre-Capitalist Relationships
      1. Notes
  8. Part VI. Transformation of Surplus-Profit into Ground-Rent
    1. Chapter 37. Introduction
      1. Notes
    2. Chapter 38. Differential Rent: General Remarks
      1. Notes
    3. Chapter 39. First Form of Differential Rent (Differential Rent I)
      1. Notes
    4. Chapter 40. Second Form of Differential Rent (Differential Rent II)
    5. Chapter 41. Differential Rent II. First Case: Constant Price of Production
    6. Chapter 42. Differential Rent II. Second Case: Falling Price of Production
      1. I. Productivity of the additional investment of capital remains the same.
      2. II. Decreasing rate of productivity of the additional capital.
      3. III. Rising rate of productivity of the additional capital.
      4. Notes
    7. Chapter 43. Differential Rent II. Third Case: Rising Price of Production
    8. Chapter 44. Differential Rent Also on the Worst Cultivated Soil
    9. Chapter 45. Absolute Ground-Rent
      1. Notes
    10. Chapter 46. Building Site Rent. Rent in Mining. Price of Land
      1. Notes
    11. Chapter 47. Genesis of Capitalist Ground-Rent
      1. I. Introductory Remarks
      2. II. Labour rent
      3. III. Rent In Kind
      4. IV. Money-Rent
      5. V. Métayage And Peasant Proprietorship Of Land Parcels
      6. Notes
  9. Part VII. Revenues and their Sources
    1. Chapter 48. The Trinity Formula
      1. I [48]
      2. II
      3. III
      4. Notes
    2. Chapter 49. Concerning the Analysis of the Process of Production
      1. Notes
    3. Chapter 50. Illusions Created By Competition
      1. Notes
    4. Chapter 51. Distribution Relations and Production Relations
      1. Notes
    5. Chapter 52. Classes
      1. Notes
  10. Supplement by Frederick Engels
    1. Introduction
    2. Law of Value and Rate of Profit
    3. The Stock Exchange
  11. Engels’ Edition of the Third Volume of Capital and Marx’s Original Manuscript
    1. 1. Extant Knowledge of Engels’ Editing
    2. 2. An Overview of Engels’ Textual Modifications
    3. 3. Interpretatory Handicaps Caused by Engels’ Edition
    4. 4. Conclusions
    5. References
    6. Footnotes

Chapter 52. Classes

The owners merely of labour-power, owners of capital, and land-owners, whose respective sources of income are wages, profit and ground-rent, in other words, wage-labourers, capitalists and land-owners, constitute then three big classes of modern society based upon the capitalist mode of production.

In England, modern society is indisputably most highly and classically developed in economic structure. Nevertheless, even here the stratification of classes does not appear in its pure form. Middle and intermediate strata even here obliterate lines of demarcation everywhere (although incomparably less in rural districts than in the cities). However, this is immaterial for our analysis. We have seen that the continual tendency and law of development of the capitalist mode of production is more and more to divorce the means of production from labour, and more and more to concentrate the scattered means of production into large groups, thereby transforming labour into wage-labour and the means of production into capital. And to this tendency, on the other hand, corresponds the independent separation of landed property from capital and labour,[58] or the transformation of all landed property into the form of landed property corresponding to the capitalist mode of production.

The first question to he answered is this: What constitutes a class? — and the reply to this follows naturally from the reply to another question, namely: What makes wage-labourers, capitalists and landlords constitute the three great social classes?

At first glance — the identity of revenues and sources of revenue. There are three great social groups whose members, the individuals forming them, live on wages, profit and ground-rent respectively, on the realisation of their labour-power, their capital, and their landed property.

However, from this standpoint, physicians and officials, e.g., would also constitute two classes, for they belong to two distinct social groups, the members of each of these groups receiving their revenue from one and the same source. The same would also be true of the infinite fragmentation of interest and rank into which the division of social labour splits labourers as well as capitalists and landlords-the latter, e.g., into owners of vineyards, farm owners, owners of forests, mine owners and owners of fisheries.

[Here the manuscript breaks off.]

Notes

58 F. List remarks correctly: "The prevalence of a self-sufficient economy on large estates demonstrates solely the lack of civilisation, means of communication, domestic trades and wealthy cities. It is to be encountered, therefore, throughout Russia, Poland, Hungary and Mecklenburg. Formerly, it was also prevalent in England; with the advance of trades and commerce, however, this was replaced by the breaking up into middle estates and the leasing of land." (Die Ackerverfassung, die Zwergwirtschaft und die Auswanderung, 1842, p.10.)


Table of Contents for Capital, Vol. III

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Written: Karl Marx, 1863-1883, edited by Friedrick Engels and completed by him 11 years after Marx's death; Source: Institute of Marxism-Leninism, USSR, 1959; Publisher: International Publishers, NY, [n.d.] First Published: 1894; On-Line Version: Marx.org 1996, Marxists.org 1999; Transcribed: in 1996 by Hinrich Kuhls, Dave Walters and Zodiac, and by Tim Delaney and M. Griffin in 1999; HTML Markup: Zodiac 1996, Tim Delaney and M. Griffin in 1999; Proofed and Corrected: by Chris Clayton 2006-7, Mark Harris 2010; eBook prepared: by J Eduardo Brissos 2011.
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