Le Capital de Marx pour Débutants

Writers & Readers Documentary Comic Book #11

by David Smith, Phil Evans, Fanchita González-Battle (Translator)

Awalnya Karl Marx menulis Grundrisse, tapi kurang begitu banyak yg membacanya karena terlalu berat dan susah dimengerti. Lalu dia menulis lagi Das Kapital. Ternyata kehidupan Karl Marx dan keluarga tidak begitu baik. Karena dia memberontak dengan tulisannya dia dibuang dan tidak diterima di beberapa negara sehingga ia berpindah-pindah ke berbagai negara. Keluarganya hidup kekurangan, hingga ibunya berkata "jangan hanya memikirkan uang, tapi carilah uang".

Marx memang tak bisa membahagiakan keluarganya dengan kemewahan, namun ia sumbangkan hidupnya untuk satu karya raksasa: Das Kapital, Marx seperti batu pualam, menantang banjir besar kapitalisme pada masanya, Ia melawan segala bentuk kezaliman modal, meski untuk itu Marx harus menyaksikan satu persatu kematian orang-orang dekatnya. Karenanya Das Kapital bukalah karya intelektual yang muncul dari ruang hampa atau perenuan, tapi ia hidup bersama kesengsaraan penulisnya, karya ini menjadi menonjol, tidak semata-mata karena pergulatan penulis, melainkan juga berkat pisau gagasannya yang tajam.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Economics, Philosophy, History, Comics, Graphic Novels

188 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1982

About the author

Librarian Note: There are more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

===========

David[2 spaces]Smith : Art
David[3 spaces]Smith : Economics Editor of The Sunday Times
David[4 spaces]Smith : Politics, Australian
David[5 spaces]Smith : David (Darkcat) Smith, Computer
David[6 spaces]Smith : GR Author, Literature & Fiction, Historical Fiction, Humor
David[7 spaces]Smith : GR Author, Mystery, Humor & Comedy, Romance
David[8 spaces]Smith : GR Author, Contemporary, Historical Fiction, Crime
David[9 spaces]Smith : Sports
David[10 spaces]Smith : GR Author, Poetry
David[11 spaces]Smith : History

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little dense at points, but I understand the concepts of Marx's critique of capitalism about 20 times better than I did before I read this. Tbh, I'm pretty sure that this book gave me a better understanding for my non-economist purposes than actually reading Capital would have (and let's be real, I'm never going to do that anyway). Definitely recommend reading on your lunch break for the truly delightful experience of having your employer pay you to learn about why capitalism is kiiiiiind of the worst!

[Jennifer J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good! I'm just mad that I haven't known about this long enough to put it on my next syllabus. The next next syllabus it shall be!

[Nicholas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to understand for a dummy like me + pretty funny cartoons

[Alexander Morozov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy to read and understand. The economic part is extremely good - explains variable and constant capital, surplus value, rate of surplus, rate of profit. Those concepts give you more ideas to explore and scenarios to imagine (like what if we replace half of the workers with AI). The ideological part is so-so, but it's not much, so not a problem.

[Jack Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I now understand Marx's Capital much better than I did before so it did its job!

Weird bashing of actually existing socialist states but it's easy to ignore

[Emmet Bergin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted a basic outline of Marx's Capital before moving onto the three volumes of Capital. When it came to explaining the basics of Capital (what the book is meant to do) it did just that.
However, the end of the book was cringey and disappointing. It paints socialism as it just being all sunshine and rainbows and portrays any previous socialist country that had any struggles or faults at all as "not real socialism". It had the typical western propaganda of how all of the previous successful communist revolutions were hijacked by evil dictators. With it's brief, sly remarks in the illustrations it paints Lenin and Castro as these opportunists who just wanted power whilst completely ignoring the existence of Imperialism and the need for communist countries to defend itself from the aggressive repression of modern imperialism. Also, the typical anti-Stalin rhetoric and painting Trotsky as the "good guy". It wasn't surprising to figure out that their next book was on Trotsky. Typical Trotskyists, supporting every revolution except the successful ones and using this typical "democratic socialism" because real ACTUAL socialism isn't democratic?

Anyway i'd recommend using it for people who want a basic outline of Marx's Capital but DEFINITELY IGNORE it's account of socialist leaders or the history of socialism or strategies for bringing about socialism. Go find out for yourself! Read Marx, Engels, Lenin and Michael Parenti. I'm serious, don't just take these guys opinions about socialism as your own. Dig a little deeper. Take the good and leave the bad as they say.

[Gabe · Rating 3 out of 5]

delightful intro to Marx. The illustrations are funny. however, Smith's opinions on the USSR, Cuba, and China kinda lame.

[bellatrix begins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Herkesin anlayabileceği, çizimlerle de desteklenerek daha kolay okunur hale getirilmiş bir giriş kitabı.

[Dom Nasilowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the ideal read for someone who has tried (and failed) multiple times to read Capital. I still don’t fully understand the theory of value but I’m a bit closer now. The text is accompanied by historical context, jokes (mostly about another Marx text, the Grundrisse), photographs, diagrams and cartoon drawings. The care that went into it’s making is obvious and appreciated. I’ll read it again and give it as a gift.

[Ice · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beguiling comic book for anyone who's ever been too intimidated to plow through all 400+ pages of Das Kapital.

[Carter Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so good lowkey. I've been wanting to read Marx for a while but during the semester taking classes it was like impossible to squeeze in any non-school related academic reading.

PICTURES!! Don’t get me started on pictures… So helpful for understanding such a dense / complicated text. More books gotta hop on the picture train.

I lowkey think more high-level theoretical concepts should be "dumbed down" (see: made accessible) more regularly. How will these theoretical works ever reach real people if they are only accessible to academics? At least as a starting point accessibility is SOOSOSOSOSOSO important if you ever want theoretical work to make an impact, I suspect.

Anyways loved this! Might read capital fr now (probably not for a while). Certainly will be reading more Marxist theory. Such a powerful tool for understanding the world we live in and dare I say economics…

[Alex Meeks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well this was a delightful little summary of Capital. I wish I'd had it when I first tried to slog through the source material years ago, because it would have been a great companion piece to Beard Daddy's incredibly dry but important work.

[Daniel Moss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't mistake the high rating as an endorsement for the ideas contained. Rather, the rating has to do with the book and how it presents the ideas.

[Jacob Zolotenko · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightful introduction to Marx's economic theories and his detailed analysis of capitalism, condensed significantly from the hundreds of pages Marx and melded with an incredibly British wit and hilarious illustrations to make the medicine go down easier. Basically, imagine if Marx was in Monty Python and that's this book.

[janiris · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was challenging to follow, but i still feel like i learned a lot. definitely something i would need to revisit as i learn more through other sources

[Mtume Gant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great text and resource for core Marxist concepts.

Its conclusion and epilogue are troubled in its reductive Trotskyist/Western Marxist summation. Even how it reads at the end doesn’t have the depth as the stuff taken directly from Marx in the book.

But it’s a great resource, disregard the last little bit 🤣

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very quick and easy read, which is pretty much the exact opposite of anything written by Marx (except maybe the Communist Manifesto), this is basically a comic-book Cliff's Notes of Das Kapital. I recommend it for anyone curious about Marx's defining work but intimidated by his dense prose. As we enter another election season, in which the definition of socialism is already playing a surprisingly large role, this is a must-read for anyone curious about what the founder of the idea truly thought about it.

What "Marx's Capital Illustrated" makes clear is first, how good a grasp Marx had on the inherent weaknesses of capitalism, especially in light of the 2007-08 financial crisis (which the updated edition of this book treats), and second, how few people – supporters and detractors – have truly understood what Marx was advocating. His self-described supporters tried to impose Marxism via dictatorship, which Marx himself would have opposed, and his detractors have been happy to link Marxism to those violent corruptions. What this illustrated version helps make clear is that Marx saw his ideas as requiring democratic support – that while capitalism rules through exploitation of workers and their fear of unemployment and ruin, his notion of communism would be applied through democracy and cooperation (as it briefly was during the Paris Commune). That his ideas have either been strangled in their cradle by the military and intelligence arms of capitalist powers (see Chile or Congo) or usurped by power-hungry madmen (Russia, Cuba) is evidence itself of how important – and misunderstood – they remain more than 150 years later.

[Andrew Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Smith and illustrator Phil Evans did a fantastic job of breaking down the primary components of Das Kapital, and breathing life into it with the illustrations and narrative breaks. When I originally came across the book I was at AWP and fell into (or was I sucked into it, or just drawn by some unnatural power) the Haymarket Books booth where I thought I'd pick it up for my 10-year-old daughter who loves graphic novels. I'm going to give her the book to read as originally planned, but I gave it a quick read myself first and was blown away.

I wouldn't call this a graphic novel by any means and appreciate that Haymarket didn't either. What it is, however, is an excellent primer for anyone looking to understand the main mechanisms of Marx's philosophy without wading through the tome that is Das Kapital.

The edition I read was updated in the early oughts and as such references the housing crisis and the beginning of what appear(ed) to be the end of American capitalism. That remains to be seen.

[Oleg · Rating 4 out of 5]

В целом бодрое изложение марксистской теории: доступно и понятно. Но вот в конце автора понесло: оказывается, "поздние маркисты"(читай, Ленин, Сталин, Кастро) все поняли не так. Угу, как же. А еврокоммунисты, конечно, так все поняли, что без СССР оказались нулевой силой, сдающей в настоящее время все достижения рабочего класса.

И вообще забавно, как в современной "свободной" Англии с самоцензурой: Парижскую коммуну автору хвалить можно, ибо во Франции, и давно было, и Маркс одобрял. А вот СССР или Кубу, или Китай - ни-ни, ибо пойдешь против западного мейнстрима. Только читатель, видя все это, задумывается, почему Коммуна, не продержавшаяся и 3 месяцев - это лучший пример, чем мощнейшее государство, продержавшееся более 70 лет. Только читатель спрашивает себя, всё ли на 100% непогрешимо в теории Маркса, или его теорию можно и нужно было дорабатывать тем, кто применял ее на практике.

Так что в целом 3,5.

[Twilight O. ☭ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite its brevity, it's the only introduction to Capital I know of that's worth your time. Perhaps Freddy Pearlman's Reproduction of Daily Life could count as well, but that's a stretch. The only introduction I'm aware of that gives proper primacy to abstract labor and endorses without hesitation Marx's understanding of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. In other words, it's the only introduction to Marx's Capital that in no way attempts to revise Capital on Marx's behalf, and for that it is immensely valuable. CLR James wrote that it was the most valuable interpretation or popularization of Capital that he'd ever read and I'm inclined to trust that CLR James knew what he was talking about!

[Daniel Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great summary of Capital - the author explains the reasoning, the equations, the concepts in a very simple and easy-to-understand manner. The author makes Marx's logic accessible, and even incorporates real-world examples.

I think that every worker not only *should* read this, but more importantly *could*. Some parts (especially the surplus value equations) get a bit dense and I had to pause and re-read that a few times. But overall the language is clear and straightforward. The concept of exploitation and how that really works is explained and illustrated very clearly, and there is even a helpful glossary in the back.

[Jennifer Abdo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even if you don't necessarily want to reorganize society and produce for need rather than profit, this is an excellent little book. The drawings are fun and some of these things I've always found a bit mystifying are simplified.

We could all benefit from remembering that trade wars create shooting wars and that capitalism tends toward and thrives on exploitation of the worker (so even if you still want capitalism, you should beware of laissez-faire and fight for regulation).

If you wanted to reorganize society though, maybe you could start here. :)

[Indah Threez Lestari · Rating 3 out of 5]

623 - 2016

Dibaca dalam perjalanan kereta api Gambir-Cirebon.

Di luar isinya yang menarik, aku cuma menyayangkan kualitas cetakan buku ini. Kualitas kavernya bagus, sayang kualitas cetakan di bagian dalamnya seperti fotokopian, jadi seperti buku bajakan deh, padahal kertasnya pakai kertas HVS.

[Jd Lancaster · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible introduction to Marx and honestly I feel like it would be a great study companion for capital itself. I really enjoyed reading it and found all the concepts to be easy to understand and grasp, while still retaining the concepts themselves.

[Wes Bishop · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great resource for anyone learning or teaching the concepts in Marx's Capital Vol. One. Engaging, and sometimes funny, the concepts become very clear to the reader. A great teaching resource.

[Jasmine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good example of popular communication of complex ideas. It's surprisingly comprehensive, but approachable, and relates the key points of Capital to more modern examples than the 1867 work. There are also little Easter Eggs for those who know the history and the works, and some of Marx's more famous lines are woven into it verbatim. I found the humour not particularly engaging or interesting or funny, but the images help break up the text and emphasize key points, which makes for a breezy reading experience.

In Capital, the emotional weight of the implications of the capitalist system on workers is made through detailed statistics and first-person accounts from workers (I think, for example, of the factory worker children that never learn to read and know nothing of the world around them), and through Marx's use of paradoxes, irony and literary references. The illustrations play this role in a way, with updated literary references (Gollum's worshipping of the Ring of Power as an illustration of fetishism, for example). I think the emotional heft of the illustrations is a bit more attenuated versus what we see in Capital, however. Perhaps that's the weakness of attempting to explain capitalism with humour.

In addition to the economic theory, this book emphasizes the role that organization and rights play in improving things for workers, and emphasize not only the need for better working conditions and wages, but also the need for democratic decision-making, etc, in the workplace, which is only achievable under socialism. The book gets a bit sectarian towards the end, criticizing all forms of actually existing socialism for not being true socialism, seeming to take a LeftComm or maybe a very "left" Trotskyist stance on the path forward. It is interesting to note that just ten years later (I read the 2014 update), its concerns about China failing to reinvest in its people and productive forces have already been proven wrong.

Still, I think this is worth recommending situationally to someone who wants an easy introduction to Marx's work. I think I would have really enjoyed it when I was in my early teens.

[Evan Milner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall I'm not an admirer of the For Beginners graphic nonfiction series. There are a handful of notable exceptions such as Freud for Beginners and Joyce for Beginners, both of which serve as outstanding introductions to their subjects. Marx's Kapital for Beginners is another such exception. The title notwithstanding, I don't think someone new to Marx's ideas will get very much out of it. Although it accurately describes most of the core concepts found in Capital (in volume 1, anyway) they are treated too briefly to really engender much understanding.

However, the real value of Kapital for Beginners is not as an introduction to the various concepts in Capital, but rather as a map of territory: how the various ideas such as labor-value, labor-power, useful-labor, abstract-labor, etc. relate to each other. To that end, it gives a very clear view of the 'big picture' that is often so difficult to grasp when reading Marx himself. Even the order of presentation improves on Capital from a didactic standpoint (of course, there are reasons that Marx takes the path he does... but it doesn't make for a lucid read). Overall this is probably best suited to readers who have already grasped the rough outlines of Marx's political economy (either from reading Capital or secondary works) and need a hand putting all the pieces together.

Recommended.

[Alexander Billet · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an amusing, albeit odd, way of introducing one of modern history's most inscrutable books. Amusing, odd, and surprisingly effective. Consolidating 900 some-odd pages into an illustrated comic book is a tall order for sure, but it manages to break things down to the essentials:

What a commodity is, and where it comes from.
Value and exchange value.
Money as the universal commodity.
The organic composition of capital.
Labor, socially necessary labor time, surplus labor.

These are difficult concepts, and just when you think you understand them, you then have to comprehend how they interact. Marx's Capital Illustrated manages to introduce all of these relatively well, at least insofar as they are useful in understanding why a worker's day is the way it is and in helping explain how the basics of Marxism are a tool in organizing. Particularly useful is the "Moneybags" character, which is used to trace what a capitalist must do and how they approach the world.

It does not offer the in-depth explanation of these concepts, or their interactions, in the same way that the full 900 pages can. A substitute for Capital this is not. It wouldn't even necessarily be considered a guide, as its title suggests. It is, however, a worthy introduction to how Marxism looks at capitalism.

[Gary Fields · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve always been the kind of person that understands things better when I can see the big picture. So when it comes to tackling a giant work like Marx’s Capital, I can have a hard time picking up what is being taught if I don’t know where it’s going. So this delightful book is able to take the six to ten inch thick works of Capital and condense it down into a short 200 page work filled with humerus works of art. The author managed to do what a person like me needs; break Marx’s arguments down into their most basic elements and lay them out in a clear way. With this book read, I feel like I could tackle the original Capital and follow along (I’ve attempted it once before but only got a few chapters in).

This book would be great for even critics of Marxism to read, and I already know I’m going to be lending it to family members. It’s going to be a great introduction point for people who being a leftist is just being selfish and wanting to take money from rich people, and instead show that there is a complex and well thought understanding behind leftist economic theory.

[Tabitha · Rating 5 out of 5]

marx's capital is a supremely influential analysis of capitalism, labor and economics. it's also infamous for being dense and unapproachable. marx's capital illustrated, by contrast, breaks down the concepts discussed in das kapital in a manner that is incredibly easy to digest. david smith takes some of the driest pieces of dialectical materialism and, somehow, finds a way to make them entertaining and funny as well as informative. phil evans's artwork is varied and unique, adding visual flair and additional humor to what is usually treated as a complicated and boring topic. the collages, cartoons, caricatures, and portraits are beautiful to look at, and each serves the important purpose of helping to make the topics being discussed more approachable. this book is perfect for anyone who is interested in dialectical materialism and anti-capitalism, but has been intimidated by the denseness of 19th-century theory. it also serves as a good refresher for those who are already familiar with such topics. whether you learned marxist theory in the academy or while dumpster-diving, this book has a place on your shelf.