This volume looks at how capital moves through the capitalist system. Rather than identifying how surplus value is created, identifying how surplus value is transferred. From the various circuits that capital and money go through and their interactions, to different costs of maintenance of capital and its mobility, Marx goes to extreme detail to describe circulation of capital.

The most important idea from this volume is the distinction between productive and unproductive capital, which are now more formally known as production and nonproduction activities. Production involves in bringing goods to market, from the various materials and services needed for the product. Nonproduction involves costs to capital and can indirectly increase the amount of productive capital there is.

Examples and details do make the book difficult to understand. The core ideas are easily lost within the all the explanations. The introduction by Ernest Mandel does a wonderful job at expressing concise the details in the book without losing much meaning.
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Capital allows the increase of productivity. To free up more time, or rather, to complete more tasks with the same resources. Marx points out the side effects of this process.
The major contribution Marx makes is the theory of surplus value. Production above what is necessary, above what the individual would produce on their own terms, is the surplus value. Increasing productivity allows for more surplus value. Capitalist will try to increase that surplus value as much as possible.
The major issue that Marx recognizes is that the ownership of capital prevents people from the means of production. The surplus value is taken by the capitalist, the owner of capital. The owners of capital have the ability to alter the relation between the labor and output. Changing the amount of the working day and the intensity of the work alters the amount of production. Health conditions of the workers degrade for as the capitalists takes more, there is less income for housing or nutrition.
This mode of production creates various the problem of self-refilling pool of unemployment. As productivity increases, less labor needs to go into the production cost, which means less employment. The unemployed become dead-weight of society, unable to produce while taking away resources. As there is a pool of unemployed, the reserve army of labor, the capitalist can force labor to compete with labor. Bargaining power is stronger with the capitalist than the laborer.
For each part of the capitalist mode of production, Marx takes it a part through every little detail. Showing how each part works and the effects they have. The variety of parts taken into account shows great depth of the topic. For most part, the writing is somewhat clear.
The book is lengthy, and at times, the length of the examples makes the reader questions the authenticity of the examples. They tend to support a singular direction. The constant restating the same line in different ways, rather than elucidating the situation, makes the understanding of the topic opaque. The criticism of the analysis is scarce and short but also are not given much thought beyond the shallow reasoning. Editing the work, to remove all the excess, would have provided a much shorter and more valuable read.
An assumption made is that since labor is what gives value to capital, that only labor should be compensated. The compensation is the amount of effort (usually in time) that the labor spends on production. No capitalist should get paid as surplus value is viewed as expropriation of production and is not needed for society. This assumption has a huge problem, for rather than the amount of effort that the labor provides, capitalist production allows the labor to produce more wealth. Meaning it is what the labor puts into production rather the amount of effort spent that matters. Capital helps labor produce more with less effort.
When Marx criticism the capitalist, he calls them absentee owners. In a small instance, Marx facetiously claims some services the capitalist performs, degrading the actual services provided. Services such as the use of capital and overseeing the labor. The issue is that when the same or ever worse services are provided by government officials, Marx claims that is necessary.
The benefits of productivity are rarely provided. Marx always uses productivity as freeing up time, and that time is always stolen by the capitalist. Reality shows a major counterexample, freeing up time allows for more diversified labor. If all were needed to produce the basic needs such as food, there would be no time to provide anything else. Research and the arts takes time and resources that can only be provided with the surplus value.
Marx chose a particular group to target rather than looking at the whole problem. The logic is internally very constant and conclusive, but externally needs more validation. That diminishes the impact of the research. Many implications have been proven to be very accurate, but the overall picture presented is only part of the whole story. ( )

This book is indeed a very difficult read. I am not an economist, but I am reasonably well educated. I read this book, almost 10 pages at a time, and found it a difficult read. Karl Marx did not write for the general masses. This is clear!

Having said, his level of erudition, the clarity of his thought and analytical process shine through on every page. Are the ideas outdated? I would dare say no. A careful analysis of his writings will reveal that many things that her said, definitely are applicable today. To me, this is the genius of his writing.

This volume has been called the 'forgotten' volume of this books. A pity, because there are gems of wisdom to be found here. ( )

The second volume of Karl Marx's planned six-volume critique of industrial capitalism, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 2 concerns itself with the specifics of the business cycle. In Volume 1, Marx concentrated his critique on the basic cell of capitalism, the commodity, building brick by brick towards a devastating attack on the injustices of the 19th century factory system. Volume 2 focuses on an important, albeit nebulous, factor in the capitalist economy: time. In understanding the invisible forces at work, it helps to imagine different kinds of commodities, their manufacture, and their arrival in the hands of consumers.

Not all commodities take the same time to produce. Producing a bushel of wheat is different than producing a locomotive. The former takes a growing season, while the latter can take several years. Added to this is the adage, “It takes money to make money.” One can't just start producing commodities once one in inspired. In order to create commodities, one requires capital investment. With capital investment comes risk. Even something as straightforward as agricultural production involves numerous other x-factors (weather, labor costs, ancillary machinery for planting and harvesting, and market demand). Marx narrows his area of analysis to the business cycle, leaving our market forces for Volume 3. In the business cycle there are two opposing metamorphoses: the means of production and the means of consumption. Capitalists spend money investing in machinery, a labor pool, and distribution. Consumers spend money buying commodities produced by the capitalists.

While Marx goes into greater detail with the various facets of the business cycle, this is a challenging text to read. Part of the blame belongs to Friedrich Engels, who edited the volume following Marx's death, cobbled together from various notebooks. Unlike Volume 1's bombast and numerous footnotes, Volume 2 has few footnotes and is devoid of passages showcasing Marx's trademark polemic style. Instead, the reader is treated to several hundred pages of prose notable for its arid, abstract, and dense tone. Once one finishes with the epic grandeur of Volume 1, this volume represents a massive let-down. Unless one is a diehard unreconstructed Marxist, a student of political economy, or a completist, there is little reason to read Capital, Volume 2. That being said, Volume 2 acts as a theoretical bridge between the foundation of Volume 1 and the revolutionary rhetoric of Volume 3. Besides savoring the meat of Marxist rhetoric, one must also eat their vegetables.

After slogging through pages of tedious theory and formulas, Marx finally picks up speed again when he begins discussing the notion of “hoard formation.” (This should at least interest those bewailing the lower tax rates of the 1% and the idealistic, albeit inept, strategists of the Occupy movement.) As Marx asserts:

Reduction in wages and long working hours, this is the kernel of the 'rational and healthful process' that is to raise the workers to the dignity of rational consumers, so that they 'make a market' for the 'things showered on them' by civilization and the progress of invention.

Capitalism is at odds with itself, simultaneously seeking to move its inventory to the consumers and get back capital invested in labor-power and means of production, at the same time the capitalists seek to accumulate capital, either in re-invest in their company or to spend on themselves. But how are workers with reduced wages and increased working hours going to spend any money? How can commodities be sold if no one has the personal capital to buy? A Walmart-esque economic paradox. If one has little money to spend, then one will buy cheap. And when one spends every waking hour in a coal mine or some other Victorian-era purgatory, then one has neither the time nor the energy to actually become a rational consumer. Then bad things happen: Inert inventory in warehouses eventually lead to downsizing and wage reduction, along with the constant threat of job loss to those few who still have jobs.

Despite Marx's prescient critique of industrial capitalism, there should be the usual caveats, including the mentality of Marx when he wrote this. Marx envisioned a utopian society without private property and where workers controlled the means of production, producing only what was needed and avoiding the inherent instabilities of capitalist economy. Unfortunately, Marx's solution never really worked, but we also need to consider, living in the shadow of the 2009 global economic meltdown, that capitalism still has numerous in-built instabilities and is far from an ideal political economy. Marx's critiques still stand the test of time, his solutions, less so. But do solutions to the age-old conundrum of how we live our lives need to be conceived in a totalizing positivist fashion?

http://driftlessareareview.com/2013/01/16/capital-a-critique-of-political-econom... ( )

Volume 2 of Kapital differs quite a bit from volume 1. Whereas Marx's social agenda and political philosophy are evident in volume 1, there is not a trace of it in volume 2. This volume contains instead a heavy package of economic theory by which Marx strives to explain the production and reproduction of capital in society. I have to say that I found this volume tedious compared to the first one. I don't think there's much material of philosophical interest here. On top of that, Marx's theoretical diction is very unappealing - he constantly plays with arbitrary numbers instead of using symbols to represent variables. I think this volume is important mainly to people with a serious interest in Marx's economic thought.