Louis Althusser, Étienne Balibar 1968

Reading Capital

First published: by Librairie François Maspero, Paris, 1968;

Translated: by Ben Brewster;

This translation first published New Left Books 1970.

Foreword to the Italian Edition

Note to the English Edition



Part I: From Capital to Marx’s Philosophy

Part II: The Object of Capital

1. Introduction

2. Marx and his Discoveries

3. The Merits of Classical Economics

4. The Errors of Classical Economics: An Outline for a Concept of Historical Time

5. Marxism is not a Historicism

6. The Epistemological Propositions of Capital (Marx, Engels)

7. The Object of Political Economy

8. Marx’s Critique

9. Marx’s Immense Theoretical Revolution

Appendix: On the ‘Ideal Average’ and the Forms of Transition

Part III: The Basic Concepts of Historical Materialism

1. From Periodization to the Modes of Production

2. The Elements of the Structure and their History

3. On Reproduction

4. Elements for a Theory of Transition