Wage-labour is the basic 'cell-form' (trade unit) of a capitalist society.

The critique of the political economy of capitalism proposes: Das Kapital proposes an explanation of the 'laws of motion' of the capitalist economic system from its origins to its future by describing the dynamics of the accumulation of capital, the growth of wage labour, the transformation of the workplace, the concentration of capital, commercial competition, the banking system, the decline of the profit rate, land-rents, et cetera. In producing capital, the workers continually reproduce the economic conditions by which they labour. The historical section shows how these rights were acquired in the first place chiefly through plunder and conquest and the activity of the merchant and 'middle-man'.

The owner of the means of production is able to claim the right to this surplus value because they are legally protected by the ruling regime through property rights and the legally established distribution of shares which are by law distributed only to company owners and their board members. In Das Kapital (1867), Marx proposes that the motivating force of capitalism is in the exploitation of labor, whose unpaid work is the ultimate source of surplus value.

Das Kapital is the most cited book published before 1950 in the social sciences. While Marx did not live to publish the planned second, third and fourth parts, the second and third volumes were completed from his notes and published after his death by his colleague Friedrich Engels the fourth volume was completed and published after Engels's death by Marxist philosopher Karl Kautsky. Marx aimed to reveal the economic patterns underpinning the capitalist mode of production in contrast to classical political economists such as Adam Smith, Jean-Baptiste Say, David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill.

Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, pronounced 1867–1883), is a foundational theoretical text in materialist philosophy, critique of political economy and politics by Karl Marx. Kritik der politischen Oekonomieĭas Kapital, also known as Capital: A Critique of Political Economy or sometimes simply Capital (German: Das Kapital. Volume II and Volume III were published in 18, respectively.ĭas Kapital. First edition title page of Volume I (1867).

Das kapital