Showing results for "A Tale of Two Capitalisms" in Money & Finance

It can be said of very few books that the world was changed as a result of its publication - but this is certainly the case of Capital: A Critique of Political Economy by Karl Marx (1818-1883). Volume 1 appeared (in German) in 1867, and the two subsequent volumes appeared at later dates after the author's death - completed from extensive notes left by Marx himself.

Wouldn't life be better if you were free of the daily grind - the conventional job and boss - and instead succeeded or failed purely on the merits of your own investment choices? Free Capital is a window into this world. Based on a series of interviews, it outlines the investing strategies, wisdom and lifestyles of 12 highly successful private investors. Each of them has accumulated £1m or more - in most cases considerably more - mainly from stock market investment.

Following Marx’s death in 1883, Engels was able to step into the breach and, drawing on Marx’s extensive notes and writings, complete volume 2 of Capital, leading to its publication in 1885. Here, Marx turns his attention to the money owner, the money lender, the wholesale merchant, the trader and the entrepreneur or 'functioning capitalist.'

Published in 1894, 11 years after the death of Marx himself, Capital Volume 3 was the product of the untiring and meticulous work of Friedrich Engels working from Marx’s outline and notes and carried the subtitle The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole. In seven parts, Marx and Engels were determined to demonstrate that private property, competition and the market economy driven by the profit motive must lead to the demise of capitalism.