Start with chapter 1! The first 3 chapters are difficult, but set up the entire book. I also recommend David Harvey’s lectures to go along with it. I also prefer the Fowkes translation.
Michael Heinrich has written a companion book for the first seven chapters (he also recommends starting with chapter 1): “How to Read Marx’s Capital”. I found it be very helpful. There’s also a podcast called “Reading Capital with Comrades” by Derek Ford and Liberation School that’s excellent.
There are two recommendations I make to people reading it for the first time. 1.) Always try to keep in mind that Marx is describing capitalism; discussions about how all this might apply to communism are left out. I think some readers try and read into how Marx’s analysis fits in with communism, and while that’s a useful discussion later on I think it just makes things a bit more confusing early on. Just focus on how he’s trying to show how capitalism works.
2.) In Marx’s time, the working class were largely paid for a day’s work. This is pretty uncommon now; typically we are either paid hourly or a monthly or annual salary. But back then it didn’t really matter if you worked 10 hours or 16 in a day, you would still get paid the same £X per day. This doesn’t actually change the analysis but it can get confusing especially in the sections where the length of the working day are being analyzed.
The sections on working conditions were sobering, I had many feelings. They read to me almost like a warning. In Ch.10 Marx quoted Horace when speaking to the then American readers “It is of you that the story is told”. At the time it was a direct truth, now it is a harbinger. There ought to be a black book of capitalism. Imperialism only imports the suffering of yesteryear for NA-Europe where the trauma is well contained in the commodities to fit the bill for the old reaper of scarcity.
I hope someone will translate David Rozenberg’s Comments on all three volumes. He compiled them based on his shared studies in underground communist circles (kruzhok). They were highly valued by Soviets.
https://libgen.li/edition.php?id=136010770
- missing sections of volume 3 from the editor of the 2nd edition of the Comments:
Finish first 3 chapters and take notes while you’re at it, it’s extremely important so you actually memorize the concepts and engage with the text rather than reading words semi-passively. The goal is to study and understand, not just finish reading the book.
Start with Silvia federicci