Using surplus value, one of the key
concepts of /Capital/, as the central organizing principle of Marx’s
analysis of capitalism, we can think of the three volumes of /Capital
/as dealing with, respectively,^16

* the generation and accumulation of surplus value (Volume I);

* the realization of surplus value (Volume II);

* the distribution of surplus value (Volume III).

[...]

In this chapter, we begin the study of Marx’s political economy of
capitalism by working through the details of the argument in Volume 1 of
/Capital /(Marx, 1992). We know from the discussion in the previous
chapter that Volume 1 of Capital (Marx, 1992) is devoted to a study of
the process of production of capital. Using the key concept of surplus
value, we can restate the object of investigation in Volume 1 as the
/generation /and /accumulation /of surplus value. To understand capital,
one needs to understand surplus value – because capital generates and is
generated by surplus value. But, to understand surplus value, one needs
to first understand value; and to understand value, one needs to
understand the commodity. That is the reason why the analysis in Volume 1
of /Capital /begins with the commodity, which Marx identifes as the
‘elementary form’ of wealth in capitalist societies. [DB-LC, 48]

[Deepankar #Basu - The Logic of #Capital: An Introduction to #Marxist #Economic Theory](https://www.google.gr/books/edition/The_Logic_of_Capital/E_A-EAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover)

(https://people.umass.edu/dbasu/Papers/IITG-21Feb-2022.pdf)

-----------------------------------------
Lewis #Hine
Steelworker standing on beam
1931
© George Eastman House