“To Write Capital Anew, One Must Read Capital Again”: An Interview with Paul North and Paul Reitter on the New English Translation of Das Kapital

Abstract

The interview examines the theoretical relevance of Karl Marx’s Capital in the 21st century, exploring its ability to explain the opacity of contemporary capitalism in the face of phenomena such as the global financial crisis, the extreme concentration of wealth, and the rise of far-right movements. Marx’s methodological approach is discussed as his most enduring contribution, as well as the current relevance of categories such as surplus value, fetishism, subsumption, and real abstraction. The interview also examines the distinctive features of this new English translation: the precision in the vocabulary and neologisms employed by Marx in his exposition of the objectivity of value, the fidelity to the direct style of the original German, and the incorporation of the philological apparatus of the critical edition MEGA2. It further reflects on the reception of the work in various contexts—both academic and those related to social struggles—the role of theoretical currents such as value-form theory, and the need for a new critique of political economy grounded in the historical-critical Marx provided by MEGA2. The text concludes with a reflection on the possibility of radical transformation and the role of re-reading Capital in forging new critical tools in the face of the current systemic crisis.