Das Kapital and preparatory work (especially regarding the theory of surplus value), the first volume appeared in 1867 as "The Production Process of Capital". After Marx's death in 1883, from manuscripts and the first volume Engels introduced Volume II: "The Circulation Process of Capital" in 1885; and Volume III: "The Overall Process of Capitalist Production" in 1894. These three volumes are collectively known as "Das Kapital". "Capital, Volume I" (1867) is a critical analysis of political economy, meant to reveal the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production, how it was the precursor of the socialist mode of production and of the
Underconsumption Mehring in his biography of Karl Marx, p. 404 of the 1935 Covici, Friede edition, tr. Edward Fitzgerald]. Marx argued that the primary source of capitalist crisis was not located in the realm of consumption, but rather, in production. In general, as Anwar Shaikh has argued, production creates the basis for consumption, because it puts purchasing power into the hands of workers and fellow capitalists. To produce anything requires the individual capitalist to buy machines (capital goods) and employ workers. In Volume III, Part III of Das Kapital, Marx presents a theory of crisis which is solidly grounded in the