The Labour-Reserve Army in Karl Marx's Das Kapital, Vol. 1

In a world still reeling from the economic crisis of 2008, many questions regarding our market system arose. Notorious philosopher Karl Marx had asked many of these questions before. Marx has a longstanding position against capitalism, for many reasons. However, I aimed to look at one of the most prominent economic issues of all crises, unemployment. With this in mind, I read Karl Marx’s masterpiece: Das Kapital, Vol. 1 to see how he explains the problem that the unemployed (what he calls the labour-reserve army) are faced with in economic systems. The project included mass amounts of research into Das Kapital, with a full reading of the text and discussions as to what the author was attempting to get across. At times, I made sure to go back to older readings and to look for aid in understanding the full scope of what Marx’s criticisms are.