A lecture on the first published translation of Karl Marx’s “Das Kapital” in half a century was held on Thursday in the Fine Arts building.

Paul North ‘95, who coedited the latest translation and is a professor of Germanic languages and literature at Yale University, led the discussion. Translated by Paul Reitter, a professor of German languages and literatures at The Ohio State University, this marks the first time the Second German Edition of “Kapital,” — the last edition Marx published before he died — has been published in English.

“The most important difference in this translation — there’s really two — one is that the vocabulary around value is much clearer and easier to understand because a lot of important scholarship has been done on that since the last translation, and then it captures Marx’s really amazing writing styles,” North said in an interview.

“Das Kapital,” the German philosopher and political theorist’s seminal work, describes Marx’s views on the capitalist system and how he thinks it will destroy itself. He argued that an economic structure built on private profit would not be sustainable, using scientific analysis to further cement the ideas presented in his “Communist Manifesto.”

North began the lecture by placing “Kapital” in a broader historical context. He credited previous authors who analyzed capitalism like Adam Smith and David Ricardo, critiques by figures like Friedrich Engels and literature by thinkers like the Hegelians — followers of the 19th-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

Marx was not writing about the system of capital as a newly emerging phenomenon, North added.

Arguing Marx “basically ignores political economy” in the manifesto, North described the differences between Marx’s writing in the Communist Manifesto and “Kapital.” Class can be understood as both historical and political, but Marx was able to derive class from economic relations when he wrote “Kapital,” he said.

“It attends in a consistent and rigorous way to the stylistic, imagistic, and metaphorical valences of Marx’s writing, not only the conceptual and technical ones,” wrote Alex Sorenson, a lecturer in the German and Russian Studies and Comparative Literature Departments.

Marx likely had thoughts and notes he never wrote in “Kapital,” and as the work is constantly retranslated and edited, it remains unfinished, North said during the lecture. He added that the work is also incomplete in its positioning in time, as Marx could have never predicted the evolutions in the system he critiqued — of capital and the prevalence of consumerism — that are present today.

North also said he believes “Das Kapital” views value as a concept. Rather than criticizing the capitalist system, the book discusses the intricacies of capital and the “effects it has on people in the sphere of production.”

“Kapital” has previously undergone few major English translations, with the first by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling and the second — of Volume I — by social historian Ben Fowkes. Then David Fernbach translated Volume II, which was published in 1976, and Volume III in 1981.

North discussed the differences between the Reitter translation and its predecessors, noting the changes translators have made to Marx’s language, tone and style.

“The first translation was made in the sun of revolution,” North said. “They really thought revolution was going to happen. It was rushed out, and it’s in a kind of artificially chatty form to make it more communicative, because they were worried about Marxism.”

“The second one was made in the rain cloud of the New Left in response to the tendency of the New Left to push for worker reforms and imposes a fairly rationalist and dialecticist version of ‘Kapital,’” he added.

Sharing his appreciation of previous translations, North said translating a work is a privilege. Initial translations face the “burden of introducing an author, usually to a language community,” he added. Having studied English literature as an undergraduate at Binghamton University, North described returning to campus as a “homecoming.”

The talk was sponsored by the Harpur College dean’s office, the Department of German and Russian Studies, the English Department, the Comparative Literature Department, and the Material and Visual World Transdisciplinary Areas of Excellence.

“This is the first new English translation and edition in half a century of what is arguably one of the single most influential books ever written,” wrote Carl Gelderloos, an associate professor of German. “But learning that Prof. North actually went to college here at Binghamton really sealed the deal.”