Book excerpt: Beginning with "value" and "commodity" at the start of Volume I in Marx's major work, and progressing step-by-step to the end of Volume III, Smith establishes in detail that Capital is a systematic theory of socio-economic categories ordered according to dialectical logic. At each stage in his analysis of the theory Smith makes Marx's arguments more accessible. He also considers in depth the objections to Marx's employment of dialectical logic that have been formulated by Hegelians (especially those presented in Klaus Hartmann's Die Marxsche Theorie). Smith presents a persuasive case against this whole range of Marx criticisms, many of which have also been proposed from non-Hegelian standpoints.