This is the opening lecture in Yale instructor Paul North's chapter by chapter study of Karl Marx's Capital: Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1. North frames the book's basic questions: what defines the capitalist economic system, what historical and intellectual conditions allowed Marx to write it, and what exactly Marx means by a commodity. As an introductory session, the lecture sets up the analytical method the course will use for the rest of the semester, treating Capital as a rigorous, chapter-level text rather than a general political manifesto. North situates the work within economic and philosophical history, preparing viewers for the close textual analysis of value, exchange, and labor that follows in subsequent lectures.