In this lecture from Yale instructor Paul North's chapter by chapter study of Marx's Capital, Volume 1, the course examines Chapter 24's account of what Marx terms original accumulation, the historical processes through which the capitalist system first took hold. North traces the specific historical events and mechanisms Marx cites, then raises the interpretive question of whether Capital, Volume 1 should be read as a revolutionary text or as a work of economic analysis. The session functions as a capstone discussion for the course's reading of Volume 1, drawing together the historical and theoretical threads developed across the preceding eighteen classes.