The following lecture notes were written shortly after I gave a course on capital theory in the winter-semester 1970/71 at the Univer sity of Heidelberg. While the general line of the argument is similar to the one
in the course, I have modified and added a large number' of specific points in the process of writing the English version. I should like to emphasize the narrow limitations of the material covered in these notes. I have
completely concentrated on steady states of stationary and exponentially growing economies, even up to the point where there is the danger of misleading the reader1 I have done this for several reasons. Other activities have
not left me with a sufficient amount of time to be able to find the unifying principle of analysis and mode of presentation for the dynamic aspects of capi tal theory which would have made it worthwhile to add a sizeable book
to the large body of literature in this field. On the other hand over the last couple of years I have become increasingly aware that some of the results in steady state capital theory (which could be derived without too much
mathematical effort) are of relevance in present day dis cussions about the political role of economic theory and the relative merits of orthodox and radical economics. Also these results seemed not to be known by' mO$ of the
participants in these discussions.
