Karl Marx_ A Biography ( PDFDrive )
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calculated from their correspondence that from 1865 to 1869 Engels gave
Marx no less than £I,862.230
The period of the composition of Capital, Volume One, also saw Marx take on the role of father-in-law and eventually grandfather. The chief event of the late 1860s was Laura's courtship and marriage. As early as
1865, at Jenny's twenty-first birthday party, she had received a passionate proposal of marriage from Charles Manning, a rich South American with an English father. However, according to Marx, Laura didn't 'care a pin for him' and was well experienced in 'dampening down Southern passions'.231 The same year she met Paul Lafargue, then aged twenty-three, the only son of a well-to-do planter in Cuba whose parents had returned to France to enter the wine trade in Bordeaux. Paul was a (not very enthusiastic) medical student. As a follower of Proudhon, he was active
111 student politics and had been sent as a French delegate to the General Council of the International in London where he remained owing to his exclusion from the French university on political grounds. By August
1866 he was 'half-engaged' to Laura.232 Marx was not entirely happy. I -aura seemed to have little real affection for Lafargue whom he described to Fngels as 'handsome, intelligent, energetic and gymnastically developed lad'.233 Nevertheless, he went very carefully into his prospective son-in- law's position: he wrote to Lafargue's old professor in Paris for a reference and sent Lafargue himself a rather heavy letter of which the first paragraph read:
If you wish to continue your relations with my daughter, you will have to discard your manner of 'paying court' to her. You are well aware that no engagement has been entered into, that as yet everything is provisional. And even if she were formally your betrothed, you should not forget that this concerns a long-term affair. An all too intimate deportment is the more unbecoming in so far as the two lovers will be living in the same place for a necessarily prolonged period of purgatory and of severe test. I have observed with dismay your change of conduct from day to day over the geologic epoch of a single week. To my mind, true love expresses itself in the lover's restraint, modest bearing, even diffidence regarding the adored one, and certainly not in unconstrained passion and manifestations of premature familiarity. Should you plead in defence your Creole temperament, it becomes my duty to interpose my sound sense between your temperament and my daughter. If in her presence you are unable to love her in a manner that conforms with the latitude of London, you will have to resign yourself to loving her from a distance. I am sure you take my meaning.234
Marx went on to explain that he himself had 'sacrificed all my fortune i<> the revolutionary struggle'; this he did not regret, but had he the
326 K A R L M A R X : A B I O G R A P H Y
choice again he would not have married. 'As far as it is in my power, I
intend to save my daughter from |
the rocks on which her mother's life |
has been wrecked.'235 He finished |
by insisting on economic guarantees |
for Lafargue's future as 'observation has convinced me that you are not by nature very diligent, for all your bouts of feverish activity and good will'.236 Jenny, too, was rather dubious of French medical students but Lafargue must have been able to allay their fears for the engagement was announced in September 1866 on Laura's twenty-first birthday. Jenny Marx became enthusiastic: his parents had promised Paul around £4,000 on marriage and she admired his 'fine character, his kindheartedness, generosity and his devotion to Laura'.2 37 Particularly fortunate was the fact that Paul and Laura shared the same views on religion. Bitterly remembering her own courtship, she wrote: 'thus Laura will be spared the inevitable conflicts and sufferings to which any girl with her opinions is exposed in society. For how rare it is nowadays to find a man who shares such views and at the same time has culture and a social position.'238 T h e friendship between the families was cemented by the visit of all the Marx daughters to Bordeaux for three weeks.
Jenny, in particular, was keen on the civil marriage taking place as privately as possible to avoid the neighbours' gossiping, and Engels obligingly suggested that the reason given for it should be that Laura was a Protestant and Paul a Catholic.239 T h e publication of the banns was put off until the last possible moment as Jenny was not in a position to prepare Laura's trousseau, and Marx did not want 'to send her into the world like a beggar'.240 Jenny was still preparing an extensive wardrobe for Laura four months after her marriage. This took place on 2 April 1868 in St Pancras' Registry Office and was followed by lunch at Modena Villas where Engels cracked so many jokes at Laura's expense that he reduced her to tears.241 T h e couple honeymooned in Paris and returned to London where Paul completed his medical studies.
Meanwhile, her sister, too, began to establish her independence. Without asking her parents' permission, Jenny took a job as a governess five mornings a week to the children of a near-by doctor named Monroe. Marx, in fact, disapproved strongly and only agreed after insisting on stringent conditions. Jenny enjoyed her job, in spite of the difficulty she experienced in actually getting her employers to pay her, and it lasted almost three years until the Monroes made 'the terrible discovery that I am the daughter of the petroleur chief who defended the iniquitous communal movements'.242 She began, too, to write articles on Ireland for French newspapers, being, like Eleanor, passionately attached to the cause of Home Rule. Marx confessed to Engels that he was glad at least 'that Jenny is distracted by something to do and particularly got outside the
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four walls of this house'. He continued: ' M y wife has completely lost her temper for years. It is quite explicable in the circumstances but none the less unpleasant for that. She wears the children to death with her complaints and irritability and ill humour, though no children bear everything m a more jolly way. But there are certain limits.'243 And Jenny herself
found Marx's temper scarcely any better.244 |
T h e situation only improved |
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the move of Engels to London and the galvanising effect of the |
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Paris Commune. |
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N O T E S |
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1. |
Marx to Engels, MEW xxix 225. The tide, Grundrisse (which was to be one |
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of Marx's major works), is no more than the German term for 'outlines'. |
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2. |
Marx to Engels, MEW xxix 259 f. |
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j. |
MESW 1 360. This Introduction was first |
published by Kautsky in 1903. |
4.Marx's Grundrisse, ed. D. McLellan (London and New York, 1971) p. 16.
5.Ibid., p. 18.
6.Ibid., p. 21.
7.Ibid., p. 22.
8.Ibid., p. 29.
9.Ibid., p. 33.
10.Ibid., p. 34.
1 1. Ibid., p. 39.
1 2. Ibid., p. 42.
1Ibid., p. 45. Further on the Introduction, see the excellent commentary in K. Marx, Texts on Method, ed. T. Carver (Oxford, 1974).
14. Ibid., pp. 42 f.
1 s K. Marx, 'Preface to Critique of Political EconomyMESW 1 361.
16.It should be noted that this tide is not Marx's, but stems from the first editors of his manuscripts. It could be misleading in that 'Critique of Political Economy' was the subtide of Capital and, as is shown later, the Grundrisse is much more than a rough draft of Capital.
17Marx to Engels, MEW xxix 330. The schema in six parts given in the
General Introduction and the Preface is plainly not the same as that of Capital,
Book 1, |
published |
in 1867. Karl Kautsky concluded that Marx must have |
c hanged |
the plan |
of his projected work on Economics. This was certainly |
the received opinion until the publication of the Grundrisse, which only emerged from the Moscow archives in 1939-41. However, Marx's correspondence with Lassalle and the Index to the first volume of his 'Economics' contained in the Grundrisse shows that Marx had in mind the plan of the three volumes of Capital as early as 1857. The change was not one of
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K A RL M A R X : A B I O G R A P H Y |
methodology but |
merely one of size. This point is amplified in the rest |
of this chapter. See further the Basel dissertation of O. Morf, Das Verhaltnis von Wissenschaftstheorie und Wirtschaftsgeschichte (1951) pp. 75 ff.; also M. Rubel's Introduction to K. Marx, Oeuvres, 11 (Paris, 1968). See the diagram on p. 458.
18. |
Marx's Grundrisse, |
p. 58. |
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19. |
Grundrisse (1953 ed.) p. 78. |
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20. |
Marx's Grundrisse, |
p. |
100. |
21. |
See Grundrisse (1953 |
ed.) pp. 162 ff. and particularly the schema on pp. |
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186 ff. Since these sections are typical of large parts of the Grundrisse, several |
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of the accounts of Marx's thought produced by scholars of the older generation - Daniel Bell, 'The Debate on Alienation', in Revisionism (1962); Sidney Hook, From Hegel to Marx (2nd ed. 1962); Lewis Feuer, 'What is alienation? The career of a concept', New Politics (1962) - are in a need of revision. It was the thesis of these writers that there was a radical break between the
Young and |
the |
Old |
Marx; and the major proof of this was held |
to be |
the absence |
in |
the |
later writings of the concept of alienation so |
central |
to the earlier works. In addition, the writers who have wished to minimise the influence of Hegel on Marx will have to revise their ideas.
22.Lassalle to Marx, 12 May 1851.
23.Marx's Grundisse, p. 71.
24.Ibid., p. 31.
25.Ibid., p. 76.
26.Ibid., pp. 94 ff.
27.Ibid., p. 143.
28.Ibid., p. 135. In his correspondence with Engels. Marx says that he considered the primitive model of an automatic machine to be a clock. Marx derived a
lot of his information on automatic spinning machinery (as well as other aspects of factory life) from Engels to whom he often turned for help in these practical questions. He confessed to his friend: 'I understand the mathematical laws, but the simplest technical reality, where observation is necessary, is as difficult for me as for the greatest ignoramus....' ( M E W
xxx320).
29.Marx's Gnindrisse, p. 133.
30.Ibid., p. 151.
31.Ibid., pp. 121 ff.
32.Ibid., p. 75.
33.Ibid., p. 124.
34.Ibid.
35.Ibid., p. 142.
36.Marx to Lassalle, MEW xxix 566.
37.k. Marx, 'Preface to Critique of Political Economy', MESW 1 361.
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327 |
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38.Marx to Engels, MEW xxix 260.
39.Grundrisse (1953 ed.) p. 69.
40.Marx to Lassalle, MEW xxix 561.
41.Marx to C. Leske, MEW XXVII 449.
42.Marx to Lassalle, MEW xxix 622.
43. K. Marx, 'Preface to Critique of Political Economy', MESW 1 364.
44.Marx to Lassalle, MEW xxix 550.
45.Ibid., 554.
46.Ibid.
47.Marx to Engels, MEW xxix 318.
48.Jenny Marx to Engels, MEW xxix 648.
49.Marx to Engels, MEW xxix 97.
50.Ibid., 340.
51.Ibid.
52.Ibid., 343.
53.Ibid., 355.
54.Marx to Lassalle, MEW xxix 566.
55.Ibid.
$6. Mark to Engels, MEW xxix 375.
57.Ibid., 385. Ibid., 383.
59.Marx to Lassalle, MEW xxix 567.
60.Marx to Engels, MEW xxix 392.
61. |
MESW 1 |
362. |
61. |
MESW 1 |
365. |
Cif. |
K. Marx, Critique of Political Economy, trans. Stone (Chicago, 1904) p. 20. |
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64. |
Ibid., p. 34. |
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fiSIbid., p. 72. M. Ibid., p. 51.
C>7. Engels to Marx, M E W xxix 319. 6H. Marx to Lassalle, MEW xxix 618. U). Ibid.
70 Jenny Marx to Engels, MEW xxix 653.
71()n this question see farther, H. Cunow, 'Zum Streit zwischen K. Marx und K. Vogt', Die Neue Zeit (1918); F. Mehring, Introduction to Aus dem literarisiben Nachlass, vol. 3.
71 Marx to Engels, MEW xxix 436.
7( See I. Bach, 'Karl Marx und die Londoner Zeitung "Das Volk" (1859)', in
Aus der Geschichte des Kampfes von Marx and Engels fur die proletarische Partei
(Berlin, 1961).
Marx to Freiligrath, MEW xxx 460. 7s Ibid., 459 ff.
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K A R L M A R X : A B I O G R A P H Y |
76.F. Freiligrath, Briefwechsel mit Marx und Engels, 1 138.
77.Marx to Freiligrath, MEW xxx 488 ff.
78.Marx to Lassalle, MEW xxx 563.
79.Marx to Engels, MEW xxx 17.
80.Ibid., 29.
81.Ibid., 101 f.
82.Ibid., 102.
83.Ibid., 120.
84.K. Marx, 'Herr Vogt', MEW xiv 599 ff.
85.Engels to Marx, MEW xxix 31.
86.Marx to Lassalle, MEW xxix 562.
87.Marx to Engels, MEW xxix 432.
88.Ibid.
89.Ibid., 275.
90.Cf. Marx to Lassalle, MEW xxx 463 £
91.F. Lassalle, Nachgelassene Briefs und Schriften, HI 263.
92.Marx to Engels, MEW xxx 148 f.
93.Marx to Lion Philips, MEW xxx 600.
94.Marx to Lassalle, MEW xxx 588.
95.Ibid.
96.Marx to Antoinette Philips in W. Blumenberg, 'Ein Unbekanntes Kapital
aus Marx' Leben', International Review of Social History (1956) p. 83.
97.Ibid., p. 84.
98.Marx to Carl Siebel, MEW xxx 593.
99.Marx to Engels, MEW xxx 167.
100.Ibid., 163.
101. Ibid., 166.
102.Marx to Lassalle, MEW xxx 602.
103.Marx to Antoinette Philips, MEW xxx 594.
104. Marx to Lion Philips, MEW xxx 601. See also Jenny Marx to Lassalle,
F. Lassalle, Nachgelassene Briefe und Schriften, 111 295.
105.Jenny Marx to Lassalle, F. Lassalle, op. cit., 11 359.
106.Cf. Marx to Engels, MEW xxx 270.
107.Cf. MEW xv 327.
108.Marx to Engels, MEW xxx 257.
109.Ibid.
n o . Ibid., 258.
H I . Quoted in R. Morgan, The German Social Democrats and the First International
(Cambridge, 1965) p. 6.
112. Marx to Engels, MEW xxx 259.
113. Jenny Marx, 'Short Sketch of an Eventful Life', in Reminiscences, p. 234. 114. Marx to Lassalle, MEW xxx 637.
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32 7 |
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11 j. Cf. Marx to J. von Schweitzer, |
MEW xxxii 568 ff.; Marx |
to Kugelmann, |
MESC, pp. 167 ff. |
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11 A. Marx to Kugelmann, MESC, p. |
169. |
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117. Cf. B. Andreas, 'Zur Agitation und Propaganda des A D A V |
1863/64', Archiv |
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fllr Sozialgeschichte (1963). |
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118.On this, see W. Mommsen, 'Lassalle und Bismarck', Archiv fiir Sozialgeschichte (1963).
119.Marx to Engels, MEW xxx 432.
120. Marx |
to Sophie von Hatzfeld, MEW xxx 673. Further |
on Lassalle, see |
S. Na'aman, Lassalle (Hanover, 1970). |
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1 j 1. Jenny |
Marx to Wilhelm von Florencourt, in Vier Briefe |
von Jenny Marx |
(Trier, |
1970) p. 6. |
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122.Jenny Marx, 'Short Sketch of an Eventful Life', Reminiscences, p. 230.
123.Marx to Engels, MEW xxix 130.
124.Marx to Weydemeyer, xxix 570.
125.Marx to Engels, MEW xxx 160.
126.Ibid.
127.Marx to Lassalle, MEW xxx 606.
128.Marx to Engels, MEW xxx 206.
129.Cf. Marx to Kugelmann, MEW xxx 640.
1 jo. |
Marx to Engels, MEW xxx 315. The gap between the lifestyles of the |
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working class and middle class at this time was so great that this really was |
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the stark alternative that faced Marx if he wished to escape from 'bourgeois |
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respectability'. |
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i(i |
Marx to Jenny Marx, MEW xxx 643. |
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i(2. |
Marx to Lion Philips, MEW xxx 648. |
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1 ((. |
Marx to Jenny Marx, MEW xxx 655. |
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1 (.(. |
Marx to Engels, MEW xxx 132. |
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1 (s- |
Ibid., 353. |
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1 (6. |
Ibid., xxix |
374. |
1 (7. |
Ibid, xxx |
113. |
1 (K |
Jenny Marx to Louise Weydemeyer, Reminiscences, p. 247. |
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H9 |
Ibid. |
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140. Jenny Marx to Conrad Schramm, MEW xxix 645.
1 11 Marx to Engels, MEW xxix 285. 1,(2 Ibid., 210.
i.| ( Ibid., 214.
144.Ibid., 248.
145.Ibid., 310.
146 Engels to Marx, MEW xxx 312. i.(7 Marx to Engels, MEW xxx 314. 148. Ibid.
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KARL M A R X : A B I O G R A P H Y |
149.Ibid., 319.
150.Jenny Marx to Engels, MEW xxix 653.
151. Jenny Marx to Bertha Markheim, in B. Andreas, 'Die Familie Marx in Briefen und Dokumenten', Archiv fur Sozialgeschichte (1962) pp. 177 ff. Bertha Markheim, to whom Jenny wrote this account, had been a close friend of the family since 1854. She had helped Jenny with small gifts of money but Jenny had had to warn against organising more help as 'you cannot imagine how proud my husband is even in such matters' (Andreas, Briefe, p. 173).
152.Marx to Engels, MEW xxix 521.
153.Ibid., xxx 214.
154.Marx to Lassalle, MEW xxx 622.
155.Marx to Engels, MEW xxx 243.
156.Ibid., 248.
157.Ibid., 280.
158.Ibid., 343.
159.Quoted in Y. Kapp, Eleanor Marx 1 88.
160.Marx to Kugelmann, MEW xxx 639.
161. Cf. Marx to Engels, MEW xxx 359.
162.Marx to Engels, MEW xxx 368.
163.Jenny Marx to Bertha Markheim, in Andreas, Briefe, pp. 181 ff.
164.The manuscript was first published by Karl Kautsky in 1905-10 as the fourth volume of Capital. There is an English translation published in 1969.
165.Karl Marx, Theories of Surplus Value (London, 1969) 1 30.
166.Ibid.
167.K. Marx, Capital 1 (London, 1954) p. 15.
168.Ibid.
169.Two accessible books on this tradition are: J. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis (New York, 1954); E. Heimann, History of Economic Doctrines (New York, 1964).
170.Cf. K. Marx, Theories of Surplus Value, 1 390 ff.
171. Ibid., 11 573.
172.Marx to Engels, MEW xxx 263.
173.Jenny Marx, 'Short Sketch of an Eventful Life', Reminiscences, p. 233.
174.Marx to Kugelmann, MEW xxxn 573.
175.Marx to Engels, MEW xxxi 182.
176.Ibid 369.
177.Ibid. 193.
178.Marx to Laura Marx, in Karl Marx Privat, ed. W. Schwerbrock (Frankfurt, 1962) p. 112.
179.Paul Lafargue, in Reminiscences, p. 73.
180.Marx to Engels, MEW xxxi 132.
181. Cf. Ibid. 134.
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1 Hz. Ibid., 178.
iH( Ibid., 290. 184. Ibid.
I Hs. Marx to Kugelmann, MEW xxxi 550 f. 1H6. Marx to Engels, MEW xxxi 297.
1H7. Engels to Marx, MEW xxxi 303. 1HH Marx to Engels, MEW xxxi 305. iHy. Ibid., 323.
190.Marx's Grundrisse, p. 42. The argument of these nine chapters is summarised in Marx's short Wages, Prices and Profit which, since it was delivered to British trade unionists (see pp. 338 f. below), can serve as an admirable introduction to the more abstract parts of Capital.
191.K. Marx, Capital (Moscow, 1954) 1 19 f.
192.K. Marx, op. cit. 137.
19j. Ibid., 72.
194. Cf. F. Engels, Anti-Diihring (Moscow, n.d.) p. 281. m;S K. Marx, Capital (Moscow, 1954) 1 209.
i</>. Ibid., 217. Cf. also vol 1, ch. 19.
197.K Marx to L. Kugelmann, MEW xxxi 575 f.
198.K. Marx, Capital (Moscow, 1954) 1 269.
199.Ibid., 302.
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Cf. on this topical point, K Marx, op. cit., 1 506. |
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101. Ibid., 487 f. |
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jcu. |
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Ibid., 645. |
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/111 |
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K. Marx, op. cit., 11 763. The fact that this passage is followed by a short |
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section on colonisation is probably due to a desire not to attract the attention |
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of the censor by finishing on too resounding a note. |
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1114. |
It is a |
sufficient indication of the disorder |
of the Marx archives that this |
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chapter |
- some 200 pages long - was only |
published in 1933. It is now |
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translated into English, and there is a French translation (ed. R. Dangeville, |
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Paris, 1971). |
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/. iS |
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See the passages translated in D. McLellan, |
The Thought of Karl Marx 3rd |
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cdn (London, 1995) pp. 108 ff. |
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jnfi |
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P. 245 |
of the French edition. |
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<117 |
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K. Marx, Capital (Chicago, 1909) 111 210. |
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10H |
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Ibid., 211. |
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II Hj |
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Ibid., 249. |
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1 n > |
k. Marx, Capital (Moscow, 1954) 111 245. |
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III |
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Ibid., 260. |
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111 |
Rccent attempts to show that Marx's ideas are scientific have centred around |
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the work of L. Althusser, e.g. Reading Capital (London, 1970). A lot of the |
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ili-bate |
will seem, particularly to the uninitiated, to be peculiarly Byzantine. |
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3 3 0 |
K A RL M A R X : A B I O G R A P H Y |
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For two substantial contributions, see N. Geras, 'Marx and the Critique of |
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Political Economy' and M. Godelier, 'Structure and Contradiction in CapitaP, |
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both in Ideology in Social Science, ed. R. Blackburn (London, 1972). |
213. |
For a short and clear claim for the continued relevance of Marx's ideas, see |
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A. Gamble and P. Walton, From Alienation to Surplus Value, ch. 7. Also, E. |
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Hunt and J. Schwartz, Critique of Economic Theory (London, 1972). |
214.Jenny Marx to Kugelmann, Briefe und Dokumente, ed. B. Andreas, Archiv fiir Sozialgeschichte (1962) p. 193. Cf. also the letter of Jenny Marx (daughter) to Kugelmann in the same collection, p. 240.
215.Jenny Marx, in Reminiscences, p. 233.
216.Jenny Marx to Engels, MEW xxx 679.
217. Paul Lafargue, in Reminiscences, p. 73.
218.Cf. Ibid.
219.Marx to Kugelmann, MEW XXXII 540.
220.Marx to Engels, MEW xxxi 126.
221.Marx to Lion Philips, MEW xxx 665. Marx may just have been boasting here. But he certainly gave Engels good advice on how to play the Stock Market (see MEW XXXIII 23, 29).
222.Marx to Engels, MEW xxxi 131.
223.Ibid., 262.
224.Ibid., 321.
225.Ibid., 75.
226.Ibid., 108.
227.Cf. K Marx, Dokumente seines Lebens, p. 350.
228.Marx to Engels, MEW xxxi 217.
229.Ibid., xxxii 344.
230.K. Marx, Dokumente seines Lebens, p. 352. Any conversion into present-day values must be approximate. Very roughly these figures should be multiplied at least a hundred times to get present-day equivalents. For comparison, an unskilled worker in London in 1870 could earn around £50 p.a. The classical work on this subject is A. Bowley, Wages in the United Kingdom in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1900).
231. Marx to Engels, MEW xxxi n o .
232.Ibid., 247.
233.Ibid.
234. Marx to Paul Lafargue, MEW xxxi 518. The full letter is translated in
Y. Kapp, Eleanor Marx, 1 298 f.
235.Marx to Paul Lafargue, MEW xxxi 519.
236.Ibid.
237.W. Liebknecht, Briefwechsel mit Marx und Engels, p. 80.
238.Ibid.
239.Engels to Marx, MEW xxxi 409.