From: Michael Heinrich (m.heinrich@PROKLA.DE)
Date: Sat Jul 01 2006 - 07:00:57 EDT
Jerry, the case is a little bit more complicated. When we look at the edited three volumes of "Capital" we can say, that the draft of the edited vol. 3 was written before the drafts of the edited vol. 2. But Marx wrote much more than the drafts, which Engels used for the edition. Therefore the order of writing is not just vol.3 - vol. 1 - vol. 2. In 1863-65 Marx wrote drafts for all three (theoretical) books of "Capital" (we must distinguish volume and book to understand Marx letters correctly. He planned to write four books, in three volumes, but the content of the volumes changed). He started 1863/64 with the draft of book I (the only part which remained is "Results of the immediate process of production"). After finishing the draft of book I, he continued with book III (1864/65), but rather soon (during the first three chapters, what became later the first three sections) he interrupted and wrote a draft of book II. After finishing this draft he continued with book III and stopped his work at the end of 1865 (with the unfinished chapter on classes). In January 1866 he started to prepare book I for publishing (he thought, that vol.1 could include book I and II). After publishing book I in vol. 1 (1867) he tried to prepare vol. 2 (which now should include book II and III) and for this he started reworking his draft on book II and a number of new drafts for book II emerged. When Engels edited vol. 2 (containing book 2) he used only the more recent manuscripts and not the manuscript of 1863-64. But for book III, Engels must use the "old" manuscript of 1864/65. The precise order of writing was determined by different factors: what was clear for Marx and, what was an open question (for example that Marx in 1864 started with book III after finishing book I may have had the reason, that he wanted to write down something what was clear to him, but then he realized, that he also needed some results of book II and therefore he interrupted the work on book III) and especially in the seventies the wish to publish vol. 2 determined Marx to concentrate on book II. In solidarity Michael ope-admin@RICARDO.ECN.WFU.EDU schrieb: >Michael H et al, > >What do we know about _why_ Marx wrote the drafts in the order in >which he did? I.e. _why_ did he write the drafts for what became >Volume 3 of _Capital_ before writing Volume I?; why did he write the >drafts for most of what became Volume 2 after writing the drafts for >what became Volume 3 and Volume 1? > >My supposition -- subject to correction -- is that _it didn't matter_ >what order he wrote the volumes of _Capital_, but that still doesn't >answer the question _why_, does it? > >In solidarity, Jerry >Somesville, MDI > > >
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