[OPE-L:1579] Lapides' chapter 11


Gerald Levy (glevy@pratt.edu)
Sun, 24 Oct 1999 19:04:32 -0400 (EDT)


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 1999 14:50:59 -0700 (MST)
From: Kenneth Lapides <lapides@sedona.net>
To: glevy@PRATT.EDU
Subject: Lapides' chapter 11

Jerry,

I re-formatted my chapter 11 for a "generic" word processor. Perhaps now
you will be able to retrieve it and have a clearer idea of my point of view.

Thanks,

Kenneth
The following is an extract from Marx's Wage Theory in Historical

                           Chapter 11

                    Is There a "Missing Book"
on Wage Labor?

              The history of mankind is like paleontology. Owing to a
                                                                þMarx

As we saw, in all of Capital little is said about the role of trade unions
        On the one hand, critics have claimed that there is a "missing book" on
        A glance at the history of political economy reveals that economists
        Marx, too, followed this practice. Writing to Kugelmann in October 1866

        Book I. The Process of Production of Capital.
        Book II. The Process of Circulation of Capital.
        Book III. Structure of the Process as a Whole.
        Book IV. On the History of the Theory. (CW42, 328)

Although he died before he could bring all of his work to publication,

        Karl Kautsky in 1897 was the first to point out that the outline for

We know what material Marx intended to deal with from the preface to the
        Opposed to this presentation we must pose the question: is it true that
        From his new draft outline, which he communicated to Kugelmann and which

Grossmann argues that "compelling internal reasons surely must have been

        Among the critics of Grossmann's thesis the most vehement has been
        Rubel's writings have provoked much criticism. "Even the most

        To evaluate these claims, the best course is first to review the actual
        As we have seen, Marx maintained a lifelong interest in the problem of

Do try and finish your political economy book, even if there's much in it

Marx obtained a contract with C. W. Leske Publishers in Darmstadt to
        He continued working on his critique of political economy, and in the

The material I am working on is so damnably involved that, no matter how I

Six months later, however, he was still at it, and wrote Weydemeyer again,
        In December 1857, aroused by a trade crisis, Marx told Engels: "I am

The categories which constitute the internal structure of bourgeois

In the text of the Grundrisse Marx experimented with a variant of this.
        In February 1858, he explained to Lassalle in greater detail what he was

Now let me tell you how my political economy is getting on. I have in
        The work I am presently concerned with is a Critique of Economic
        The whole is divided into 6 books: 1. On capital (contains a few

Here was the first mention of dividing his work into six books. He gave

Whatever the circumstances, the first instalment would have to constitute
        Nor is it my intention to elaborate to an equal degree all the 6 books

        Marx repeated this description of his outline to Engels in April:

The following is a short outline of the first part. The whole thing is to
        I. Capital. First section: Capital in general. (Throughout this section

By November he was still working on it, and in a letter to Lassalle

The first section, "Capital in General," is likely to run to 2

        By January 1859, the work was taking shape for publication as what we now

The manuscript amounts to about 12 sheets of print (3 installments)

Writing to Weydemeyer in February, he said:

My Critique of Political Economy is to be published in installments (the
        I divide the whole of political economy into 6 books.
        Capital; landed property; wage labour; the State; foreign trade; world

This was to be Marx's last reference, apart from his preface to the

The entire material lies before me in the form of monographs, which were

In the years to come there is not a single further reference to this
        After the publication of the Contribution, which met with a discouraging

I shall now be obliged to remodel the thing completely, as the manuscript

In November he confided to Engels:

My circumstances are such as to preclude my doing sufficient work on the

In January 1860, Engels urged him on as he had done for more than fifteen

The early appearance of your 2nd instalment is obviously of paramount

In February Marx reported reassuringly that he was "working on my Capital.
        An outline that Marx prepared sometime in 1860, overlooked in all
        In June 1861, he told Engels: "A week ago I made a serious start on my
        In The Economic Manuscript of 1861þ63 Marx does not reveal an outline or

My writing is progressing, but slowly. Circumstances being what they

In a letter to Lassalle in April 1862, he seemed to believe that he was

As for my book, it won't be finished for another two months. During the

In August, however, he told Engels:

All things considered, it's a real miracle that I have been able to get on

Dealing with landed property in this way is further evidence that he was
        At the end of December 1862, in a letter to Kugelmann, Marx explained how

The second part has now at last been finished, i.e. save for the fair copy
        As soon as I have a fair copy of the manuscript (upon which I shall make
        There is every prospect that, as soon as the German edition appears,

        Yet in July 1863, he was still working "10 hours a day" on his book

In one respect, my work (preparing the manuscript for the press) is going

        After the summer of 1863, we hear nothing further until October of the

I have been sick throughout the past year (being afflicted with carbuncles

The next month he was telling Kugelmann: "I think that my book on capital
        However, the founding in 1864 of the International Workingmen's

Now, regarding my work, I will tell you the plain truth about it. There

Here is further proof that Marx has been working with a four-book plan in
        In August he wrote again of his need to have "the whole thing" before him:

The only point in question is whether to do a fair copy of part of the

        By November, however, health problems and his work on behalf of the

As far as this damned book is concerned, the position now is: it was ready
        Although ready, the manuscript, which in its present form is gigantic, is
        I began the business of copying out and polishing the style on the dot of
        Otherwise, I agree with you and shall get the first volume to Meissner as

In July 1866, he asked Engels to write an appendix for volume 1 (which he
        In August he wrote Kugelmann saying that he didn't think he'd "be able to

My circumstances (endless interruptions, both physical and social) oblige
        The whole work is thus divided into the following parts:
        Book I. The Process of Production of Capital.
        Book II. The Process of Circulation of Capital.
        Book III. Structure of the Process as a Whole.
        Book IV. On the History of the Theory.
        The first volume will include the first 2 books.
        The 3rd book will, I believe, fill the second volume, the 4th the 3rd.
        It was, in my opinion, necessary to begin ab ovo [from the beginning] in

When Engels heard from Marx in November that he had sent off the first

The news that the manuscript has gone off is a load off my mind. So, a

        In January 1867, Marx told Engels that the publisher wanted to have two

The whole work will appear in 3 volumes. The title is Capital. A

        Engels again remarked on the personal implications for him of completing

[F]rom what you write, the future also looks rosier at last. I always had

        Now begins a series of letters in which Marx, assessing the status of his

Why then did I not answer you? Because I was the whole time at death's
        The first volume of the book will be published by Otto Meissner in
        Volume I comprises the "Process of Production of Capital." As well as
        I hope that a year from now the whole work will have appeared. Volume II

        In May he was writing to Engels with a sense of closure about the whole

Finally, Meissner is demanding the 2nd volume by the end of the autumn at

        In his preface to volume 1 he made it quite clear that it was produced

The work, the first volume of which I now submit to the public, forms the
        The second volume of this work will treat of the process of circulation

        In letters to Engels and others about this time, Marx began to address

The best points in my book are 1. (this is fundamental to all

And in another letter to Engels written in January 1868, after reading a

Curiously, the fellow has not detected the three fundamentally new
        1. that in contrast to all previous political economy . . . I begin by
        2. that the economists, without exception, have missed the simple fact
        3. that for the first time wages are shown as the irrational outward form

Engels had already admired "the quite splendid exposition of the
        Also in January, Marx told Engels that "As far as the 'Lassalleans' are

In Volume II (which will probably never appear if my condition does not
        My circumstances are very harassing, since I was unable to do any

His comment about moving to Geneva and having to finish the last two

        His letter of March 1885 to Laura Lafargue is also revealing:

The 3rd book [of] Capital is getting grander and grander the deeper I get

In the end, Marx's failing health was the supreme obstacle to completing

I thank you very much for your extracts from [Marx's] letters from 1879 to

And in another letter to Danielson in November 1886, he described the

I shall be only too glad when I can bring out the 3rd volume for as you

        Having surveyed the entire record of Marx's expressed intentions
        As to the absence in Capital of any discussion of trade unions, there are

        Why then was such an important question hardly touched on in Capital? It

By this assumption not only the employer's attempts to depress the price

As we saw, however, in his letter of January 25, 1868, Marx stated that he
        In the previous chapter we saw that Marx spoke of the "theory of wages"

        Of what significance, then, is this debate over Marx's plan for writing

NOTES




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