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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