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Written between 1857 and 1858, the Grundrisse is the first draft of Marx's critique of political economy and, thus, also the initial preparatory work on Capital. Despite its editorial vicissitudes and late publication, Grundrisse contains numerous reflections on matters that Marx did not develop elsewhere in his oeuvre and is therefore extremely important for an overall interpretation of his thought.In this collection, various international experts in the field, analysing the Grundrisse on the 150th anniversary of its composition, present a Marx in many ways radically different from the one who figures in the dominant currents of twentieth-century Marxism. The book demonstrates the relevance of the Grundrisse to an understanding of Capital and of Marx's theoretical project as a whole, which, as is well known, remained uncompleted.It also highlights the continuing explanatory power of Marxian categories for contemporary society and its present contradictions.With contributions from such scholars as Eric Hobsbawm and Terrell Carver, and covering subject areas such as political economy, philosophy and Marxism, this book is likely to become required reading for serious scholars of Marx across the world. ... Read more

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A compelling, wide-ranging collection of Karl Marx's journalism-available only from Penguin Classics

Karl Marx is arguably the most famous political philosopher of all time, but he was also one of the great foreign correspondents of the nineteenth century. Drawing on his eleven- year tenure at the New York Tribune (which began in 1852), this completely new collection presents Marx's writings on an abundance of topics, from issues of class and state to world affairs. Particularly moving pieces highlight social inequality and starvation in Britain, while others explore his groundbreaking views on the slave and opium trades. Throughout, Marx's fresh perspective on nineteenth-century events reveals a social consciousness that remains inspiring to this day. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A fascinating collection
These articles, on a huge range of subjects, were written and published between 1852 and 1861. The Tribune's circulation at the time was 200,000, the world's largest.

There are nine articles on China, covering the British state's Opium Wars and its atrocities there. The British state produced opium in India, forced it on China by unprovoked attacks, and then turned round and accused the Chinese of attacking Britain, with "the flimsy pretence that English life and property are endangered by the aggressive acts of the Chinese."

Marx also produced nine articles on wars, revolutions and counter-revolutions in Europe, particularly Greece, Italy, Prussia and Spain.

Nine articles examined events in India, mainly the 1857 revolt in India and changes in imperial finances. Marx wrote that capitalist progress "will neither emancipate nor materially mend the social condition of the mass of the people, depending not only on the development of the productive powers, but on their appropriation by the people." He showed how vicious imperial rule was, citing Lord Dalhousie, India's governor general from 1848 to 1856, "torture in one shape or other is practised by the lower subordinates in every British province."

In eight articles, Marx analysed the struggles in the USA, the British government's role in the slave trade, the mill owners' and The Times' support for the slaveholding South in the American civil war. The mill workers, by contrast, supported the North and abolition, at great cost to themselves. Marx showed how the slave trade was integral to capitalism.

He also produced 14 articles on British politics and society, several elections, `a venal and reckless press', starvation and the Highland clearances, and 11 on poverty, riches and inequality, against global free trade and its promises of peace and prosperity, the financial panic of 1857 with its failing dodgy banks, and the condition of the working class.
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Volume 1 of Marx’s political writings: The key essays and texts on politics and history—including The Communist Manifesto.Karl Marx was not only the great theorist of capitalism, he was also a superb journalist, politician and historian. In these brand-new editions of Marx’s Political Writings we are able to see the depth and range of his mature work from 1848 through to the end of his life, from The Communist Manifesto to The Class Struggles in France and The Critique of the Gotha Programme. Each book has a new introduction from a major contemporary thinker, to shed new light on these vital texts.

Volume 1: The Revolutions of 1848: Marx and Engels had sketched out the principles of scientific communism by 1846. Yet it was from his intense involvement in the abortive German Revolution of 1848 that Marx developed a depth of practical understanding he would draw on in Capital and throughout his later career. This volume includes his great call to arms—The Communist Manifesto—but also shows how tactical alliances with the bourgeoisie failed, after which Marx became firmly committed to independent workers’ organizations and the ideal of “permanent revolution.” The articles offer trenchant analyses of events in France, Poland, Prague, Berlin and Vienna, while speeches set out changing communist tactics. In a new introduction the major socialist feminist writer Sheila Rowbotham examines this period of Marx’s life and how it shaped his political perspective. ... Read more

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Karl Marx set about to analyze the development pf capital, thecomponets of capital and the modern day application of capital.As a political economyscientist he outlined the key human ingredient; the concept of the 'surplus value of labor'.This concept is the most difficult to understand of the three essential elements of what we now call Marxism, but it is the most important.As well, this work is the most important contribution of Marx to the world of political economy.Regardless of one's political and economic views it is necessary to comprehend what is put forward by Karl Marx's Das Kapital in order to have knowledge of how capital is created and used in the production of all goods and services. Of the 50 books I have published to date, Das Kapital is the best seller in the USA and the UK.A Collector's Edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (29)

Misbegotten Mussar
Karl Marx would have made a great rabbi.
His "Das Kapital" should be judged an intriguing work in what we Jews call Mussar (translation: "ethics" and/or "rebuke"). Marx's studies of economics and social conditions parallel the work of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, the father of the Mussar Movement still functioning today in Orthodox Judaism. Reb Yisrael ZT"L and Marx died the same year - 1883.
Studying "Das Kapital" (instead of ignorantly denouncing it for narrow political motives), one can see how Marxism became a religion for Jews and others looking to leave their ancestral faiths to pursue the Enlightenment dream. Along comes Marx brimming with contempt for all religions and forecasting the end of social classes. For the Jewish nation raised on the Mussar of the Old Testament prophets, the appeal was irresistible. Many are still in the grip today.
Has there ever been a better (or more humorous) line directed at the mindless "stuff" collectors of Western society than - "Accumulate! Accumulate! That is Moses and all the prophets!"? All the more ironic that this penultimate line of Marx's misbegotten Mussar contains a great admonition while containing the opposite truth. That truth is that savings is necessary for personal self-sufficiency as well as business capital formation. Personal self-sufficiency is the bulwark against the return to serfdom implied in the "scientific" spendaholicism of John Maynard Keynes.
Keynes, born the same year Marx died, used demand-side reasoning to justify his pernicious "savings hurts the economy" mantra. Few neoconservatives know that Marx was/is a supply-sider (wonder if Ronald Reagan ever figured this out). Keynes told George Bernard Shaw he was out to knock away the (David) Ricardian foundations of Marxism. Yet he pushed the West in the direction Marx wanted to go. The great British economist was not the first nor will he be the last intellectual to be an unwitting proponent of Marxism. Is this because of the great sweep of history that Marx described? Is it because Marxism is self-fulfilling prophecy (accept its premises then it happens)? Is it both?
The problem with Marxism is that you can't build a society or a religion on rebuke. Marx's worldview cannot be foisted upon society at large without highly destructive results. Mussar and Marxism cannot create a positive system. Marxists should realize the great revolutionary's Mussar would perform its best use in getting individuals to correct their own actions. Charles Dickens had a better head for this than Marx. George Orwell pointed out that Dickens, for all his Mussardik allegories, realized the system is what it is and would be better if people were better yet you can't accurately redirect human nature en masse. Rabbi Mayer Schiller, shlita, echoed this in a brilliant 1997 speech - Amid the decadence of today's West we are to discharge our personal obligations (learning Torah, praying, performing mitzvoth) and struggle alongside decent, like-minded people to do what is right.
The "system" boils down to the realization that the nature of man is to truck, barter, and exchange. Importantly, cooperation, not competition, is what keeps capitalism afloat and builds civilization by dulling the militarist impulse. The inner workings of all this is not open to any central intelligence or committee whatever. Marx, with his belief in the visible hand (contra Adam Smith), found this insulting to human beings. It shows Marx, with all the brilliant Mussar he mustered for "Das Kapital" and other works, was lacking the character trait the Baalei Mussar (ethical masters) prized above all others - humility.

not what I was looking for...
I found myself, as we have endured a long and dismal recession, wondering just what exactly Marx had said about capitalism and what he didn't. Alas this is not the edition to find out. Published by Regnery, a noted right wing publishing house, this edition reminds me of the Monty Python routine about the Philosphy department of the University of Wallamaloo in Australia where the new professor is told that he can teach the ideas of the great socialist thinkers 'as long as you point out they were wrong". Which is what you told to think before reading this.

I'm not against abridgments per say - but in this case you really can't trust you're going to get an accurate feel of what Marx did say. It would be similar to reading a selection of the works of Martin Luther as edited by the head of the Roman Catholic Inquistion. The quote about removing details (i.e. the facts) that only Marx cared about raised a red flag in my mind.

The introdution features several standard right wing tropes, for example Marx wasn't really working class so his suport of them is not really authentic in a way I can't quite figure out. And as a bonus it features probbably the only postive sentances about the economic effects of Unions in the entire Regnery cataloge.

Abridged
THIS IS AN ABRIDGED VERSION of Das Kaptial. It's cover is plastic-like and the entire thing comes off more like a toy than a book. I recommend getting a different one.

Abridged? Not even read.
The editor of this volume claims that we must read Marx (and criticize him) because his philosophy is focused on who gets what economically, and ignores the 'spiritual' and human 'freedom,' which latter we're after. Unfortunately for this editor, Marx writes, in Capital volume III, that

"The realm of freedom really begins only where labour determined by necessity and external expediency ends; it lies by its very nature beyond the sphere of material production proper... freedom... can consist only in this, that socialized man... govern the human metabolism with nature in a rational way... but this always remains a realm of necessity. The true realm of freedom, the development of human powers as an end in itself, begins beyond it," pp 958-9.

That is to say, for Marx the key thing is freedom beyond the realm of material production or... the 'spiritual' and 'human freedom.' I understand that people feel free to criticize philosophers despite not knowing what they thought; but surely one should have read a book to the end before deciding to abridge it?

Marx
As a history teacher, it is always niceto get back into the text and re-discover what history is all about. Economic theory is somehting that has eluded me for a long time. This book is outstanding. ... Read more

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A worthy but often slow read
This book is an old classical reprint, and a recommended (but not always easy) read if your primary intent is to understand the Marxist view of religion.I first encountered this as a Schocken Book 1964 edition with the foreword by Reinhold Niebuhr.This Dover edition does not have that foreword (otherwise it is exactly the same text), but it does have very useful endnotes that provide context for Marx and Engel's writings.If you read this book, make sure to pay attention to the End Notes and the Name Index for context, for without them you can easily become lost.Essentially Marx and Engels believe that religion, like all thought processes, is rooted in the socio-economic and political basis of society.It is a distraction from and a justification for exploitation, in their view.Change those basic relations, and the need of religion will go away.I don't agree with Marx or Engels in their analysis of religion, or of political economy, but it is very useful to be appraised of their arguments about religion, and this book will help you get a sense of that. You will also get some sense of their theory of historical materialism, and their use of Hegel and Feuerbach.If your focus if political-economy, buy the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, (which includes the Communist Manifesto), or read Capital.

Marxism and Religion, Yesterday and Today
Militant Atheism has recently gone on the offensive (again) in the recent works of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. And all our soi-disant radicals are rallying to the cause. But contemporary Marxists have seemed to hold back; indeed, some seem to even admire bits and pieces of l'Infâme. I looked to this volume as a corrective to the current fashionable atheism and also for a deeper understanding of the original Marxist position and I was not disappointed on either count. Now, in a volume like this in which there are many extracts one cannot hope for a comprehensive view of the thought of Marx (and also Engels) regarding their understanding of Christianity and Religion. However, I will say that I think this volume is a wonderful place to start!

What you would expect to find in a compilation like this is here: the seminal Introduction to the 'Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right', the important 'Theses on Feuerbach', relevant extracts from 'The Holy Family',and The 'German Ideology'. What one doesn't expect is all the wonderful journalistic essays and also the letters. Engels letters to Bloch and Schmidt (for instance) deploring the excesses of Marxist 'economism' are always especially welcome.

Now, to the currently fashionable cocksure atheism, the understanding of Marx and Engels must sound quite half-hearted, if not almost treacherous. What is the difference between Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens on the one hand, and Marx and Engels on he other? Dialectics. Not only isn't Religion deplored as merely a mistake, as sheer nonsense, both Marx and Engels understand and explain the historical necessity and utility of Religion. - Even its 'socialist' character!

What!?! Indeed, Engels will go so far as to claim "that this 'socialism' did in fact, as far as it was possible at the time, exist and even become dominant - in Christianity." (In the final essay of this book, "On the History of Early Christianity". 1895) Obviously, due to the social, political and economic conditions of the time this ancient 'socialism' could only be other-worldly. And, for the most part, it is for Christianity alone that our two authors reserve their highest praise. - But why?

Well, part of the answer is that in the Middle Ages movements arose within Christianity, according to Engels, that clearly sought a change in economic relations instead of merely a change in leaders. There doesn't seem to be any analogous movements in other religions. Engel's points out, in a note in this same essay, that in Islam there are periodic 'revolutions' by the poor led by some Mahdi - but they never have any intention of changing economic conditions. ...So the Nomads overthrow the City, become the City, and then need to be overthrown by other Nomads. -This, for Engels, is the History of Islam in a very small nutshell. But Christianity, through its sublated avatar, secular modernity, eventually rises to the socialistic struggle to change the actual material economic relations and social forces of _this_ world.

But for our contemporary atheists there is no distinction between superstitions. They are all nonsense. What Engels said of the satirist Lucian could be said of them too: "from [their] shallow rationalistic point of view one sort of superstition was as stupid as the other". They have no theory of (or hope for) changing the society that makes religion necessary. But for Marx and Engels, the problem is not Religion; the problem is society!

Again, this volume consists of many extracts, Introductions, Forewords, journalistic pieces and letters. Amazon does not give the space necessary to consider them all. The only complete work seems to be Engels' "Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. (1883)" In it, Engels gives a brief but (I believe) sound description of the consequences of the dialectical method. Rather than the common notion that dialectics presents one with some dogmatic Truth or final Goal Engels argues that "for it [dialectical philosophy] nothing is final, absolute, sacred."

He understands that the communist revolution results in no utopia. "Just as knowledge is unable to reach a complete conclusion in a perfect, ideal condition of humanity, so is history unable to do so; a perfect society, a perfect 'state', are things which can only exist in imagination. On the contrary, all successive historical systems are only transitory stages in the endless course of development of human society from the lower to the higher. Each stage is necessary, and therefore justified for the time and conditions to which it owes its origin." - So much for the famous End of History!

But this review is not about Kojeve and Fukuyama. For our purposes here it is important to note that the justification for some social formation does not come from some table of 'philosophical truths', rather it comes from the necessities and contingencies of the specific circumstances of that time.

But in concentrating on the end of this anthology (Engels outlived Marx by a dozen years) I have neglected Marx! Let us turn to an early work by Marx, his "Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right" (1844). First, some quotes that I believe are pertinent to our theme from the famous Introduction (which is all that is reprinted here) to that work:

"This state, this society, produce religion, a reversed world-conscioussness, because they are a reversed world."

"Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people."

"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusions about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of woe, the halo of which is religion."

"Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man will wear the chain without any fantasy or consolation but so that he will shake off the chain and cull the living flower."

(I am here following the translation provided in this book. There are better translations. The publisher, Dover, informs us that the "contents of the present collection conform to the Russian edition prepared by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the C.C., C.P.S.U. [Gospolitizdat, 1955.] Translations have been made from the originals." For what it's worth, I cannot find any mention of who the actual translators are.)

First, a clarification about the 'opium' remark might be in order. Today, we tend to see opium mentioned and think of addicts leading perfectly wretched lives thanks to their opiate of choice. This was not how that sentence was read by Marx's contemporaries. Opium was a wonder drug used to relieve unspeakable pain. The unspeakable pain, in this case, is the capitalist system. Marx asserts that once the people have the pain-relieving drug removed they will be able to rise up and end their suffering. Indeed, Marx denies that he attacks Religion in order that people will only feel their very real pain; remove the sedative (Religion) and people will cast off the chains. ...So - what has actually happened?

The Socialist World rose and then fell, leaving Capitalism alone and unbowed. Nothing that has ever risen and endured in History goes away by magic; if a political or religious institution endures it 'deserves' to endure, if it dies it was 'necessary' for it to die. (In dialectics, as indicated above, the terms 'deserve' and 'necessary' refer to contemporary circumstances only.) The real fight, according to Marx and Engels, is against conditions that make religion necessary. To abolish religion while leaving those conditions intact, with no effective way to change those conditions, is both monstrous and impossible. Monstrous? Yes, if it should prove that the chains on Man cannot be thrown off then one fears that flowers must be reinserted into each of the links of the wretched chains themselves. (Otherwise civilization itself might be destroyed by the pain.) Impossible? Indeed. If the conditions that require the consolation of Religion are not abolished then Religion itself cannot ever disappear. That has perhaps been the most telling revelation of our awful post-modernity...

Now, what of today? Why have so many Marxist (and, post-Marxist) thinkers written so many books since the fall of the USSR admiring aspects of Christianity? Because with Marxism occulted all that is left, besides Religion, is Postmodernism, and its absurd obsession with culture and the particular. People like Habermas, Badiou and Zizek have been seen blowing kisses at aspects of Christianity.

A most recent example would be Terry Eagleton, who, towards the end of his latest book ("Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate") says that if, "politics has so far failed to unite the wretched of the earth in the name of transforming their condition, we can be sure that culture will not accomplish the task in its stead. Culture, for one thing, is too much a matter of affirming what you are or have been, rather than what you might become. (p. 165.)" Yes, of course he is right, our world is being destroyed by the self-satisfaction of the various particularities that refuse to change. A bit later Eagleton argues that, "Marxism has suffered in our time a staggering political rebuff; and one of the places to which those radical impulses have migrated is - of all things - theology. (p.167)" Like Marxism, the subject of Religion and Theology is "nothing less than the nature and destiny of humanity itself..."

"What other symbolic form has managed to forge such direct links between the most absolute and universal of truths and the everyday practices of countless millions of men and women? (Eagleton, p. 165.)" By comparison, one wonders if even Marxism (to say nothing of the absurdity of postmodernism!) was only a fad that is now dying out...

To underline that this current rapprochement between Religion, most especially Christianity, and Marxism isn't some private fantasy I want to close our consideration of contemporary (post-)Marxists with a passage from Habermas:

"Egalitarian Universalism, from which sprang the ideas of freedom and social solidarity, of an autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, of the individual morality of conscience, human rights, and democracy, is the direct heir to the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of continual critical appropriation and reinterpretation. To this day, there is no alternative to it. And in light of the current challenges of a postnational constellation, we continue to draw on the substance of this heritage. Everything else is just idle postmodern talk (p. 150f)." From Jürgen Habermas, 'A Conversation About God and the World' in his book "Time of Transitions" (Polity Press, 2006).

Yes, the current 'Marxists' go further in their admiration of religion than Marx and Engels ever did. But why? What separates Eagleton and Habermas from Marx and Engels? The fall of 'really-existing' socialism; the rise of postmodernism. These contemporary 'Marxists' do not want to live in a postmodern world of global capitalism... - And nothing besides!

Thus Religion, in these precise circumstances, became tolerable; and, in these precise circumstances one marvels that it might become even more than tolerable... ... Read more

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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. Translation of Achtzehnte brumaire ... Read more

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Volume 2 of Marx’s political writings: The key essays and texts on politics and history—including The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon and The Class Struggles of France.Karl Marx was not only the great theorist of capitalism, he was also a superb journalist, politician and historian. In these brand-new editions of Marx’s Political Writings we are able to see the depth and range of his mature work from 1848 through to the end of his life, from The Communist Manifesto to The Class Struggles in France and The Critique of the Gotha Programme. Each book has a new introduction from a major contemporary thinker, to shed new light on these vital texts.

Volume 2: Surveys from Exile: In the 1850s and early 1860s Marx played an active part in politics, and his prolific journalism from London offered a constant commentary on all the main developments of the day. During this time Marx began to interpret the British political scene and express his considered views on Germany, Poland and Russia, the Crimean War and American Civil War, imperialism in India and China, and a host of other key issues. The Class Struggles in France develops the theories outlined in The Communist Manifesto into a rich and revealing analysis of contemporary events, while The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte contains equally stimulating reflections on Napoleon III’s coup d’etat of 1851. In a new introduction activist and writer Tariq Ali examines the texts that have become essential works in Marx’s canon. ... Read more

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Karl Marxs CAPITAL- Introductory Essay By A. D. LINDSAY. Originally published in 1925.Contents include: NTRODUCTION 9 I. Marx and Hegel 15 II. Economic Determinism . . .27 III. The Labour Theory of Value . - S3 IV. Marxs account of Surplus Value and of the Collective Labourer . . .81 V. Marx and Rousseau . . . .109 INDEX 126. INTRODUCTION:THIS small book is intended, as were the lectures in which it first took form, to be an introduction to the study of Marxs Capital. It is not meant to be a substitute for such study. It is the fate of all great books tp get bcdleA-down and served up cold in text-books, which purport to tell exactly what the great book comes to, as though a mans conclusions were worth very much apart from the way in which he arrived at them. We must all have had the experience, after reading even appreciative books about great authors, of going back to the authors themselves and finding how much more there is in them than their commentators lead us to expect. Marxs Capital is obviously a book of historical importance, and any one who reads it impartially will find it greater and far more illuminating than most critics of Marx would like us, or most Marxian writers allow us to believe. There are two ways in which it is indefensible to treat a great book, ways which seem nevertheless to characterize much of what is said of Marx in this country the way of uncritical condemnation and the way. of uncritical praise. There are some books on Marx in which are collected all his inconsistencies and nothing else, as though there was nothing in Marx but inconsistencies. Such books give the impression that Marx was one of the most muddle-headed, idiots that ever lived. On the other hand, some of his interpreters seem to have given up the belief in the verbal insgiratipn of scripture for the belief in the verbal inspiration of Capital and try to maintain that there are no inconsistencies in Marx at all. 2535 61 B io Introduction We might surely be prepared, without having read a word of Marx, to reject both these extreme views. Mere inconsistent thinking has never made history as Capital has made it. But no man who has brought about a great revolution in thought has ever been without inconsistencies. The original thinker is too much occupied in trying to express the creative thought which is welling up in him to trouble himself about getting it all straightened out. There are always parts of his work which he has taken over as they stood from other people... ... Read more

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The radical geographer guides us through the classic text of political economy.“My aim is to get you to read a book by Karl Marx called Capital, Volume 1, and to read it on Marx’s own terms…”

The biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression has generated a surge of interest in Marx’s work in the effort to understand the origins of our current predicament. For nearly forty years, David Harvey has written and lectured on Capital, becoming one of the world’s most foremost Marx scholars.

Based on his recent lectures, this current volume aims to bring this depth of learning to a broader audience, guiding first-time readers through a fascinating and deeply rewarding text. A Companion to Marx’s Capital offers fresh, original and sometimes critical interpretations of a book that changed the course of history and, as Harvey intimates, may do so again. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Marx as critical analyst
The text is informative but a bit preachy.I suggested long ago in my dissertation that Marx was of enormous value as an analyst of what was wrong with the capitalistic system but a bit starstruck when he projected the outcome of the industrial revolution.For all that, any serious text on Capital is welcome.The author wastes too many words pushing his reader to read the real thing.I hope, albeit fondly, that out there lurk would be scholars who wish to tackle the works of Smith, Marx, Schumpeter and Keynes.I fear, however, that they may be trampled underfoot by the crowd which has no time to dwell on musings from the past.

A very rich and stimulating book

Although well into it, I have not yet finished my study of this wonderful exposition of and commentary on vol. 1 of Marx's CAPITAL, which have indeed motivated me to restudy the three volumes of Marx's great masterpiece. Among the many good things in Harvey's book are his various discussions of dialectic, especially in his chapter 7, "What Technology Reveals". In this chapter Harvey unpacks Marx's footnote 4 in chapter 15 of Cap., v. 1. I can do no better than quote Harvey. Harvey sees the second part of this footnote as constituting an important statement that requires elaboration--and here you will see how helpful Harvey can be in helping us to approach and gain the work of Marx. He cites Marx's statement: "Technology reveals the active relation of man to nature, the direct process of the production of his life, and thereby it also lays bare the process of the production of the social relations of his life, and of the mental conceptions that flow from those relations." (It seems that one cannot gloss over anything in Marx: one must pay close attention to everything.) Here is part of Harvey's commentary on this quotation.

"Marx here links in one sentence six identifiable conceptual elements. There is, first of all, technology. There is the relation to nature. There is the actual process of production and then, in rather shadowy form, the production and reproduction of daily life. There are social relations and mental conceptions. These elements are plainly not static but in motion, linked through 'processes of production' that guide human evolution. The only element he doesn't explicitly describe in production terms is the relation to nature. Obviously, the relation to nature has been evolving over time. The idea that nature is also something continuously in the course of being produced in part through human action has also been long-standing; in its Marxist version (outlined in chapter 7), it is best represented in my colleague Neil Smith's book UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT, where capitalist processes of production of nature and of space are explicitly theorized.

"How, then, are we to construe the relationships between these six conceptual elements? Though his language is suggestive, Marx leaves the question open, which is unfortunate since it leaves lots of space for all manner of interpretations. Marx is often depicted, by both friends and foes alike, as a technological determinist, who thinks changes in the productive forces dictate the course of human history, including the evolution of social relations, mental conceptions, the relation to nature and the like....

"I do not share this interpretation. I find it inconsistent with Marx's dialectical method (dismissed by analytic philosophers such as Cohen as rubbish). Marx generally eschews causal language (I defy you to find much of it in CAPITAL). In this footnote, he does not say technology 'causes' or 'determines," but that technology 'reveals' or, in another translation, 'discloses' the relation to nature. To be sure, Marx pays a lot of attention to the study of technologies (including organizational forms), but this does not warrant treating them as leading agents in human evolution. What Marx is saying (and plenty of people will disagree with me on this) is that technologies and organizational forms INTERNALIZE a certain relation to nature as well as to mental conceptions and social relations, daily life and labor processes. By virtue of this internalization, the study of technologies and organizational forms is bound to 'reveal' or 'disclose' a great deal about all the other elements. Conversely, all these other elements internalize something of what technology is about. A detailed study of daily life under capitalism will, for example, 'reveal' a great deal about our relation to nature, technologies, social relations, mental conceptions and the labor processes of production. Similarly. the study of our contemporary relation to nature cannot go very far without examining the nature of our social relations, our production systems, our mental conceptions of the world, the technologies deployed and how daily life is conducted. All these elements constitute a totality, and we have to understand how the mutual interactions between them work."

Thus, Harvey. This is a rich book.

More than Worthwhile If Flawed Companion To Marx
Harvey's "Companion," is an excellent presentation of Marx's "Capital" and more than worth the effort to read it side by side with the original. Coupled with, say, Ernst Fischer's, "How To Read Karl Marx," and "Marx for Beginners," it might even a good text to read before plowing into Marx himself. However, the reader should keep in mind that Harvey is a liberal. His Marxism virtually abandons the core of Marx's analysis and philosophy: Revolution. Harvey, after all, makes a baseless call for a "New" New Deal in another recent work. Why? Perhaps because Harvey is weak on the study of imperialism, even though his references to Luxemburg are on point, and he's therefore unable to fully address the necessity of capital's crises (losing wars, financial collapse, etc) and the existing choke points of capital's weaknesses. He suggests that the world's "dispossessed" may be key, perhaps linked to the working classes. That's a pretty easy call, but it misses local realities as in the US, where the working class is de-industrialized, nearly gone, the unions unable to meet the challenges at hand (structural failures, corrupt, incompetent and sold out) while few organizations of the US dispossessed have ever lasted long. Schools are now the central organizing point of life in many nations. In any case, a more careful, Marxist, analysis of concrete conditions would have served Harvey better. Nevertheless, I am happy to have read the work (track the role of commodity fetishism) and am sure any curious reader will be too.

Excellent companion to Marx's Capital, Volume 1
David Harvey is not just one of the world's foremost social and economic geographers, but is also one of the world's foremost Marx interpreters. "A Companion to Marx's Capital" is the book form of a series of lectures on Capital, Volume 1, that he has annually held with his college students and which has famously been made available publicly in video format (he is currently fundraising for volume 2). Because of this, the book is not just only about Volume 1, but it is also written to be as accessible to a general public as possible. Moreover, it seeks only to explain, not to defend. Sometimes, this does lead to trouble - Harvey does not entirely seem to grasp that to explain the way a certain figure thought about a topic also means you have to show what arguments he himself would have used to defend his perspective, and when Harvey tries to substitute his own arguments for those of Marx, they are often not the more convincing for it. The book is somewhat weak on making the entirety seem convincing for that reason, but that is something easily solved by referring to his excellent other work, "The Limits to Capital" (The Limits to Capital (New and updated edition).

That said, the book is a systematic, clear and engaging explanation of the work, built on a chapter-by-chapter approach. Harvey recommends, especially for the difficult and abstract first chapters, to have a copy of Marx's "Capital", Vol. 1, with you while reading it - the Penguin edition is generally recommended (Capital: Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy (Penguin Classics)). This is justified also because Marx himself, as Harvey shows, builds up his argument from chapter to chapter, both in terms of introducing ever new and more complicated concepts building on the old, and in terms of showing bit by bit what the contradictions in capitalism are and how capitalism unfolds as a result. Marx's approach is thoroughly steeped in a dynamic analysis which sees movement as the result of a clash of contradictions, in the tradition of Hegel in particular. Harvey does a deft job of explaining what this is and how it works out in the course of Marx's book.

There are of course points where one can have disagreements with Harvey's explanations, and I think at a few points this is warranted. He fails entirely to point out the actual analytical benefits of a value theory as opposed to just a price theory in his discussion of the chapter on money. Because the 'labor theory of value' is an absolutely essential and inalienable part of Marxist analysis, this is a serious problem. He does not explain the relation between industrial and financial capital very well in the chapter on capital and labor power (which he does do in his other major work). Finally, he does not give Marx's statements on the relation between 'historical and moral factors' as well as productivity to value and its flows the full attention it deserves, although admittedly that would reach fairly far for what is to be a basic introduction.

Nonetheless, overall the book is an excellent companion to the work of Marx, if one actually uses it in that way. Although I am very familiar with Marx's books, I have found that placing the two side by side and tracing the arguments as Harvey presents them through the chapters indeed allows for clear and easy insight into the difficult and often poorly written material to an extent that has helped me newly understand it too. This is no mean feat, and it will make the task of actually getting down and reading Capital, often seen as an impossible burden, all the lighter and easier to do. For this, the book is much recommended and a great contribution to popularizing Marx & Engels' enduring insights into society. For the deeper theoretical work, there are many others available. ... Read more

Product Description
A concise and comprehensive introduction to Marx's social, political and economic thought for the beginning student. Jon Elster surveys in turn each of the main themes of marxist thought: methodology, alienation, economics, exploitation, historical materialism, classes, politics, and ideology; in a final chapter he assesses 'what is living and what is dead in the philosophy of Marx'. The emphasis throughout is on the analytical structure of Marx's arguments and the approach is at once sympathetic, undogmatic, and rigorous. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Elster on Marx
I agree with the reviewer who suggested the title "Elster on Marx" might summarize the contents better than "An Introduction to Karl Marx" if Elster's goal is to introduce Marx to newcomers. But Elster right from the start lays out his point of view (methodological individualism, rational choice theory etc.), and I find no claim to dispassionate objectivity. It has the necessary caveats, and it is an erudite analysis.

Marx is one of history's most fussed-over figures, and I'd prefer to see an introduction to him lay out the data a bit more disinterestedly -- in the first part of the book, anyway -- and in the second part announce, "Now here is where I stand." That is exactly Thomas Sowell's approach in "Marxism: Philosophy and Economics". Plus, between the two authors, Sowell seems to directly quote Marx & Engels twice or three times as much. Now there's novel idea -- Marx on Marx!

If I were making a reading list for a freshman intro course in social science, I'd pick Sowell's book.

Truth in Packaging
An introduction should be just that, an introduction. At the very least, this means that exposition should predominate over commentary. When a work reverses those roles, the result is commentary, not introduction, regardless of title or pretensions to the contrary.This is basic to the genre, and has nothing to do with allegiance on part of writer, reader, or reviewer. The axiom that areader cannot judge intelligently without first understanding what is being judged (in this case Marx) underlies the significance of exposition to an introduction, and speaks to an elementary point that apparently eludes the overzealous reviewer below. Properly understood, Elster's work is commentary, with its own agenda, and scant if any attention to theneeds ofintroduction, let alone a good one. (Notice how Elster's preferredmethodology is given priority of placeand then used to critique what little is presented of Marx's.) I would have no quarrel were the book titled *Elster on Marx* or *Making Sense of Marx*. Nor do I necessarily have a quarrel with those who criticize or revise Marx. But to title a work Introduction and then bury a smattering ofexposition inside a running critique - no matter how worthy or not the commentary - is to do reader and purchaser a disservice. Unfortunately, the book is about Elster, not Marx, and while there are many other introductions that do the job properly, this is not one of them. And, no, Mr. Ver Sluys, this is not about that tiresome chestnut of subservience to Marx - for that, I suggest you check your own effusions on Elster. What it is about is truth in packaging for readers who wish to make up their own minds.

Excellent and worth the dive
Apparently the gentleman below and I have read different books with the same title, because the book I read, "An Introduction to Karl Marx" by Jon Elster, was absolutely nothing like the bookmr. Doepke reviewed.

The book, as far as I can tell with my level of marxian scholarship, is a complete introductoin, and it suffered from none of the failings attributed by it below. Descriptions flowed easily and succintly and I had no trouble understanding them at all. Perhaps this is because I am more of an advanced marx scholar than our other reviewer friend.

But I suspect that the reason mr. Doepke is not happy with this book is because it is a disspasionate consideration of Marxian ideas from a supremely educated man who holds no special religious-kind of attraction to Marx, as so many Marx scholars do.

Let there be no doubt- the disspasionate nature of mr. Elster's analysis of Marx and his contributions is what makes him a rare find. Most all Marx scholars have some kind of agenda in approaching marx, and are colored accordingly (Tom Sowell and Edward Herman, for example).

To his undying credit, Mr. Elster is a leftist who seems to have no agenda in speaking about Marx. Stunningly, he without exception atomizes Marx's main theses and considers them both seperately and as a whole. The result is incisive and dead-on commentary that no other scholar alive has ever even approached, to my knowledge.

What George Orwell did for concretly existing communist governments Jon Elster has done for Marxian theory- a deadly accurate eye methodically slashing through to the real core. I have never found a single scholar that I was not hard pressed to disagree violently with, but Elster manages to leave me without complaint and wondering how I am able to critique the bad points of his books. I am simply unequal to the task of disagreeing with any of Elster's main notions. This is an amazing fact considering we have no ideological common ground. That's how good this man is.

And a last point- unlike most Marx scholars, Elster has a wide range in a vast array of subjects, which makes him interesting to philosophers and economists such as myself in addition to nearly the entire sweep of the social sciences from psychology and sociology on outward.

Buy this book. Elster has no equal.

An introduction to Elster more than Marx
Elster's book serves as a poor introduction to Marx's thought for severalreasons. First, Elster doesn't lay out Marx's specific doctrines in muchdetail, leaving the reader with a mere impression instead of anunderstanding of the theories involved.Much lack of clarity and detailresults from Elster's eagerness to refute specific theories at the sametime he presents them. Moreover his interpretations are consistentlyuncharitable. Combined with little effort at elaborating Marx's theories tomeet the objections, we're left with a pretty partisan result, and one madeparadoxical by Elster's own self-described Marxism.

The impressionthroughout is of superficiality. I suspect much of this superficialityresults from Elster's "methodological individualism" andfashionable reliance on game theory, the current paradigm of rationablebehavior. Small wonder that Elster finds sympathy only in certain Marxianthemes rather than specific results, given Marx's general allegiance toholistic forms of explanation.The book's unsatisfactory nature is almostredeemed by an outstanding chapter on self-realization as Marx's chiefsocial value.The rest of the chapters pale in comparison to this littlegem among the castoffs. ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: France; Biography ... Read more

Product Description
This book offers an original and challenging study of Marx's contact with the visual arts, aesthetic theories, and art policies in nineteenth-century Europe. It differs from previous discussions of Marxist aesthetic theory in looking at Marx's views from an art-historical rather than from a literary perspective, and in placing those views in the context of the art practices, theories, and policies of Marx's own time. Dr Rose begins her work by discussing Marx's planned treatise on Romantic art of 1842 against the background of the philosophical debates, cultural policies, and art practices of the 1840s, and looks in particular at the patronage given to the group of German artists known as the 'Nazarenes' in those years, who are discussed in relation to both the English Pre-Raphaelites, popular in the London known to Marx, and to the Russian Social Realists of the 1860s. The author goes on to consider claims of twentieth-century Marxist art theories and practices to have represented Marx's own views on art. The book the conflicting claims made on Marx's views by the Soviet avant-garde Constructivists of the 1920s and of the Socialist Realists who followed them are considered, and are related back to the aesthetic theories and practices discussed in the earlier chapters. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Marx and Soviet art theory considered
Margaret Rose, a specialist in Heine and German literature in general, has written this work as a simple but effective overview of Marx' views on art and the reception of these views in the (early) Soviet Union.

She discusses Marx' artistic taste and his struggle against the German art school known as the Nazarenes, who were reactionary romantics pining for the idylle of the Middle Ages, which was heavily supported both politically and financially by the Prussian Kings. Heinrich Heine loathed this group and satirized them often, and Bauer and Feuerbach also wrote against them, which influenced the young Marx into making his few theoretical statements on art in opposition to this starry-eyed romanticism. Rose also considers Marx' cryptic comment on Greek art being the youth of mankind, and thereby being attractive to us still, and on the possible interpretations of Marx' view of art in the context of the general development of a society, historically.

Rose makes much use of Saint-Simon's conception of art as an avant-garde, paving the way together with scientists and engineers to create the new world, to contrast it with reflectionist theories of art. The early Soviet art movements such as Constructivism are seen as supporters of a Marxist art view based on the prior idea, whereas Socialist Realism is a clear enforcement of the latter view on art theory. Margaret Rose then concludes that the claims of Socialist Realism to Marx' support are probably not tenable; however, we know too little about what Marx (and Engels for that matter) thought of art theory to be able to produce an alternative view, so the Saint-Simonian seems the most applicable for the time being.

This book is clear and interesting reading for the art theory layman. It comes with many pictures of art works discussed, but unfortunately (possibly because this is a reprint edition) their quality is rather low. It may be useful to look up the art works on the internet or in a book of art instead to get a better view. This book is short and narrow in its subject, but it covers it well and is interesting at all levels of art knowledge. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume contains a selection of Karl Marx's most important writings, organized thematically under eight headings: methodology, alienation, economics, exploitation, historical materialism, classes, politics, and ideology. Jon Elster provides a brief introduction to each selection to explain its context and its place in Marx's argument. The volume is designed as a companion to Elster's An Introduction to Karl Marx and the thematic structure of each book is the same. But the Reader can also stand on its own and offers the student a substantial and revealingly organized selection of the crucial texts needed to understand and assess Marx's views. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

They complement each other...
In reference to Charles' review, I've read both this book and Ritzer's words on Marx.Charles is definitely correct that Ritzer is easier to understand than the Elster edit, but I think the two complement each other.

19th century German academic translations aren't going to be an easy read, however, what Marx said is essentially here.I wouldn't do as I did and try to read the whole text straight though, but it's an excellent text for linking Marx's words to the specific topics he addresses.

The four stars is based on what the text is supposed to be, which is certainly not a contemporary synopsis of Marx's work.

Classic, hard to understand Marx
While it is true that Marx may be one of the harder theorists to understand, this book didn't really give me a better understanding of anything. If you want a good amount of straight Marx text, this is the bookfor you. If you want to understand Marx and learn about his work, I suggestlooking into the introductory texts of George Ritzer. He does a MUCH betterjob a getting Marx across to the reader than anything in this book. ... Read more