Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy ( Rough Draft of 1857- 58) [ First Instalment]
Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy ( Rough Draft of 1857- 58) [ First Instalment][22]
Endnotes
[22] This is the most important of Marx's Economic Manuscripts of 1857-58. Comprising seven large notebooks, numbered by Marx I-VII, it is the first rough draft of the future Capital. On the cover of the last, seventh notebook Marx wrote in English "Political Economy, Criticism of" and, in German, "Fortsetzung (Continuation)". This means that Notebook VII forms the continuation to the preceding six notebooks and that Marx did not consider it as the concluding one. It also implies that the words "Political Economy, Criticism of" can be regarded as the main title of the whole draft manuscript. In his letter to Engels of November 29, 1858, Marx refers to his economic manuscript of 1857-58 as a "Rohentwurf (Rough Draft)". Unfinished and breaking off in mid-sentence, it is indeed a rough draft. In a letter to Engels of May 31, 1858, Marx wrote that the manuscript was "a real hotchpotch, much of it intended for much later sections" (see present edition, Vol. 40, p. 318). The manuscript begins with Chapter II, entitled "Chapter on Money", which is followed by the long third chapter, "Chapter on Capital". On the last page of the manuscript Marx jotted down the beginning of the missing first chapter (see present edition, Vol. 29). 20-852 Work on the manuscript apparently began at the end of 1857, as Marx's quoting, in Notebook I (p. 46), of a passage from the Weekly Dispatch of November 8, 1857 (this volume, p. 148) seems to suggest. The possibility is not ruled out, however, that he began this work earlier, but interrupted it for a long time. Marx's letter to Engels of January 10, 1857, (see present edition, Vol. 40, p. 90) containing a brief analysis of Darimon's book, and the references to The Economist of January 24, 1857, and The Morning Star of February 12, 1857, on p. 18 of the manuscript (this volume, pp. 89 and 90) might be seen as pointing in this direction. At any rate, the concluding part of Notebook I could not have been written before November 8, 1857. This edition reproduces the component parts of the economic manuscript of 1857-58 in the order given by Marx. Exceedingly long paragraphs have been broken up into shorter ones. A few passages plainly intended as addenda to earlier parts of the text have been shifted. Where Marx, in quoting, gives references to pages of his notebooks of excerpts, these have been supplemented, in brackets, with references to the pages in the editions used by Marx. Where he merely gives the authors' names, the titles of the quoted works have been supplied (in the text or in footnotes). This manuscript was first published in full in Karl Marx, Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Oekonomie (Rohentwurf). 1857-1858, Moscow, 1939-41 (reproduced by Dietz Verlag, Berlin, in 1953). In English, the manuscript was published in full in Karl Marx, Grundrisse. Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft). Translated with a Foreword by Martin Nicolaus. Penguin Books in association with New Left Review. London, 1973. Individual excerpts were published earlier in Marx's Grundrisse by David McLellan, Macmillan Press Ltd., London, 1971. A part from the "Chapter on Capital", Section Two, "Circulation Process of Capital" (pp. 399-439 in this volume) was published as a separate book under the title: Karl Marx, Pre-capitalist Economic Formations. Translated by Jack Cohen, edited and with an Introduction by E. J. Hobsbawm. London, 1964.—49