Prefaces to editions
The work, the first volume of which I now submit to the public, forms the continuation of my £ur Kritik der Politischen Oekonomie {A Contribution to the Criticism of Political Economy) published in 1859. The long pause between the first part and the continuation is due to an illness of many years' duration that again and again interrupted my work.
The substance of that earlier work is summarised in the first three chapters of this volume." This is done not merely for the sake of connection and completeness. The presentation of the subject-matter is improved. As far as circumstances in any way permit, many points only hinted at in the earlier book are here worked out more fully, whilst, conversely, points worked out fully there are only touched upon in this volume. The sections on the history of the theories of value and of money are now, of course, left out altogether.[2] The reader of the earlier work will find, however, in the notes to the first chapter additional sources of reference relative to the history of those theories.
Every beginning is difficult, holds in all sciences. To understand the first chapter, especially the section that contains the analysis of commodities, will, therefore, present the greatest difficulty. That which concerns more especially the analysis of the substance of value and the magnitude of value, I have, as much as it was possible, popu-larised.[1]' The value form, whose fully developed shape is the money form, is very elementary and simple. Nevertheless, the human mind has for more than 2,000 years sought in vain to get to the bottom of it, whilst on the other hand, to the successful analysis of much more composite and complex forms, there has been at least an approximation. Why? Because the body, as an organic whole, is more easy of study than are the cells of that body. In the analysis of economic forms, moreover, neither microscopes nor chemical reagents are of use. The force of abstraction must replace both. But in bourgeois society the commodity form of the product of labour — or the value form of the commodity — is the economic cell form. To the superficial observer, the analysis of these forms seems to turn upon minutiae. It does in fact deal with minutiae, but they are of the same order as those dealt with in microscopic anatomy.
With the exception of the section on value form, therefore, this volume cannot stand accused on the score of difficulty. I presuppose, of course, a reader who is willing to learn something new and therefore to think for himself.
The physicist either observes physical phenomena where they occur in their most typical form and most free from disturbing influence, or, wherever possible, he makes experiments under conditions that assure the occurrence of the phenomenon in its normality. In this work I have to examine the capitalist mode of production, and the conditions of production and exchange corresponding to that mode. Up to the present time, their classic ground is England. That is the reason why England is used as the chief illustration in the development of my theoretical ideas. If, however, the German reader shrugs his shoulders at the condition of the English industrial and agricultural labourers, or in optimist fashion comforts himself with the thought that in Germany things are not nearly so bad, I must plainly tell him, "De te fabula narraturf" +
'' This is the more necessary, as even the section of Ferdinand Lassalle's work against Schulze-Delitzsch, in which he professes to give "the intellectual quintessence" of my explanations on these subjects, contains important mistakes.[3] If Ferdinand Lassalle has borrowed almost literally from my writings, and without any acknowledgement, all the general theoretical propositions in his economic works, e. g., those on the historical character of capital, on the connection between the conditions of production and the mode of production, &c, &c, even [down] to the terminology created by me, this may perhaps be due to purposes of propaganda. I am here, of course, not speaking of his detailed working out and application of these propositions, with which I have nothing to do.
Intrinsically, it is not a question of the higher or lower degree of development of the social antagonisms that result from the natural laws of capitalist production. It is a question of these laws themselves, of these tendencies working with iron necessity towards inevitable results. The country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future.
But apart from this. Where capitalist production is fully natural-ised among the Germans (for instance, in the factories proper) the condition of things is much worse than in England, because the coun-terpoise of the Factory Acts is wanting. In all other spheres, we, like all the rest of Continental Western Europe, suffer not only from the development of capitalist production, but also from the incomplete-ness of that development. Alongside of modern evils, a whole series of inherited evils oppress us, arising from the passive survival of antiquated modes of production, with their inevitable train of social and political anachronisms. We suffer not only from the living, but from the dead. Le mort saisit le vif! [5]
The social statistics of Germany and the rest of Continental Western Europe are, in comparison with those of England, wretchedly compiled. But they raise the veil just enough to let us catch a glimpse of the Medusa head behind it. We should be appalled at the state of things at home, if, as in England, our governments and parliaments appointed periodically commissions of inquiry into economic conditions; if these commissions were armed with the same plenary powers to get at the truth; if it was possible to find for this purpose men as competent, as free from partisanship and respect of persons as are the English factory inspectors, her medical reporters on public health, her commissioners of inquiry into the exploitation of women and children, into housing and food. Perseus wore a magic cap that the monsters he hunted down might not see him. We draw the magic cap down over eyes and ears as a make-believe that there are no monsters.
Let us not deceive ourselves on this. As in the 18th century, the American War of Independence[6] sounded the tocsin for the European middle class, so in the 19th century, the American Civil War [7]
sounded it for the European working class. In England the progress of social disintegration is palpable. When it has reached a certain point, it must re-act on the Continent. There it will take a form more brutal or more humane, according to the degree of development of the working class itself. Apart from higher motives, therefore, their own most important interests dictate to the classes that are for the nonce Preface to the First German Edition
the ruling ones, the removal of all legally removable hindrances to the free development of the working class. For this reason, as well as others, I have given so large a space in this volume to the history, the details, and the results of English factory legislation. One nation can and should learn from others. And even when a society has got upon the right track for the discovery of the natural laws of its movement— and it is the ultimate aim of this work, to lay bare the economic law of motion of modern society — it can neither clear by bold leaps, nor remove by legal enactments, the obstacles offered by the successive phases of its normal development. But it can shorten and lessen the birth-pangs.
To prevent possible misunderstanding, a word. I paint the capitalist and the landlord in no sense couleur de rose. But here individuals are dealt with only in so far as they are the personifications of economic categories, embodiments of particular class relations and class interests. My standpoint, from which the evolution of the economic formation of society is viewed as a process of natural history, can less than any other make the individual responsible for relations whose creature he socially remains, however much he may subjectively raise himself above them.
In the domain of political economy, free scientific inquiry meets not merely the same enemies as in all other domains. The peculiar nature of the material it deals with, summons as foes into the field of battle the most violent, mean and malignant passions of the human breast, the Furies of private interest. The English Established Church, e. g., will more readily pardon an attack on 38 of its 39 articles [8] than on 35 of its income. Now-a-days atheism itself is culpa levis,* as compared with criticism of existing property relations. Nevertheless, there is an unmistakable advance. I refer, e.g., to the Blue Book[9]
published within the last few weeks: "Correspondence with Her Majesty's Missions Abroad, regarding Industrial Questions and Trades' Unions". The representatives of the English Crown in foreign countries there declare in so many words that in Germany, in France, to be brief, in all the civilised states of the European Continent, a radical change in the existing relations between capital and labour is as evident and inevitable as in England. At the same time, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Mr. Wade, vice-president of the United States-a venial sin declared in public meetings that, after the abolition of slavery, a radical change of the relations of capital and of property in land is next upon the order of the day. These are signs of the times, not to be hidden by purple mantles or black cassocks.[10] They do not signify that tomorrow a miracle will happen. They show that, within the ruling classes themselves, a foreboding is dawning, that the present society is no solid crystal, but an organism capable of change, and is constantly changing.
The second volume of this work will treat of the process of the circulation of capital[1]' (Book II), and of the varied forms assumed by capital in the course of its development (Book III), the third and last volume (Book IV), the history of the theory.[11]
Every opinion based on scientific criticism I welcome. As to the prejudices of so-called public opinion, to which I have never made concessions, now as aforetime the maxim of the great Florentine is mine:
"Segui il tuo cor so, e lascia dir le genti." [12]
London, July 25, 1867 Karl Marx
"i On p. 564 the author explains what he comprises under this head.
Endnotes
[2] Marx is referring to the sections "Historical Notes on the Analysis of Commodities" and "Theories of the Medium of Circulation and of Money" in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Part One (present edition, Vol. 29, pp. 292-302, 389-417), which he later abandoned as he intended to prepare a special historico-critical concluding volume of Capital (see Note 1).— 7, 532
[3] A reference to Lassalle's work Herr Bastiat-Schulze von Delitzsch der ökonomische Julian, oder: Capital und Arbeit, Berlin, 1864, Drittes Kapitel: "III. Tausch, Werth und freie Concurrenz", especially p. 149.— 8
[5] Le mort saisit le vif, son hoir le plus proche et habile à lui succéder (The dead holds the living in his grasp...) — a formula of the French common law.— 9
[6] The American War of Independence (1775-1783) — a revolutionary war fought by 13 British colonies in North America. As a result of their victory an independent state was formed, the United States of America. This war had a great impact on the development of the European revolutionary-democratic movement, in particular on the French revolution of the end of the 18th century.—9, 748
[7] The Civil War in America broke out in April 1861 and ended in April 1865. It was a war of the North against the Confederacy of the Southern States. The decisive role in the victory of the North in April 1865 was played by the workers and farmers. The international democratic public and the international working-class movement sympathised with and gave all possible support to the position of the Northern States.—9, 207, 262, 398, 540, 720, 760
[8] The Established Church — the state national church in England, the Church of England. The Thirty-Nine Articles, which enunciated the articles of faith of the Church of England, were worked out during the reign of Elizabeth I (1558-1603) and approved by the British Parliament in 1571.— 10
[9] Blue-Books — periodical collections of documents of the British Parliament and Foreign Office, thus called because of the colour of the paper and the cover. The first were published in the 17th century.—10, 29, 30, 260, 498, 670
[10] See N. Lenau's poem "Die Albigenser".— 11
[11] 1 ' The plan outlined here was not realised by Marx. The work referred to here as Book II, was published by Engels as Volume II of Capital (1885) after Marx's death, and Book III as Volume III of Capital (1894). Book IV was not published in Marx's or Engels' lifetime. See also Note 2.— 11, 565
[12] "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti" ("Follow your own course, and let people talk") — Marx paraphrased Dante's words from the Divine Comedy ("Purgatory", Canto V, line 13): "Vien di retro a me..." ("Follow me...").— 11
[1] Capital—Marx's major work to which he devoted four decades (from the early 1840s till the end of his life). Marx started studying political economy at the end of 1843 in Paris. His aim was to write a treatise containing a critical analysis of political economy. As a result of his research in this field appeared such works as the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, The German Ideology, The Poverty of Philosophy, Wage Labour and Capital, Manifesto of the Communist Party and others. After an interval caused by the 1848-49 revolution, Marx continued his economic studies in London, where he lived as a refugee from August 1849. Here he studied the works of different economists, the history of economic development and the economics of his time in various countries, especially in England which was then a classic example of a capitalist country. He investigated theories of money, credit and the causes of economic crises, the history of landownership and the theory of ground rent, the socio-economic condition of the working class and questions of population, the history of technology and other problems. -By 1857 he had completed his enormous preparatory work and then proceeded to the final stage — the systématisation and generalisation of the collected material. From January 1857 to June 1858, Marx wrote a manuscript containing 50 signatures, which was, in fact, the first rough draft of Capital. In the present edition it was published in vols 28 and 29. At first Marx intended to publish his work in separate instalments, and the first instalment, as he wrote, "should form a relative whole" (see present edition, Vol. 40, p. 287), which embraces only the first section of Book I — the section consisting of 3 chapters: 1) The Commodity; 2) Money or Simple Circulation and 3) Capital. However, the final variant of the first instalment — A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy — does not contain the third chapter. Marx wrote the chapter on commodity especially. He wrote the chapter on money for "the first instalment" on the basis of the manuscript of 1857-58. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Part One was published in 1859 (present edition, Vol. 29). It was to be followed by "the second instalment", i. e. by the chapter on capital. However, soon afterwards, Marx had to postpone this work for a year and a half as he was occupied in writing the pamphlet Herr Vogt (present edition, Vol. 17) and in other urgent matters. Only in August 1861, did he begin work on "the second instalment". By the middle of 1863, he had written a new rough draft which was considerably longer than the manuscript of 1857-58 — 23 notebooks, having a total volume of about 200 signatures. The complete manuscript of 1861-63, which is considered to be the second rough draft of Capital, is reproduced in vols 30-34 of the present edition. Later on Marx decided to divide the theoretical part of the work on capital into 3 parts. The historico-critical section was to be the fourth and concluding part, and was to be based on the part of the 1861-63 manuscript entitled "Theories of Surplus Value". In his letter to Kugelmann dated October 13, 1866, Marx writes, "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" (see present edition, Vol. 42, p. 328). Marx also gave up his plan to publish the work in separate instalments and decided first to complete the whole work and then to publish it. Marx continued his work, concentrating mainly on those parts that were not sufficiently elaborated in the 1861-63 manuscript. He studied an enormous quantity of economic and technical literature, including books on agriculture, on credit and money and turnover. He also studied statistical material, various parliamentary documents, official reports on child labour in industry, on housing conditions of the British working class, etc. Marx then wrote a new manuscript (from August 1863 to the end of 1865), which constituted a more detailed variant of the three theoretical volumes of Capital. Only after the whole work was completed (January 1866), did Marx begin preparing it for the press, having decided, on Engels' advice, not to prepare the whole work but only Volume I of Capital. The final touches were made by Marx with great thoroughness and, in fact, became yet another recasting of Volume I of Capital as a whole. To ensure the integrity, completeness and clarity of the exposition, Marx thought it necessary to reproduce in a comparatively short form the major problems dealt with in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (published in 1859) at the beginning of Volume I of Capital—they now constitute the whole of the first part "Commodities and Money" (in the first edition which was not yet subdivided into parts the first chapter bore this title). After the publication of Volume I of Capital (September 1867), Marx continued work on it in preparation for publication in German and translation into foreign lan-guages. For the second edition (1872) he made more subdivisions and also a lot of changes in the text (see this volume, pp. 12-13), gave important instructions for the Russian edition, published in Petersburg in 1872 and the first foreign translation of Capital, once more changed the book's structure and thoroughly edited the French edition (1872-75). Marx intended to take into consideration most of the changes made in the French edition when preparing the third German edition of Volume I. At the same time, after the publication of Volume I of Capital Marx continued his work on the subsequent volumes, intending to finish the whole edition as soon as possible. However, he was unable to do so. A lot of time was taken up by his activities in the General Council of the First International, and his work was increasingly hampered by poor health. After Marx's death, Engels finished preparing the third (1883) German edition of Volume I of Capital for press, which was taken as the basis for the translation into English made by Samuel Moore and Eduard Aveling and edited by Engels (1887).— 1,311