In 1861, Marx was dismissed as a correspondent for the New York Tribune, but also undertook a journey to Germany in February 1861 and arrived in Berlin on 18 March, in order to attempt to organise with Lassalle a new radical newspaper in Germany that he could edit (Sperber 2014: 343–344). He visited Trier at this time and saw his mother, but the visit did not go well and she broke off contact (Sperber 2014: 343). Marx arrived back in England in May 1861, but decided not to move back to Germany (Sperber 2014: 346).
Between 1862 and 1864 Marx was once again hit by severe financial problems (Sperber 2014: 347). By 1862 this was so bad that Marx sought a job in a railway company but was turned down for bad handwriting (Sperber 2014: 348).
On 7 January 1863, Engels’ mistress Mary Burns died and Engels was grief-stricken since he was greatly attached to her. Marx, who cared more for his money problems, wrote a money-grubbing letter to Engels as follows:
Dear Engels,Engels was infuriated, and one can see why. It was the worst crisis of Marx and Engels’ friendship (Wheen 2001: 262–263).
The news of Mary’s death surprised no less than it dismayed me. She was so good-natured, witty and closely attached to you.
The devil alone knows why nothing but ill-luck should dog everyone in our circle just now. I no longer know which way to turn either. My attempts to raise money in France and Germany have come to nought, and it might, of course, have been foreseen that £15 couldn’t help me to stem the avalanche for more than a couple of weeks. Aside from the fact that no one will let us have anything on credit — save for the butcher and baker — which will also cease at the end of this week — I am being dunned for the school fees, the rent, and by the whole gang of them. Those who got a few pounds on account cunningly pocketed them, only to fall upon me with redoubled vigour. On top of that, the children have no clothes or shoes in which to go out. In short, all hell is let loose, as I clearly foresaw when I came up to Manchester and despatched my wife to Paris as a last coup de désespoir. If I don’t succeed in raising a largish sum through a loan society or life assurance (and of that I can see no prospect; in the case of the former society I tried everything I could think of, but in vain. They demand guarantors, and want me to produce receipts for rent and rates, which I can’t do), then the household here has barely another two weeks to go.
It is dreadfully selfish of me to tell you about these horreurs at this time. But it’s a homeopathic remedy. One calamity is a distraction from the other. And, au bout du compte, what else can I do? In the whole of London there’s not a single person to whom I can so much as speak my mind, and in my own home I play the silent stoic to counterbalance the outbursts from the other side. It’s becoming virtually impossible to work under such circumstances. Instead of Mary, ought it not to have been my mother, who is in any case a prey to physical ailments and has had her fair share of life ... ? You can see what strange notions come into the heads of ‘civilised men’ under the pressure of certain circumstances.
Salut
Your
K. M.
https://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/marx/works/1863/letters/63_01_08.htm
Marx was only saved by (1) an inheritance of £580 from his mother (who died on 30 November, 1863) and he journeyed to Trier to claim it, and (2) after 9 May, 1864 one from his friend Wilhelm Wolff of £700 (Sperber 2014: 349–350). Marx paid all his debts and in March 1864 moved to 1 Modena Villas in North London (Sperber 2014: 350; Wheen 2001: 266).
From 1863 Marx had severe health problems involving carbuncles, which may have been caused by an autoimmune disease (Sperber 2014: 350–351). He took the Victorian remedy of arsenic but it just poisoned him.
In 1863, Ferdinand Lassalle (1825–1864) created the General German Workers’ Association, but in private Marx was critical of Lassalle mostly because of personal differences (Sperber 2014: 354). After Lassalle was killed in 1864 Marx declined to take over leadership of the party.
From 28 September 1864, Marx was involved with the International Workingmen’s Association or the First International (1864–1876), which was founded in a workmen’s meeting held in Saint Martin’s Hall, London (Sperber 2014: 355). The First International was not a purely Marxist organisation by any means, but a loose association of different socialist, communist and working class movements. The core of the First International was a group of 23 English trade unions (Sperber 2014: 355).
Marx was only one of the 20–25 members of the General Council of the First International but exerted a considerable influence behind the scenes (Sperber 2014: 360). The Council met most Tuesdays on Greek Street, Soho (Wheen 2001: 280).
In Germany, however, the General German Workers’ Association refused to join the First International and Marx lost influence in Germany (Sperber 2014: 364). It was only in 1869 that the newly-formed Social Democratic Labour Party led by Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel affiliated itself with the First International (Sperber 2014: 369).
In 1865, Marx’s work on the first volume of Capital was interrupted by one of his many episodes of bad health (Wheen 2001: 290), and he was able to finally publish it in 1867.
After Engels’ father died in March 1860 Engels became a partner in Ermen & Engels and sold his interest in the business in 1868 with enough money to retire on, and Marx received £350 a year from this point, which gave him a reasonable financial security (Sperber 2014: 370, 484). Engels also moved to London in 1870 (Wheen 2001: 280), and lived with Lydia “Lizzie” Burns, Mary Burns’s sister.
Marx published volume 1 of Capital in German in 1867, but there were a number of drafts of Capital and other manuscripts in these years as follows:
(1) Marx, Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie (Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy), manuscript, 1857–1858.There was no real response to the first edition of Capital in 1867 in England, though in Germany it did have some limited interest. Werner Sombart, a younger German Historical School economist, briefly had admiration for Marx, but other Historical School economists like Hermann Roesler had serious criticisms (Sperber 2014: 457, 458; Wheen 2001: 312). Marx and Engels had to arrange for anonymous reviews in Germany in their desperation to attract attention to Capital (Sperber 2014: 458).
About 800 manuscript pages by Marx on political economy which were not even published until 1939 (Wheen 2001: 227). This formed the basis of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859) (Sperber 2014: 421).
(2) Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859).
This was Marx’s initial, long-awaited work on political economy, but was a great disappointment to most of his followers (Wheen 2001: 237–238). Much of it was incorporated into the first volume of Capital.
(3) Manuscript of 1861–1863
A large manuscript of 1,500 pages (Wheen 2001: 258) which included Marx’s analysis of the history of economy thought which later appeared as Theories of Surplus Value.
(4) First Draft of Capital:
Manuscript of 1863–1865
A first draft of Capital. Marx took the first 40% and revised it and published the first German edition of Capital from it in 1867 (Sperber 2014: 421).
(5) volume 1 of Capital in German published in a first edition of 1867.
(6) Second Draft of Capital:
Manuscript II for Book II (1868–1870)
Manuscripts for Books II and III (1867–1871)
(7) volume 1 of Capital in German published in a second edition of 1872–1873 and volume 1 of Capital in a French translation (1872–1875)
There were a number of changes to and corrections of the first German edition in these editions.
(8) third Draft of Capital:
Manuscripts for Book III (1874–1878)
Manuscripts for Book II (1877–1881)
(9) Theories of Surplus Value, part of the Manuscript of 1861–1863 but which was first published in 1905–1910 and which is considered Volume 4 of Capital.
Michael Heinrich, 2013. “Crisis Theory, the Law of the Tendency of the Profit Rate to Fall, and Marx’s Studies in the 1870s,” Monthly Review 64.11 (April).
Importantly, the first English translation of volume 1 of Capital only appeared in 1887 after Marx’s death in this edition:
Marx, Karl. 1887. Capital. A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production. Volume I (trans. from 3rd German edn. by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling). Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co., London.When Marx died in 1883 the vast majority of his proposed work in political economy was unpublished (Sperber 2014: 421).
As Sperber (2014: 388–389) points out, Marx’s Capital was very much a development of pessimistic Ricardian economics, and adopted the labour theory of value from Classical economics (Sperber 2014: 419). Marx thought that Capital was the best and highest form of Classical economics (Sperber 2014: 462). In that respect, Marx was not such a radical in economics while Classical Political Economy was the dominant school of thought in the mid-19th century. With the marginal revolution of the 1870s, however, Marx’s ideas already seemed obsolete to neoclassical economists of the 1890s (Sperber 2014: 461–462).
While Engels by his last years was clearly a positivist (Sperber 2014: 415), Marx’s attitude to empiricism/positivism in Capital and in his general thinking was contradictory: on the one hand he was willing to accept the empirical discoveries of late 19th century science where these seemed to support his worldview (such as Darwinism), but persisted in a Hegelian habit of dismissing empirical realities in economic life as mere “surface” phenomena to be understood by a mysterious hidden inner logic, inner connections, or secret form (Sperber 2014: 391–409, 414, 425). This Hegelian method is evident in Capital and is plainly anti-scientific and a serious methodological flaw in the work. Marx, then, remained halfway along a line from Hegelian philosophy to modern positivism (Sperber 2014: 417–418).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sperber, Jonathan. 2014. Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life. Liveright Publishing Corporation, New York.
Wheen, Francis. 2001. Karl Marx: A Life. W. W. Norton & Company, New York and London.
I think you should read the sections in this book on the labour theory of value. They are very interesting: chapters 1, 2, 3.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mutualist.org/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/MPE.pdf
(I don't think you read it last time I posted it).
While Engels by his last years was clearly a positivist
ReplyDeleteInteresting. Can you substantiate that for those of us who don't own Sperber's book?
Marx’s attitude to empiricism/positivism in Capital and in his general thinking was contradictory: on the one hand he was willing to accept the empirical discoveries of late 19th century science where these seemed to support his worldview (such as Darwinism), but persisted in a Hegelian habit of dismissing empirical realities in economic life as mere “surface” phenomena to be understood by a mysterious hidden inner logic, inner connections, or secret form
That's not contradictory at all; all of that is consistent with the scientific realist project, which holds that there is an objective reality and it is knowable, but that the structures and mechanisms underlying empirical reality may not be obvious, calling for an inquiry more involved and retroductive than mere naive empiricism. I've even suggested some contemporary philosophers of science who illustrate precisely this commitment to ontology, including one author who appears fully six times (seven if you count the Fullbrook book *about* him) in your bibliography on Post Keynesian methodology.
This Hegelian method is evident in Capital and is plainly anti-scientific and a serious methodological flaw in the work.
Ugh. No, that's "plainly" wrong. Let me spell it out with an example: If you take someone to task for a spurious correlation, reminding them that "correlation does not equal causation," the congratulations, you've just urged someone to look past a "surface" phenomenon. On the other hand, if correlation is "good enough" for you, and you bill underlying causes as secondary in importance to prediction, then you Might Be a Positivist.
The fact that Marx uses a developed from of Hegel's dialectical logic in Capital is acknowledged by everyone, and even Marx ("All science would be superfluous if the outward appearance and the essence of things directly coincided").
DeleteBasically you are trying to tell me that Marx was not influenced by mystical a priori Hegelianism in this method. Pathetic.
To recap:
Delete(1) State some common knowledge
(1a) Use a quote that doesn't make the point you hope it will. (That sentiment is actually quite general; do you disagree with it?)
(2) Act like either I didn't know (1) or otherwise would dispute it (perhaps dishonestly?)
(3) End with cheap, dismissive abuse.
This might as well be the ur-LK post. Also, from now on when you fail to answer my questions, I will take that to mean "No, I cannot answer that." It's simpler, less frustrating, and eminently plausible.
Of course Hegel was one of Marx's biggest influences, and he famously sought to refit dialectics into a materialist framework. However, this is not to say Hegel was unscientific. As nice and tidy a narrative as it would be if all materialists were scientific and all idealists were unscientific, reality has proven that one's metaphysical orientation is no predictor of scientific prowess. If you want us to take as a starting point the notion that Hegel stood in any way against the enterprise of science, you'd need to, y'know, actually forward an argument to that effect. Ironically, the only "a priori" in evidence is your pat dismissal.
You're sort of a "hammer" in your thinking, looking for simple nails to bang on ("mystical!" "metaphysical!" "dogmatic!"). Unfortunately, as you move into more complex topics, you won't find many tacks so straight that you can drive them home in your characteristic fashion without doing violence to the subject.
The argument for labour value (= the hidden essence) being the common measure of the value of commodities in an (allegedly) equal exchange (= surface phenomenon) is shot through with the kind of Hegelian dialectics I refer to right in the first chapter of Capital and also later:
Deletein the midst of the accidental and ever-fluctuating exchange relations between the products, the labour-time socially necessary to produce them asserts itself as a regulative law of nature. In the same way, the law of gravity asserts itself when a person’s house collapses on top of him. The determination of the magnitude of value by labour-time is therefore a secret hidden under the apparent movements in the relative values of commodities.” (Marx 1982: 168).
Yet there is not a shred of empirical evidence that a LTV explains exchange prices or money prices of goods. Marx's argument is flawed a priori mysticism via a materialist reading of Hegel.
You even admit that you think the LTV doesn't even explain any individual exchange values or prices of commodities (actually the worst admission of all).
All in all, you have just confirmed how anti-scientific, comically irrational and how far from a reasonable modern empiricist method you Marxist True Believers are.
Though it's something Hegel grasped, the notion that the structure of reality is not the same thing as its appearance is not unique to Hegelian thought. Sorry you're having difficulty with this. Apparently you've never personally encountered a case in which the way something appears is anything but exactly the essence of the thing? I suppose you believe when you drop a pencil into a half-filled glass of water, it actually splits in half? Do you think Einstein's Cross consists of exactly five astronomical objects?
DeleteSpeaking of appearance and reality being at odds: You've stated numerous times that you identify as a scientific realist. I really think you should revisit this, because you are all too keen to bash its tenets the moment they are expressed by someone you feel ideologically compelled to oppose.
Yet there is not a shred of empirical evidence that a LTV explains exchange prices or money prices of goods.
It explains them very well. It doesn't predict them well. Please get it straight.
Marx's argument is flawed a priori mysticism via a materialist reading of Hegel.
Still waiting on any argument here (as with nearly all of my requests of you). As usual, you're short on content and long on silly assertions. Yawn.
You even admit that you think the LTV doesn't even explain any individual exchange values or prices of commodities (actually the worst admission of all).
I'm getting very tired of clarifying and re-clarifying all the while suffering your childish abuse. You are really struggling with the basics, even still. I have stated that value and price rarely coincide in an individual commodity, which is not the same thing as "Marx's political economy cannot explain a given price." Labor values are not the sole determinant of an individual price, but there's more to the classical political economy Marx used than just labor values. Once again, nuance appears to be a futile enterprise, with you.
But hey, please keep laughing it up as you continue to bloviate in the most arrogant fashion about things you don't understand. Honest readers can take stock of whom among us ducks straightforward questions, leans on baseless assertion, lies outright, etc, and decide for themselves who's "irrational."
Yet there is not a shred of empirical evidence that a LTV explains exchange prices or money prices of goods.
DeleteIt explains them very well.
This is a massive volte face.
Care to give me just one example of a real world commodity price which is equal to (alleged) socially necessary labour time?
Marx's political economy consists of quite a lot more than just the concept of labor value. By conflating the value theory with Marxian economics on the whole (including the classical political economy he employed and so on), you're missing the point and cheapening the discussion. Value theory is the beating heart of the operation, but it's not the whole political economy. The complete set of tools in question is an excellent starting point for explaining all manner of economic phenomena, including prices.
DeleteAs for your request, I've already been over this, too. If I were to draw a parallel between value/price and mass/weight, you'd basically be asking me to illustrate that some rocks happen to reside exactly at sea level. Given sufficient resources, one could, but what on earth do you think it would prove?
I bet there's probably people in the USA who earn in a year exactly the average US citizen's income. Does that prove the existence of GDP?
I hope this gives you a sense of how what you're asking is a complete non sequitur. Of course, in retrospect, perhaps I should have just ignored your question outright, since you've demonstrated you believe that is an a-ok thing to do.