Marx Among the Classics. (1930)

From the April 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

An “expert” writes an introduction. 

At last the first volume of Marx’s great work on Capitalist Production has been brought within easy reach of the workers’ pockets.

Forty-three years ago the first English translation appeared in two volumes, but the price put it beyond the average worker’s means.

Few workers, unfortunately, were interested in studying Marx in those days, and when later on the publishers, Swan, Sonnerschein & Co., became a limited company they sold the copyright of Marx’s “Capital” to a firm, who issued it as a publishers remainder. The same type was continually used to print from until it became impossible to print again, unless the work was reset in new type.

The translation, however, was a good one. Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling had performed a creditable task, and Frederick Engels, the co-worker of Marx, revised the work on completion.

When the sheets printed from the old type had been used up, the copyright holders would not go to the expense of setting-up the book again, and so “Capital” was no longer published in this country.

Last year, Swan Sonnerschein’s successors, Allen and Unwin, Ltd., went to the expense of having “Capital” translated afresh, and published in a well-printed volume at 12s. 6d. Eden and Cedar Paul made a very readable translation, and a copy was sent by the translators to our late comrade, J. Fitzgerald, for review. This appeared in the Socialist Standard last year. The price, however, was still too high for the worker.

This, we are pleased to say, has now been remedied. “Capital” has been included in the Everyman Library (translated by E. and C. Paul), among the great classics of literature, science, philosophy. The great volume on Capitalist Production is now to be had in two volumes at 2s. each. The size is a handy one, and will easily fit into the pocket. The print is good, and the general get-up makes it a credit to those responsible.

For years Marx’s work was treated with a “conspiracy of silence.” Economic development, with its effects on the workers, was, however, on Marx’s side, and so more and more workers became interested in reading and studying “Capital,” in order to understand the inner workings of the system and the nature of its Economics. The “conspiracy of silence” has gone to a large extent, and now practically every bookstall and bookshop will have “Marx” on sale.

The “expert” introduces Marx.

The reader of this new edition will be astounded to find that it contains an introduction by G. D. H. Cole, which is not an introduction to Marx’s work at all.

Mr. Cole, who was a Fabian, Guild Socialist, and Labour Party propagandist, is now a member of the Government’s Economic Advisory Council. He has never been a supporter of Marx’s economic ideas, and his introduction shows he has not understood them. Why did the publishers get Mr. Cole to write the foreword, seeing that he holds that the Marxian theory of value is “not worth preserving to-day “? No evidence whatever is brought against the correctness of the labour theory of value as explained by Marx.

A new “materialism”

On page xviii, Mr. Cole “explains” the materialist conception of history as follows : “Marx’s materialism is not materialistic in the sense that it excludes the action of mind, but only that it seeks its reality in this world of men and things, and not in any universe of ideas transcending this world and its limitations.” Any student of Marx will see that Mr. Coles’ “wide” definition is not a definition of Marx’s historical materialism at all. In fact, any idealist, positivist, or other believer in ideal forces can agree with Cole, and be entirely opposed to the view that material conditions are the real foundations of social change.

Marx's contribution.

Mr. Cole says : “There is nothing specifically Marxian about Marx’s theory of value; what is novel is the use to which he puts the theory, and not the theory itself.”

In actual fact, Marx took the labour theory of Adam Smith, Ricardo, etc., (the implications of which had not been seen by them), clarified it, applied it to the commodity labour-power, and related it to an exhaustive analysis of the actual labour process under Capitalism.

Wherever a previous Economist had made a similar point to Marx credit was always given, but Marx’s work teems with criticism of the fathers of political economy. In the “Histories of Surplus Value,” by Marx, edited by Karl Kautsky, there is a storehouse of information, showing the limitations of Adam Smith and his school of thought.

On page 22 Mr. Cole writes as though Marx accepted the “Iron Law of Wages,” of Ricardo, etc., which was a mixture of Malthus’ overpopulation theory with economics. Marx specifically rejected this so-called law of wages, together with the false laws of population of Malthus.

The cream of Mr. Cole’s pedantic introduction is his statement that “it is fully possible to hold the theory of Surplus Value without holding the Labour theory of Value, on which superficially it appears to depend ” (page xxiii).

Marx’s theory of Surplus Value is simply the logical result of the theory of value. Without the value theory there is no basis in Economics for surplus value.

Unless socially necessary labour time is the measure of value, there is no evidence of surplus value. The difference between the value of labour power, bought by the capitalist, and the value produced by that same labour power—that is surplus value.

What is the new theory of value?

Among the many statements of Mr. Cole’s to prejudice, mystify or confuse the reader of “Capital” is this : “By all economists, save the Marxists, the Labour theory has long been discarded.” This would imply that another theory has taken its place. What is the new theory which has replaced Marx?

The entire information we get from Mr. Cole is this. “All modern theories—if we may still leave the Marxists aside for the moment—are very far removed from the ‘amount of labour’ theory which Marx took over from Ricardo and McCulloch.

“How, then, does it happen that the Marxists have gone on for quite half a century re-affirming Marx’s views, and wholly unshaken by all the criticism that orthodox economists have been able to bring against them?”

What have these criticisms been? One economist, the father of the entire modern capitalist school, Bohm Bawerk, said that Marx ignored scarcity as a factor in value. Actually Marx had dealt with the scarcity factor in the first few pages of “Capital.” The other capitalist “economists” of note, Jevons, Marshall, Seligman, etc., took refuge in supply and demand, as their answer to Marx, but as supply and demand only accounted for fluctuations, the central point around which variations took place was still left unexplained.

“Final Utility” and “Marginal Utility” were the modern theories of supply and demand which evaded the determinant of value.

Did Marx give up his theory of value?

Mr. Cole does not tell us where Marx’s theory of Value is wrong. He resorts to an old device of stating that in the third volume (Capitalist Production as a whole), Marx admitted that values of articles do not coincide with prices.

Readers of Engels’ Preface to the second volume of “Capital” will be familiar with this argument. Engels challenged the critics of Marx to do something neither Ricardo or his followers could accomplish— to explain how the rates of profits in the various industries are equalised on the basis of the law of value.

Engels told the economic writers that the answer would be given in the third volume of “Capital.” It was. And the problem which proved insoluble to Ricardo was solved.

Mr. Cole may claim that the Labour theory of value has been given up by Marx because he agreed that market prices did not agree with the value of articles sold. Mr. Cole has not dealt with Marx’s explanation and, therefore, in spite of all the critics who have come and gone, Marx’s theory of value still remains to be answered.

On the question of value and prices we will quote from one who studied Marx’s economics, and wrote the best popular guide to Marxian Economics which has been published—Karl Kautsky’s “The Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx.”

“The opponents of the Marxian theory of value are fond of asserting that Marx himself threw overboard his own theory, which he developed in the first volume of “Capital,” in the third volume, in which he demonstrates that, in consequence of the tendency towards an equalisation of profits under developed capitalise commodity production, the prices of most commodities permanently deviate from their values, inasmuch as the prices of one half of these commodities are permanently as much below their values as those of the other half are above them. But Marx would have thrown overboard his theory of value only if he had contended that prices are independent of their values. Far from doing this, the third volume of “Capital” proves rather that production prices, about which market prices oscillate, remain in complete dependence upon the law of value, without which they cannot be explained. It is precisely the factor of the average profit, which causes the deviations of production prices from values, that can only be explained by the laws of surplus-value, which in their turn arise from those of value.”

Adolph Kohn

Letter: The New Translation of Capital (1929)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

A letter from the translator.

To the Editor of the Socialist Standard.

Dear Comrade,

 We want to thank Comrade Fitzgerald for a very useful list of misprints (see the opening article in your March issue). He complains of our translating geistig as “spiritual,” when Moore and Aveling’s translation (revised by Engels) has “intellectual.” There is a German word, intellektuell, and we think if Marx had meant what the English mean by “intellectual,” he would have used that word. He was referring to wants which belong to the sphere of feeling as well as to that of the intellect, and, therefore, used the more comprehensive term, geistig. But this word is often difficult to translate, and we agree that possibly “spiritual” may convey an un-Marxian impression, so in the reprint now being called for we are changing the word to “mental.” The misprints mentioned, and some others, are likewise being corrected.

As to the question whether the new translation is an improvement on the old, it is not for the translators to offer an opinion of their own. They were commissioned to make a new translation by publishers who thought that the old translation did not do justice to the book. They were instructed to use the fourth German edition as their text, the last one revised by Engels; and certainly no disrespect to Engels’ memory was intended or implied by holding that he could not be considered a final arbiter upon questions of English terminology and style.

As to what reviewers think of the new translation, Comrade Fitzgerald is in good company in doubting whether it is an improvement. The “Times” holds the same view, and is surprised that a new translation has been made. Comrade Ryazanoff, the learned chief of the Marx-Engels’ Institute in Moscow, takes the translators severely to task in a letter to the “Labour Monthly.” But with these notable exceptions, the new translation has been greeted with an almost universal chorus of approval. We quote a few voices at random :—

“A new translation . . . the work of such experienced translators … is to be welcomed. . . . Mr. and Mrs. Paul have done their work extremely well.”—”Nation and Athenaeum.”

“The work is exceedingly well done, and those who may have previously found Marx unreadable will do well to try again with this competent and well-written translation in their hands.”— “Friend.”

“This new translation … is much superior to the only other one this reviewer knows. . . It can be read without risk of mental collapse.”—”Bulletin” (Sydney, N.S.W.).

“Anyone who has ever wrestled with Marx knows how terribly bad and unreadable the old translation of Das Kapital was. In the skilful hands of Dr. and Mrs. Paul, Marx reads like a different man. . . Something of the real quality of his own style appears in the translation.”—”New Statesman.”

“The Moore and Aveling edition is so inelegantly rendered that,” etc., . . “The present rendering is so superlatively good that,” etc., …”The present smooth and delightful translation will introduce Marx to a wider circle of English readers than he has ever had in the past.”— “Cherwell.”

“Those well-known translators, Eden and Cedar Paul, have added to their long list of personal triumphs a work for which posterity will have good cause to thank them.”—”Yorkshire Observer.”

“This excellent translation . . . will be doubly welcome . . . more readable than any previously published in this country.” —”Bookman.”

And so on ; and so on ; and so on.

“Bourgeois opinion,” we seem to hear the critics murmur—Comrades Fitzgerald and Ryazanoff, anyhow, though probably not the “Thunderer” of Printing House Square.

Yes, bourgeois opinion. But it is not a case of a Labour leader being praised for kow-towing to the Prince of Wales, and there are times when the old adage holds good, fas est ab hoste doceri—it is expedient to learn even from an enemy.

Yours fraternally,

Eden and Cedar Paul. 

"Capital," by Karl Marx: A Review. (1929)

Book Review from the March 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

A New Translation of Marx’s famous work, "Capital,” by Eden & Cedar Paul, from the Fourth German Edition, the final edition revised by Engels. Published by George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., Museum Street, London, W.C.l. Price 12/6 net.

The first volume of Karl Marx’s masterly analysis of capitalist production, entitled “Capital,” was published in German in 1867. In the preface he stated that other volumes were in preparation, and outlined the portions of the subject with which each would deal. Unfortunately he did not live long enough to see these latter volumes through the press, and it was left for his life-long friend and co-worker, Frederick Engels, to construct volumes 2 and 3 out of the mass of material left by Marx, aided to a very large extent by his own great knowledge both of the subject itself and of Marx’s views and intentions.

A second edition of volume 1 appeared in German in 1873 and Marx was preparing the materials for a third edition in 1883 when he died. Engels saw this third edition through the press, with such alterations as Marx had indicated in the manuscript, in November, 1883.

It was from this edition that the first translation of volume 1 into English was made in 1886 by Mr. Samuel Moore and Dr. Aveling, under the general editorship of Engels (who took responsibility for the work as a whole) and published by Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., of London. A fourth edition in German was published by Engels in 1890. In the meantime, Engels had published Volume 2 in 1885 (a second edition in 1893), and Volume 3 appeared in 1894. From the materials left behind by Marx and Engels, Karl Kautsky has published three volumes under the title “Theories of Surplus Value.”

The Sonnenschein edition has been out of print for some years and now a new translation from the fourth German edition has been prepared by Eden and Cedar Paul, and published by George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.

For some reason not easy to discover, these publishers have gone out of their way in a stupid attempt to disparage the translation supervised by Engels. On the paper cover to the book they state:—

  This great work has hitherto been available only in a somewhat unliterary translation made from the third German edition, which was not the final edition.

What is “literary” or “unliterary” may be a matter of opinion, but we are quite certain that the majority of readers will hold that the present translation—as far as comparisons can be made—is no way superior, if as good as, the Sonnenschein edition. Thus the use of the ugly word “machinofacture” in place of “modern industry” will hardly seem an improvement to many. Neither is the word “febrile” in any way superior to the word “feverish” as used by Engels, while to talk of the “spiritual” wants of the workers (p. 232), where Engels says “intellectual” is in contradiction to Marx’s essential views. And it may be remarked that the Sonnenschein edition was translated from the latest German edition available at the time.

Neither is it entirely true to say that only the Sonnenschein edition has been available in English. For, if it is agreed that the American language is English, then Kerr & Co., of Chicago, published a translation of the third German edition “revised and amplified according to the fourth German edition by Ernest Untermann," in 1906 that has been on sale here. Untermann also translated the second and third volumes of “Capital" into English. Therefore the matter, if not a word for word translation of the fourth German edition, has been available here. Following the Russian fashion of numeration, we may perhaps call it the three and a half edition!

The chief additions in the fourth edition as compared with the third are the footnote on Bimetallism (p. 126); the footnote on the Factory and Workshops Act (p. 546), four pages of text (642-645) on “Surplus Value Transformed into Capital," and three pages of text (691-694) on “Law of Capitalist Accumulation." The latter section is of special interest because, in addition to treating of credit, it deals with a detail of development—centralisation of capital into the hands of a few—that Marx had been accused of failing to foresee by certain Fabian critics. 

While the present translation is a new one direct from the fourth German edition, it is interesting to note the translators' statement in their preface :—

   Of course Moore & Aveling’s translation, which appeared in 1886, and J.B.’s translation of the first nine chapters (Bellamy Library), have not been ignored; the former, in particular, deserved close study, as it was published under the auspices of Frederick Engels . . . .  In the present version we have relied throughout upon the definitive German text as final arbiter.

It may be mentioned that “J. B.’s" translation is a very poor one and was severely criticised by Engels when it appeared.

The translators are to be congratulated on one decision. “Capital" is a book intended primarily for working-class readers, the majority of whom have little or no opportunity of acquiring a knowledge of foreign languages. Marx’s work abounds in quotations from Greek, Italian, French, etc., that form stumbling-blocks to the average worker. The translators decided to give all these quotations in English without unduly burdening the volume with the original languages, a course which, in our opinion, was the right one to take.

Some printer’s errors occur that should receive attention when the next edition is being prepared. On page 15 the word "twice" is, of course, redundant. The word "being," page 49 (sixth line from bottom) is a misprint for "bring." In the second paragraph, page 102, the word “ diminishes " should be replaced by "increases." On page 391 the description of one of the mechanical powers as an "oblique" plane is incorrect, the proper term being “inclined" plane. The word "not" on page 437 is a misprint for “now."

This new volume, with its black cover and gold lettering, has a striking appearance and is well bound and printed, but one wishes at times that the paper had been a little more opaque, as in several places the print from the other side of the sheet shows through. The price of 12s. 6d., though, unfortunately, high for a worker’s pocket, is certainly cheap for a technical work as books are priced to-day.

But the importance of its contents and the vast store of information it contains renders it a volume well worthy of some sacrifice on the part of a worker to obtain a copy.

Jack Fitzgerald