What to read (1967)

From the September 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Besides Capital there are various other books and pamphlets that the student of Marxian economics might find useful. Marx himself summarised his views in simple language in an address he gave in 1865 to the First International. This was later published as the pamphlet Value, Price and Profit. The first five chapters deal with views that are no longer widely held if held at all, but from the sixth chapter onwards Marx explains his theory of value and exploitation. Engels, too, wrote a useful review of Capital for a German paper in 1868. Karl Kautsky, who did so much to popularise Marxism, tackled economics in his work The Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx, which went through many German editions. This sticks closely to the form of the first volume of Capital but also incorporates material from the other volumes which were published after Marx’s death. Another German Social Democrat, Julian Borchardt, in The People's Marx, wrote what translators call "an abridged popular edition of the three volumes of 'Capital' " which, despite the limitations of such abridgements, is worth looking at. 

Perhaps the best original (rather than popularising) work in Marxian economic theory is Louis Boudin’s The Theoretical System of Karl Marx, written in the first decade of this century. This book is no simpler than Capital but it does deal very well with the various criticisms that sprung up after the deaths of Marx and Engels. The best pamphlet is without doubt John Keracher’s Economics for Beginners, published in America in the thirties.

Some of these works will probably not be available at local libraries but they are all in our library at head office.

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The pages of Capital reproduced on the cover are from the edition published by George Allen & Unwin, translated by Moore and Aveling.

Popularising Marx (2017)

Book Review from the July 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

'The  People's Marx. Abridged Popular Edition of the Three Volumes of Capital'.  By Julian Borchardt. (Print-on-demand edition, Relnk Books, India, 2017)

Marx was the first to analyse scientifically the operation of capitalism as an economic system or 'the capitalist mode of production' as he called it. He analysed it as being a system of the production and accumulation of capital as a sum of money invested in the producing commodities (items of wealth produced for sale, as opposed to for direct use) by workers selling their labour power; the price they got for this (their wages) did represent the value of what they were selling but was less than the value of what they produced; the difference was 'surplus value' which was the source of the new capital accumulated by being invested in production.

Marx planned to write six volumes on this but only got round to writing the first. After his death Engels worked Marx's manuscripts into two further volumes. The other planned volumes, as on world trade and on wage-labour, were never even written.

The three volumes amount to over 2000 pages in both the Moscow Foreign Languages Publishing House and the Penguin editions. Only a minority of socialists will have read all three. Not that you need to read them all, of course, to be a socialist, but it helps to have some idea of how Marx analysed the operation of capitalism since its basic to the socialist case that in can never worked in the interest of the producers as it is based on their exploitation. So there has always been a place for works popularising Marxian economics. Julian Borchardt's People's Marx has been one. Written in German in 1919 it was translated and published in English in 1921. Borchardt was one of the minority of German Social Democrat who had opposed the war. He had collaborated in translating Volumes II and III of Capital into French. Relnk Books have now made his selection of Marx's writings available as a print-on-demand book.

Marx himself felt that the best way to introduce the concepts he would be using to analyse capitalism was to begin by analysing its basic unit, the 'commodity' as an item of wealth produced with a view to be exchanged with some other item of items of wealth produced for the same purpose. The opening chapters of Volume I of Capital do not in fact analyse the 'capitalist mode of production' but a model of an economy where commodities are produced by independent artisans owning their own instruments of production, for direct exchange with other commodities, i.e. by barter. Marx later introduces money (as a commodity that can be exchanged with all other commodities) but even this is still not capitalism. It is only when he drops the assumption that the commodity-producers are independent artisans and has the commodities produced by landless, propertyless people working for a wage for a capitalist who has invested money-capital in commodity-production that he comes to capitalism. So, it is only from the fourth chapter that he begins to analyse the capitalist mode of production.

Marx evidently thought that this step-by-step, assumption-by-assumption approach was the best way to introduce concepts such as 'abstract labour', 'value', 'exchange value', 'socially necessary labour' that he was going to use in his actual analysis of capitalism. Some of his popularisers have taken the view that it is better to begin with capitalism as wage workers experience it. Borchardt was among these. He opens with a passage from Volume III about profit and the various theories as to its origin where Marx concludes that it originates not in circulation as it appears to but in production.

To attempt to summarise the three volumes of Capital in less than 300 pages is a bold venture but Borchardt does introduce readers, in Marx's own words, not just to capitalism's origin and development and its effect on the working class (Volume I) but also on how it works in practice (Volume II and III).

The original edition attributes quite a number of passages from Volume I to Volume II. As this is a facsimile edition unfortunately this is repeated.

Adam Buick

About Books (1953)

Book Reviews from the October 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

The newcomer to the study of Marxian economics frequently finds that Marx's own works are rather heavy going. He searches around for books by other authors who may be able to propound Marx's theories in a more easily readable form. Unfortunately, during the past eighty years, there have been many who have sought to simplify Marx or to tell the world what, in their opinion, Marx really meant. The total product of their labours would justify Marx in demanding to be saved from his friends,

If the student is determined to approach his studies through the medium of secondhand interpretations of the theories, we can save him much wasted time by directing him to the soundest of the books on the subject.

Probably the most useful work of this nature is Karl Kautsky’s "The Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx." There is little we can say about this book except that it was written expressly for the purpose for which the student wants it and it is a job well done.

Next in order of merit is "The Theoretical System of Karl Marx" by Louis B. Boudin. Boudin does not deal exclusively with Marx's economic doctrines. He devotes a few chapters to the materialist conception of history, the social revolution and to some of Marx's critics. Boudin quite correctly makes his early chapters on the materialist conception of history serve as a brief introduction to the study of the workings of the capitalist system. The usefulness of this book to a new student is limited because the author devotes quite an amount of space to replies to critics of the Marxian doctrines. These replies are extremely useful to anyone who has a grounding in the study but are likely to leave the novice a little bewildered. All the same, the book is good and cannot be excluded from a list of this nature.

Julian Borchardt has attempted to present “Capital" in a more readily digestible form by treating it in a different manner to other writers. He has taken a number of chapters from the three volumes of "Capital” and re-arranged them in an order which, he claims, will make them more easy to assimilate. He has eliminated some of Marx's repetitiveness but has not attempted to alter the wording. Borchardt also claims, quite correctly, that the majority of those who read “Capital" do not get farther than volume one, but that volumes two and three are necessary for a complete understanding of Marx's theories. Whether Borchardt's work will be found easy going is doubtful, but for those who cannot avail themselves of the three original volumes it is useful. The only edition of this work that we are able to trace today is collected with some short writings by Frederick Engels and Lenin and Marx under the title “Capital and other Writings of Karl Marx," and published by The Moderrn Library. New York.

Ernest Untermann has written a book entitled "Marxian Economics." Untermann deals with his subject more historically than the previously mentioned authors, in fact over half of his book is devoted to an historical approach to the Marxian economic theories. It cannot be taken as a substitute for "Capital" but rather, as the author claims, a popular introduction to it. 

There is one book which, because of its title and its availability may attract a student’s attention. It is “The Meaning of Marxism" by G. D. H. Cole, published by Victor Gollancz. This is a re-hash under a new title of Mr. Cole's, “What Marx Really Meant” published in 1934. As a Marxist Mr. Cole would make a good plumber. What he thinks Marx meant is a lot different to what Marx said. A detailed criticism of “ What Marx Really Meant" appeared in the Socialist Standard in June, 1934. It stands equally well for the later book. The student should avoid Mr. Cole as an interpreter of Marxism.

Despite the good qualities of the first four books we have mentioned none of them are a real substitute for Marx's original work. If the student has time, diligence and enthusiasm we recommend that he bypasses these attempts at simplification and gets down to his studies with the three volumes of “Capital" We recognise that a study of Marxian economics is not simple and that there is some justification in the criticism that Marx's style is heavy, but his work cannot be adequately compressed into a book of a couple of hundred pages. Much of the so-called heaviness of Marx's writing is due to the fact that he approaches all his points from every conceivable angle, neglecting no avenue of argument to prove his case. It is that which gives rise to the repetitiveness that scares away some of his readers.

The best of the translations of “Capital" are those by Ernest Untermann and by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling. The translation by Eden and Cedar Paul which is used in the Everyman's Library edition published by J. M. Dent has some minor faults but cannot be condemned because of them.

In conclusion, there is a useful little book that is worthy of mention. It gives an answer to many of the criticisms of Marx’s theory of value. “Boehm-Bawerk's Criticism of Marx" by Rudolf Hilferding published by the Socialist Labour Press. Of course, this book cannot be read until one has an understanding of Marxism, but, after the elementary phases of study, it can be useful for clearing away a number of cobwebs.

W. Waters.