Another Marx: Early Manuscripts to the International

Description

Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, Marx was regarded as a thinker doomed to oblivion about whom everything had already been said and written. However, the international economic crisis of 2008 favoured a return to his analysis of capitalism, and recently published volumes of the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA2) have provided researchers with new texts that underline the gulf between Marx’s critical theory and the dogmatism of many twentieth-century Marxisms. This work reconstructs with great textual and historical rigour, but in a form accessible to those encountering Marx for the first time, a number of little noted, or often misunderstood, stages in his intellectual biography. The book is divided into three parts. The first – ‘Intellectual Influences and Early Writings’ – investigates the formation of the young Marx and the composition of his Parisian manuscripts of 1844. The second – ‘The Critique of Political Economy’ – focuses on the genesis of Marx’s magnum opus, beginning with his studies of political economy in the early 1850s and following his labours through to all the preparatory manuscripts for Capital. The third – ‘Political Militancy’ – presents an insightful history of the International Working Men’s Association and of the role that Marx played in that organization. The volume offers a close and innovative examination of Marx’s ideas on post-Hegelian philosophy, alienated labour, the materialist conception of history, research methods, the theory of surplus-value, working-class self-emancipation, political organization and revolutionary theory. From this emerges “another Marx”, a thinker very different from the one depicted by so many of his critics and ostensible disciples. Cover page Halftitle page Series page Title page Copyright page Dedication Contents List of Figures Notice Introduction 1. The Marx revival 2. New research paths 3. Chronology of Marx’s writings Part One Intellectual Influences and Early Writings 1 Childhood, Youth and University Studies 1. The rabbi manqué 2. At school in Trier and studiosus juris in Bonn 3. Into the arms of the enemy 4. A young Hegelian in Berlin 2 The Encounter with Political Economy 1. Paris: Capital of the nineteenth century 2. Classics of political economy and alienated labour 3. Manuscripts and notebooks of excerpts: The papers of 1844 4. From critical philosophy to revolutionary praxis Part Two The Critique of Political Economy 3 Waiting for the Economic Crisis 1. Continuing the study of economics 2. In the solitude of exile 3. Research notes of 1850–1853 4. The trial of the communists and personal hardships 5. Articles on the crisis for the New-York Tribune 4 At the Time of the Grundrisse 1. The financial crisis of 1857 and the date with the revolution 2. History and the social individual 3. Poverty in London 4. In search of a method 5. Writing the Grundrisse 6. Struggling against bourgeois society 5 The Polemic against Carl Vogt 1. Herr Vogt 2. Fighting misery and disease 3. In the meantime ‘Economics’ waits 4. Journalism and international politics 6 Capital : The Unfinished Critique 1. Critical analysis of theories of surplus-value 2. The writing of the three volumes 3. The completion of Volume I 4. In search of the definitive version Part Three Political Militancy 7 The Birth of the International Working Men’s Association 1. The right man in the right place 2. Organizational development and growth 3. The defeat of the mutualists 8 The Revolution in Paris 1. The struggle for liberation in Ireland 2. Opposition to the Franco-Prussian War 3. The Paris Commune takes power 4. The political turn of the London conference 9 The Conflict with Bakunin 1. The crisis of the International 2. Marx versus Bakunin 3. Two opposing conceptions of revolution 4. Socialism in Russia? Bibliography Index