A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text · 1 illegible passages, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~89,700 words · 426 passages
Cite this work
- APAKarl Marx. (n.d.). A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/karl-marx/a-contribution-to-the-critique-of-political-economy
- MLAKarl Marx. "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/karl-marx/a-contribution-to-the-critique-of-political-economy.
- ChicagoKarl Marx. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/karl-marx/a-contribution-to-the-critique-of-political-economy.
What it is about
A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), the book that precedes Capital.
Context and history
Its preface is the most quoted text in all of Marx outside the Manifesto: it holds the canonical statement of historical materialism — 'it is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but the reverse' — and the base-and-superstructure image. Six pages that organised a century of argument.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
_Capital_, _landed property_, _wage labor_; _state_, _foreign trade_, _world market_. Under the first three heads I examine the conditions of the economic existence of the three great classes, which make up modern bourgeois society; the connection of the three remaining heads is self evident. The first part of the first book, treating of capital, consists of the following chapters: 1. Commodity; 2. Money, or simple circulation; 3. Capital in general. The first two chapters form the contents of the present work. The entire material lies before me in the form of monographs, written at long intervals not for publication, but for the purpose of clearing up those questions to myself, and their systematic elaboration on the plan outlined above will depend upon circumstances. I omit a general introduction which I had prepared, as on second thought any anticipation of results that are still to be proven, seemed to me objectionable, and the reader who wishes to follow me at all, must make up his mind to pass from the special to the general. On the other hand, some remarks as to the course of my own politico-economic studies may be in place here. The subject of my professional studies was jurisprudence, which I pursued, however, in connection with and as secondary to the studies of philosophy and history. In 1842-43, as editor of the “Rheinische Zeitung,” I found myself embarrassed at first when I had to take part in discussions concerning so-called material interests. The proceedings of the Rhine Diet in connection with forest thefts and the extreme subdivision of landed property; the official controversy about the condition of the Mosel peasants into which Herr von Schaper, at that time president of the Rhine Province, entered with the “Rheinische Zeitung;” finally, the debates on free trade and protection, gave me the first impulse to take up the study of econ
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