Grundrisse - Marxists

1 Karl Marx Grundrisse Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft). Karl Marx Written: 1857 61;. Published: in German 1939 41;. Source: Grundrisse , Penguin Books in association with New Left Review, 1973;. Translated by: Martin Nicolaus;. Notes by: Ben Fowkes;. Scanned by: Tim Delaney, 1997;. HTML Mark-up: Andy Blunden, 2002; Dave Allinson, 2015;. Ebook Conversion: Dave Allinson, 2015. This translation is licensed by the copyright owner, Martin Nicolaus, exclusively to MIA. Publication on other online sites is prohibited. Editorial notes are included by permission of Ben Fowkes. Available online at: 2 . Contents Note on the Text Analytical Contents List Introduction The Chapter on Money The Chapter on Capital Bastiat and Carey Editorial Notes 3.

2 Karl Marx Note on the Text Marx wrote this huge manuscript as part of his preparation for what would become A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (published in 1859) and Capital (published 1867). Soviet Marxologists released several never-before-seen Marx/Engels works in the 1930s. Most were early works like the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts but the Grundrisse stood alone as issuing forth from the most intense period of Marx's decade-long, in-depth study of economics. It is an extremely rich and thought-provoking work, showing signs of humanism and the influence of Hegelian dialectic method. Do note, though, Marx did not intend it for publication as is, so it can be stylistically very rough in places.

3 The series of seven notebooks were rough-drafted by Marx, chiefly for purposes of self-clarification, during the winter of 1857-8. The manuscript became lost in circumstances still unknown and was first effectively published, in the German original, in 1953. A limited edition was published by Foreign Language Publishers in Moscow in two volumes, 1939 and 1941 respectively, under the editorship of the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute, Moscow. The first volume contained the introduction and the seven notebooks translated here. The second added fragments from Marx's 1851 notebooks of excerpts from Ricardo, the fragment Bastiat and Carey' (also included in this translation), and miscellaneous related material; also extensive annotations and sources.

4 A. photo-offset reprint of the two volumes bound in one, minus illustrations and facsimiles, was issued by Dietz Verlag, Berlin (E.), in 1953, and is the basis of the present translation. It is referred to hereafter as Grundrisse . Rosdolsky states that only three or four copies of the 1939-41 edition ever reached the western world'. 4 . Grundrisse Analytical Contents List INTRODUCTION (Notebook M). (1) Production in general (2) General relation between production, distribution, exchange and consumption (3) The method of political economy (4) Means (forces) of production and relations of production, relations of production and relations of circulation THE CHAPTER ON MONEY (Notebooks I and II, pp.)

5 1 7). Darimon's theory of crises Gold export and crises Convertibility and note circulation Value and price Transformation of the commodity into exchange value; money Contradictions in the money relation (1) Contradiction between commodity as product and commodity as exchange value (2) Contradiction between purchase and sale (3) Contradiction between exchange for the sake of exchange and exchange for the sake of commodities (Aphorisms). (4) Contradiction between money as particular commodity and money as general commodity (The Economist and the Morning Star on money). Attempts to overcome the contradictions by the issue of time-chits Exchange value as mediation of private interests Exchange value (money) as social bond Social relations which create an undeveloped system of exchange The product becomes a commodity; the commodity becomes exchange value.

6 The exchange value of the commodity becomes money Money as measure Money as objectification of general labour time (Incidental remark on gold and silver). Distinction between particular labour time and general labour time Distinction between planned distribution of labour time and measurement of exchange values by labour time (Strabo on money among the Albanians). 5 . Karl Marx The precious metals as subjects of the money relation (a) Gold and silver in relation to the other metals (b) Fluctuations in the value-relations between the different metals (c) and (d) (headings only ): Sources of gold and silver; money as coin circulation of money and opposite circulation of commodities General concept of circulation (a) circulation circulates exchange values in the form of prices (Distinction between real money and accounting money).

7 (b) Money as the medium of exchange (What determines the quantity of money required for circulation ). (Comment on (a)). Commodity circulation requires appropriation through alienation circulation as an endlessly repeated process The price as external to and independent of the commodity Creation of general medium of exchange Exchange as a special business Double motion of circulation : C M; M C, and M C; C M. Three contradictory functions of money (1) Money as general material of contracts, as measuring unit of exchange values (2) Money as medium of exchange and realizer of prices (Money, as representative of price, allows commodities to be exchanged at equivalent prices). (An example of confusion between the contradictory functions of money).

8 (Money as particular commodity and money as general commodity). (3) Money as money: as material representative of wealth (accumulation of money). (Dissolution of ancient communities through money). (Money, unlike coin, has a universal character). (Money in its third function is the negation (negative unity) of its character as medium of circulation and measure). (Money in its metallic being; accumulation of gold and silver). (Headings on money, to be elaborated later). THE CHAPTER ON CAPITAL (Notebooks II pp. 8 28, III VII). The Chapter on Money as Capital Difficulty in grasping money in its fully developed character as money Simple exchange: relations between the exchangers (Critique of socialists and harmonizers: Bastiat, Proudhon).

9 6 . Grundrisse SECTION ONE: THE PRODUCTION PROCESS OF CAPITAL. Nothing is expressed when capital is characterized merely as a sum of values Landed property and capital Capital comes from circulation ; its content is exchange value; merchant capital, money capital, and money interest circulation presupposes another process; motion between presupposed extremes Transition from circulation to capitalist production Capital is accumulated labour (etc.). Capital is a sum of values used for the production of values'. circulation , and exchange value deriving from circulation , the presupposition of capital Exchange value emerging from circulation , a presupposition of circulation , preserving and multiplying itself in it by means of labour Product and capital.

10 Value and capital. Proudhon Capital and labour. Exchange value and use value for exchange value Money and its use value (labour) in this relation capital. Self-multiplication of value is its only movement Capital, as regards substance, objectified labour. Its antithesis living, productive labour Productive labour and labour as performance of a service Productive and unproductive labour. A. Smith etc. The two different processes in the exchange of capital with labour Capital and modern landed property The market Exchange between capital and labour. Piecework wages Value of labour power Share of the wage labourer in general wealth determined only quantitatively Money is the worker's equivalent; he thus confronts capital as an equal But the aim of his exchange is satisfaction of his need.