Theories of Surplus Value

Theories of Surplus Value (German: Theorien über den Mehrwert) is a draft manuscript written by Karl Marx between January 1862 and July 1863.[1] It is mainly concerned with the West European theorizing about Mehrwert (added value or surplus-value) from about 1750, critically examining the ideas of British, French and German political economists about wealth creation.[2] At issue are the source, forms and determinants of the magnitude of surplus-value,[3] and Marx tries to explain how, after failing to solve basic contradictions in its labour theories of value, the classical school of political economy eventually broke up, leaving only "vulgar political economy" which no longer tried to provide a consistent, integral theory of capitalism, but instead offered only an eclectic amalgam of theories which seemed pragmatically useful or which justified the rationality of the market economy.[4]

Background

Theories of Surplus Value was part of the large manuscript of 1861–63, entitled by Marx A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy and written as the immediate sequel to the first part of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy published in 1859. The total 1861–63 manuscript consists of 23 notebooks (the pages numbered consecutively from 1 to 1472) running to some 200 printed sheets in length: it is the first systematically worked out draft — though still only rough and incomplete — of all four volumes of Capital. Theories of Surplus Value forms the longest (about 110 printed sheets) and most fully elaborated part of this huge manuscript, and it is the first and only draft of the fourth, concluding volume of Capital. Marx called this volume, as distinguished from the three theoretical volumes of Das Kapital, the historical, historico-critical, or historico-literary part of his work.[5]

Marx wrote this manuscript while he was also writing journalistic articles to make money, especially on the American Civil War (for the New York Daily Tribune). In April 1862, he was in dire financial straits - he owed 20 pounds for rent which he could not pay, and he had no money to redeem pawned clothing of his children and of the maid, Helene Demuth.[6] In August 1862, he travelled to Zaltbommel in the Netherlands, to see his uncle Lion Philips for financial help. However, Philips was away on a trip himself, and Marx travelled on to Trier to see his mother, who, however, did not give him any money. In September, Marx applied for a job in an English railway office, with the help of his cousin August Philips, but failed to get it because of his illegible handwriting.[7] In October, Marx received 20 pounds from his cousin August Philips, and in November, when Marx was unable to pay for coal and groceries, Friedrich Engels also sent him money.[8]

Karl Marx as he appeared in the 1860s.

Marx began to write Theories of Surplus Value within the framework of the original plan of his Critique of Political Economy as he had projected in 1858–62. On the basis of what Marx says about the structure of his work in his introduction to the first part of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, in his letters of 1858–62 and in the 1861–63 manuscript itself, this plan can be presented in the following schematic form:

Plan for the Critique of Political Economy as projected by Marx in 1858–1862:


1. Capital:
1. [Introduction: Commodity and Money]
  2. Capital in general:
    1. The production process of capital:
        1. Transformation of money into capital
        2. Absolute surplus-value
        3. Relative surplus-value
        4. The combination of both
        5. Theories of surplus-value
    2. The circulation process of capital
    3. The unity of the two, or capital and profit
  3. The competition of capitals
  4. Credit
  5. Share capital
2. Landed property
3. Wage-labour
4. The state
5. Foreign trade
6. The world-market

Theories of Surplus Value was originally conceived by Marx only as a historical excursion in the section of his theoretical study of “capital in general”. This was to conclude the section on the process of production of capital. This ambitious plan proved to be more than Marx could undertake; he was effectively burned out before had completed the study of capital. Even the publication of Theories of surplus-value did not make all of Marx's writing on political economy available to the public; this task was only fulfilled decades later, with the publication of the Grundrisse, the Results of the Immediate Production Process and various other manuscripts.

Publication history

Theorien über den Mehrwert, 1956

In his preface (dated May 5, 1885) to his edition of Volume II of Das Kapital and in several letters during the following ten years, Friedrich Engels had indicated his intention to publish the manuscript of Theories of surplus-value. However, although he succeeded in publishing the second and third volume of ‘’Das Kapital’’, he was unable to publish the Theories before he died in 1895.

Footnotes

  1. Enrique Dussel, "The four drafts of Capital. Towards a new interpretation of the dialectical thought of Marx". ‘’Rethinking Marxism’’, Vol. 13, No. 1, Spring 2001, pp. 10-25.
  2. Allen Oakley, Marx's critique of political economy. London: Routledge, 1985.
  3. Ronald L. Meek, The development of the concept of surplus in economic thought from Mun to Mill. Phd dissertation, Cambridge University, 1949.
  4. Karin Wetzig, Die theoriengeschichtlichen Lehren aus Karl Marx' "Theorien über den Mehrwert" für die Geschichte der Politischen Ökonomie. Phd dissertation in economics, University of Leipzig, 1980. Dietmar Scholz, Zum Platz der "Theorien über den Mehrwert", IV. vierter Band des "Kapital", im philosophischen Denken von Karl Marx. Phd dissertation in economic history, University of Jena, 1981.
  5. Preface (1923). Theories of Surplus Value. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
  6. Hal Draper, The Marx-Engels Chronicle. A Day-by-Day Chronology of Marx and Engels's Life and Activity. New York: Schocken Books, 1985, p. 111.
  7. Hal Draper, The Marx-Engels Chronicle. A Day-by-Day Chronology of Marx and Engels's Life and Activity. New York: Schocken Books, 1985, p. 113.
  8. Hal Draper, The Marx-Engels Chronicle. A Day-by-Day Chronology of Marx and Engels's Life and Activity. New York: Schocken Books, 1985, p. 114.
  9. T. W. Hutchison, "Theories of Surplus Value by Karl Marx; Karl Kautsky; G. A. Bonner; Emile Burns". Economica, New Series, Vol. 20, No. 77, Feb., 1953, pp. 81-83.

Further reading

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