Foreword

Since October, 1894, the complete economic theories of Karl Marx, as laid down by himself and his fellow worker Frederick Engels, in the three volumes of “Capital,” have been before the teachers and students of all classes.

By that time, the contents of the first and second volumes of their work had been assimilated by hundreds of thousands. Especially volume I, which deals specifically with the relation between wage workers and capitalists, had long become “The Bible of the Working Class,” at least of the class-conscious portion of this class. Volume I has now been translated into all the principal languages, not only of Europe, but of the world, and has become the standard textbook of economics for the vast majority of all revolutionary organizations of the proletariat.

This fact speaks convincingly for the soundness of the essential claims made by the Marxian theories. Nevertheless, when volume III appeared in Europe, the spokesmen of official political economy made the same blundering attempts to refute it which they had made with so little success in the case of volumes I and II. The only tangible result of these attacks has been to bring the Marxian theories to the attention of thousands who would not have been reached by the propagandists of the working class.

The best policy of the ruling classes in dealing with revolutionary literature has always been to kill it by silence. As soon as this policy is no longer practicable, every attempt to discredit the revolutionary theories by criticism becomes a means of making propaganda for them among circles that would otherwise remain in ignorance of them.

The Marxian theories derive their vitality out of the life of the working class itself. All the essential points of these theories are vindicated day by day through the experiences which the working class makes in its development under capitalist rule.

It is evident that theories so intimately reflecting the vital movements of the most essential class in modern society must spread in proportion as this class is pushed forward by historical development into the position which these theories foreshadow. A critique of its theories cannot stop such a movement any more than a critique of the Copernican theories could stop the Earth from revolving around the Sun.

But the professors of the ruling class have never been able to distinguish between a scheme and a historical process. They still flatter themselves that their learned proof for the unsoundness of Marxian economics will dissolve the socialist parties. And although every new election deepens the grave of their hopes, they are still busy rescuing from the pernicious influence of Marxian ideas a social system which lives only by undermining its own foundation.

The appearance of Volume III of Marx’s “Capital” seems to have been the signal for a concerted action on the part of all capitalist universities against the economics of Socialism. Even the United States have received the blessings of this awakening civilization in the shape of translations of the works of Bohm-Bawerk, Sombart, Schiiflle, Le Bon, and others. In this way, the critiques of Marx’s complete work have reached America before the work itself has been presented to American readers. For the great majority of American professors and students are not familiar with the German language and have no opportunity to study the work which some of those translations criticise so trenchantly.

The second volume of “Capital” was not published in the English language until July, 1907, and the third volume, although nearly completed in manuscript, will not be ready for publication before 1908.

It is very thoughtful of those learned critics of Marx to acquaint their pupils at least with criticisms of his theories, so long as these theories themselves cannot be studied in the original or in epitomes. To any one familiar with the “freedom of science” in universities controlled by the pocketbooks of American millionaires it is quite plain that this speedy introduction of works criticising (and above all misrepresenting) the Marxian theories was dictated by the most disinterested motives.

No doubt great masses of American teachers and students, who read these translated critiques, have become duly impressed with the importance of a work which requires an acquaintance with its critics even before the author himself is introduced.

Since so high an authority as President Roosevelt has emphatically declared that everyone is assured a “square deal” in this country, I have been haunted night and day by visions of American professors and students protesting strenuously against an unfair policy, which compels them to read a critique of a work without enabling them to judge of the merits of this work for themselves. It looks too much like paternalism of the patriarchal kind.

In order to put an end to this unworthy and embarrassing situation, I offer to American readers this popular synopsis of the complete Marxian economics, so that every one who is asked to read a critique of these theories may have an opportunity to see for himself what they really stand for.

Of course, I cannot deny that my little volume will very likely be read by a few thousand working people. Indeed, I think it will be read by more working people than professors and university students. But why should that give pause to anyone, so long as the belief prevails that capitalist professors and students can stop the growth of proletarian class-consciousness by distorting Marxian theories? Armed with the power which a diligent study of those critiques and of my little work will confer upon them, these professors and university students can go out among the working class and, by their superior intelligence, quickly undo all the harm caused by Marxian theories. I hope they will try it.

The third volume of “Capital” has been a veritable bugaboo for the economists of the ruling classes.  When years passed without its appearance, it was hinted that this third volume did not exist at all but was only a subterfuge of Marx, by which he concealed his lack of scientific argument. Then, when it really did appear, it was claimed that it completely disavowed the theories laid down in Volumes I and II. And when some pupils of Marx demonstrated conclusively that the Marxian theory of value and surplus-value was carried consistently through all three volumes, the old claim was revived that these theories themselves were unsound. This last subterfuge derived additional strength from Eduard Bernstein’s critique of Marxian theories. His critique, professedly undertaken in the interest and in defense of the Marxian theories, with a view to eliminating some alleged inconsistencies from them, served nevertheless as a weapon against Marxism, contrary to the intentions of Bernstein. Still, even so, all the professional efforts have redounded to the benefit of the proletarian revolution, and will do so in the future.

Marx followed a consistent plan in his three volumes. But this is not apparent on the surface. What makes the study of the original so tedious for the untrained student is this: Marx develops his theories step by step from the simplest cell of capitalist economy, a commodity, to the most complicated practical operations of capitalists under actual competition. We see the Marxian theories of value and surplus-value first in the making under assumed ideal conditions. Link by link we see them rising before our eyes. Occasionally we see some of these links compared with theories of some ancient or medieval or early capitalist economists. Then again the analysis pauses, in order to test or emphasize some point by illustrations from history. After that the analysis is spun further along to some other point, and so forth with variations. The illness and premature death of the author left the work in an unfinished condition. His comrade Engels completed it from notes left by the deceased. These circumstances give to the whole work the air of crude and unpolished roughness, so long as only its surface is touched. And more than that not one of the Marx critics has ever touched. But on closer scrutiny the logical consistency and organic interrelation of the three volumes becomes palpable. Volume I lays bare the secret mechanism of the sphere of production. Volume II discloses the mainsprings in the sphere of circulation. Volume III finally applies the results of the two preceding volumes to typical conditions of capitalist industry and commerce, showing the interrelation between production and circulation.

It is true that Marx modifies his theories in Volume III. But he does not abandon them. And he modifies  them only to the extent that he carries his argument from the assumed ideal conditions of Volumes I and II nearer and nearer to the real conditions of capitalist industry and commerce. In the same way, a scientist would modify his argument when analyzing the law of gravity and passing from the ideal conditions of a vacuum pump to the complicated conditions in the open air, under which the law of gravity operates on the surface of the earth.

This analogy is often waved aside by our opponents with the assertion that the scientist experimenting on gravity does not abstract from any essential conditions of gravitation, while Marx, in abstracting from the actual conditions of capitalist production and circulation, eliminates all the essential elements which affect the value of commodities. Those who argue in this way abstract from all the essential elements of Marx’s work and operate with an unessential abstraction of their own, which they label Marx’s theory of value.

None of the existing popularizations of Marxian economics is a presentation of the complete theories of all three volumes. So far as Volumes II and III have received any attention in subsequent editions of popularizations of Volume I, it has been done in a disconnected way. No popularization has so far presented an organically complete outline of Marx’s theories. Perhaps such an outline will yet be written by the man best equipped to do so, Karl Kautsky. There is decidedly a demand for such a popularization. The existing popularizations of Volume I have certainly filled a useful place in our literature. But they do not appeal equally to all classes of students, because they dwell almost exclusively upon the purely theoretical side of the question, and leave the historical side largely in the background.

It is the historical side which appeals most strongly to a large class of students. For this reason I have not attempted in this little volume to write a summary of the Marxian analyses in the theoretical order followed by Marx. I have rather endeavored to develop the entire subject historically. This enables me to enliven the subject and to appeal not only to the critical intellect, but also to the emotional side of the reader’s reason. Yet this emotional style does not prevent me from adhering strictly to facts.

I follow no subjective standard of sentimental feeling, nor do I judge historical events and personalities by any such standard. Neither do I judge of events and personalities by the light of a supposed eternal standard of supernatural right and justice. My estimate of the ethical value of things or processes is rather based upon a genetic and historical foundation. Just as in the evolution of animals and plants we have built up a genetic table of organic development, which enables us to compare the various forms, qualities, species, etc., and tell at a glance, whether any one of them represents a forward or backward step in the general line of organic advance, in other words, whether any one form is evolutionary or reactionary from the point of view of the entire scale, so in the history of mankind I use the method of dialectic monism and historical materialism to compare the ideas, or customs, laws, etc., of different epochs and to ascertain to what extent they represent an evolution or a reaction in the general advance of mankind.

The impression prevails in many circles that the inductive and objective method of investigation, which is characteristic of historical materialism, forbids a sympathetic treatment of history. For my part, I do not see the logic of this assumption. It seems to me, rather, that at the bottom of it lies a confusion of ideas. Certainly there is plenty of genuine feeling in all of Marx’s and Engels’ work, and it does not militate in the least against the soundness of their analyses and conclusions. To inject human feeling into a scientific work is not the same as judging historical events and individuals by a sentimental standard of subjective feeling. The individualist historians of the bourgeoisie have brought discredit upon human feeling by degrading it to a sniveling standard of sentimentalism. On the other hand, feeling based upon an inductively gained and objectively applied foundation cannot be sentimental, nor can it cloud the judgment. It can only add the force of enthusiasm or consciously aroused courage to the inductively acquired understanding.

What Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein wrote in their introduction to “Die Vorléiufer des Neueren Sozialismus” about the attitude of the modern socialist toward the precursors of the modern revolutionary movement, applies in my opinion to the attitude of the modern socialist toward all rebels of the laboring classes of all ages: “A deep sympathy must unite him with those who wanted to accomplish similar things, and aspired to the same goal, as he. The fact that they aimed at socialist ideals at a time when society did not yet develop out of itself the means to realize them, that they aimed at the impossible and failed, must rather strengthen his sympathies for them, for these sympathies are naturally on the side of all oppressed and downtrodden. And if he must see, in addition, that the vanquished are insulted, maligned, and befouled, not only by the victors, but also by the partisan historians, to this day, then his ire and hatred against the slanderers will fan the flames of his sympathy for the slandered so much higher. But however strong this may be and express itself, it does not stand in the way of a search for truth; on the contrary, his great sympathy for those who went before him is for the modern socialist an additional reason to devote himself to a deep study of them; and it is clear, that it will be easier for a socialist than for a bourgeois writer to grasp and understand the emotional and thought life of previous socialists.”

When we realize why the laboring classes of the past attempted the impossible and failed, and when out of sympathy with them we think and speak as they themselves thought and spoke, we need neither forget the peculiarities of their historical conditions nor overlook the wide chasm which separates our feelings and thoughts from theirs. We can then estimate the historical value of things, not on the impulse of subjective, but of class feeling, not by the light of sentimentalism, but of a naturally and historically developed situation, not in the blind passion which fails to discriminate between the historically necessary and the subjectively possible, but with a full realization of both historical and subjective necessities and possibilities. The science of Socialism does not stand emotionless above, but full of life within, the class struggles, draws its vigor and power from the living process, and shares all its emotions with a full realization of their absolute and relative necessity. And for this reason my little work reflects not merely dry facts, but also the emotional side, which is as much a fact as all other inductively perceived facts of life, and which we interpret from the point of view of inductive science.