Tag Archives: Friedrich Engels

I have been (re?-)transcribing various letters in which various points of Marxism are elaborated. This post is an index of what I have so far. I do not know that I will go on much. Marx to Engels, 2 August 1862, sets out the transformation problem and Marx's solution. Marx to Engels, 18 June 1867, on the order of presentation in Capital. Marx to Engels, 24 August 1867, on the two best points in volume 1 of Capital. Marx to Engels, 8 January 1868, on three original points in volume 1...

This is another example of Engels explaining the theory of historical materialism. I know of this letter from Mills and Goldstick (1989). They also point out this letter from Engels. Here we see the metaphor of ideas "standing on their head", not in relation to Hegel's idealism, but as real economic relations reflected in finance. I like the emphasis on the interdependence of industries that could be expressed in Leontief matrices. Does this letter express a deterministic, strict dependence...

Here Marx sets out the transformation problem in a letter to Engels. The first volume of Capital was published in 1967. So this is another instance of Marx distinguishing labor values and prices of production before publication of Capital. This post is the second in a series I am working on in which he sets out critical parts of the (critique of) political economy in Capital in letters to Engels. As I understand it, the concept of absolute rent was original with Marx. Marx criticizes...

Several editions have been published of the works of Marx and Engels. One can also look in the Marxists Internet Archive. Many individual works have been published in various translations in various places. Marx's manuscripts ended up in the Institute of Social History (ISH), in Amsterdam. A first attempt was started in 1927, the first Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe (MEGA), in which the works were to be published in their original languages. This project was never completed. David Riazanov,...

1.0 Introduction I find the question in the title of this post hard to answer. I should probably say something about secondary literature, which I do not consider myself well-informed on. For purposes of this post, I ignore distinctions between socialism and communism. 2.0 Marx Wanted To Implement An Utopian Vision Of A Post-Capitalist Society You will sometimes find reactionaries assert that wherever Marxism was implemented, the government killed tens of millions. They are too ignorant...

The following is from Friedrich Engels' letter to Franz Mehring of 14 July 1893: London, 14 July 1893 Dear Mr. Mehring, It has taken me until today to get round to thank you for the Lessing-Legende you were so kind as to send me. I did not wish merely to send you a formal note acknowledging receipt of the book, but also and at the same time to say something about it - its contents. Hence the delay. Let me begin at the end - with the appendix, 'II ber den...

It is now clear that to most observers that the use of monetary policy to stimulate major changes in economic activity in either direction is fraught. Central bankers in many nations have been pulling all sorts of policy ‘rabbits’ out of the hat over the last decade or more and their targets have not moved as much or in many cases in the direction they had hoped. Not only has this shown up the lack of credibility of mainstream macroeconomics but it is now leading to a major shift in policy...

The image below summarizes Marx's works in a nutshell: his societal development model goes through several stages, from some early societies (e.g. slavery) to feudalism, to capitalism, to socialism, and finally to communism. At a very high level, this model is correct. Two "communists", Lenin and Mao, capitalized on this model more than anybody else. Both eventually failed for the same reason: They jumped from feudalism to socialism via a violent revolution that destroyed capitalism,...

Engels quote. Grasping Reality Friedrich Engels on invention as a factor of production Brad DeLong | Professor of Economics, UCAL Berkeley

Self-identified "erratic Marxist" Yanis Varoufakis. He absolutely and totally understands Marx and Engels' fundamental assumption (freedom and happiness) and method (engagement). Most either miss this or obscure it intentionally.  Psychologist Erich Fromm got it in his Marx's Concept of Man (1961). He begins the work with a section entitled,  The Falsification of Marx's Concepts, which reveals the caricature of Marx that has been created as a straw man to attack. Like the...