Over the past few years, Marx’s Capital has received renewed academic and popular attention. This volume is dedicated to the history of the making, the theoretical evaluation, and the analysis of the dissemination and reception of an almost unknown version of Capital: the French translation, published between 1872 and 1875, to which Marx participated directly.
In revising this version, Marx decided to introduce some additions and modifications, not hesitating to describe in the postscript Le Capital as ‘a scientific value independent of the original’. To mark the 150th anniversary of the French translation of Capital (1872-2022), 15 authors have helped to shed light on its history and main features, as well as analysing its later fortunes in France and in the rest of the world. They also provide a more exhaustive account of the ideas of the "late" Marx. The book also includes a previously unpublished selection of 31 letters from correspondence of Karl Marx, Maurice Lachâtre, Just Vernouillet and Friedrich Engels related to the making of Le Capital. 10 of these letters by Marx were only recently rediscovered and are translated here for the first time in English.
This book is an indispensable source for academic communities who are increasingly interested in rediscovering Marx beyond 20th century Marxism. Moreover, it will be of appeal to graduate students, as well as established scholars, interested in French socialism and the history of the labour movement.
Author(s): Marcello Musto
Series: Routledge Frontiers of Political Economy
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 286
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
About the Editor
Contributors
Note on the Text
Preface
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction: The Making and the Dissemination of Le Capital
Capital: An Unfinished Masterpiece
The Search for the Definitive Version of Volume I and Le Capital
Marx Through Le Capital
Notes
References
Part I The Value of Le Capital
2 Marx’s Capital After the Paris Commune: The Falling Rate of Employment and the Fate of the Working Class
Introduction
Marx’s Renaissance
Hidden in Plain Sight
Le Capital Redivivus
Marx’s Capital and the First International
Accumulation in Production, En Route to Circulation
La Vie Accidentée
Contradictions of the Employment Rate
Irresistible Force, Immovable Object
Harnessed to Capital
Ambivalence, Or the Dialectic of Consciousness
Self-emancipation?
Notes
References
3 Marx’s French Edition of Capital as Unexplored Territory: From the Centralization of Capital to Societies Beyond ...
Marx’s Expressed View of the French Edition
Engels’s Negative Assessment Creates a Conceptual Barrier
Marx’s Explicit and Implicit Differences With Engels Over the French Edition
Some Key Changes Incorporated By Engels From the French Edition, Especially On the Centralization of Capital
Some Important Passages From the French Edition Excluded Or Ignored By Engels, Especially On Globalization and Multilinear ...
Multilinear Social Development and Revolutionary Prospects
Concluding Remarks: Centralization, Globalization, and Multilinearity
Notes
References
4 The French Edition of Capital and the Question of Colonialism
The Roy Translation and the Colonial Question: A Clarification
Utopian Socialism: The Source of Socialist Colonialism?
‘Colonisation’: The Realities of the Early 1870s
A ‘Question of Method’: ‘Marxology’ and Capital
Note
References
5 Engels and Le Capital: The Politics of the Fourth Edition of Das Kapital (1890)
Introduction
Thinking Politically About the Economy
Begin at the Beginning
A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
Brave New World?
Das Kapital as a Political Intervention
Conclusion
Notes
References
Part II The Making of Le Capital
6 Le Capital: A Transnational, Family and Personal Endeavour
Introduction
The Role of Karl Marx, His Relatives and His Friends in the Making of Le Capital
Karl Marx
Laura Marx and Paul Lafargue
August Philips
Friedrich Engels
Jenny Marx (Mother and Daughter), Charles Longuet and Other Communards
Other Contributions to the Publishing Process of Le Capital
Joseph Roy
Maurice Lachâtre
The Printer Lahure
Adolphe Dervaux
Juste Vernouillet
Adolphe Quêst
Conclusion
Notes
References
7 From Moscow to Paris: The Russian Roots of the First French Translation of Marx’s Capital
Introduction
The Discovery of Russian Narodnism
Simplifying Or Historicizing?
Marx On Chernyshevsky’s Mill
Conclusion
Notes
References
8 Reading Le Capital: Marx as a Translator
Introduction: Divergent Reading
A Common Hermeneutic Framework
Marx as a Translator
A Second Sample
Conclusion
Notes
References
9 An Unfinished Project: Marx’s Last Words On Capital
A Book Project Too Big for a Lifetime
The French Edition of Capital, Volume I
Marx and Engels in Disagreement
Marx’s Plans for Further Editions of Capital, Volume I
Marx’s Marginalia and the ‘Marginal Notes On Adolph Wagner’
Marx’s Final Words On Capital
Engels’s Work On the Third and Fourth German Editions of Capital, Volume I
Why Did Engels Not Follow All of Marx’s Instructions and Hints for Future Editions and Translations of Capital, Volume I
Do We Need Another Revised Edition of Marx’s Capital, Volume I?
Notes
References
Part III The Dissemination and the Reception of Le Capital
10 The Contradictory Reception of the French Edition of Capital
Introduction and Methodology: On the Reception of Marx in France
First Read By Its Opponents
The French Translation of Capital and Militants’ Marxist Culture
The Interwar Debates
The Postwar Period, From Loyalty to Contestation
Conclusion
Notes
References
11 A Tale of Two Translations: A Comparison of the Roy-Marx and Lefebvre Translations of Capital, Volume I
Introduction
Marx’ Semantic and Conceptual Architecture
The Difficulty of Rendering the Consistency of What Is Real
The Status of Marx’s Hegelianism in Capital
Conclusion
Notes
References
12 The French Edition of Capital in Germany, France, Anglophone Countries, and Japan
An Overview of the Influence of the French Edition in the Dissemination of Capital
On the Significance of Le Capital in the 20th Century
Recent Debates On Le Capital
Futures of Le Capital
Notes
References
Part IV Letters On Le Capital
13 ‘Selected Correspondence On the French Translation of Capital’
Introduction: Le Capital in the Shadow of the Paris Commune
Karl Marx, Maurice Lachâtre, Just Vernouillet, and Friedrich Engels
‘Selected Correspondence On the French Translation of Capital’
1. Karl Marx to Maurice Lachâtre
2. Maurice Lachâtre to Karl Marx
3. Karl Marx to Maurice Lachâtre
4. Karl Marx to Maurice Lachâtre
5. Karl Marx to Maurice Lachâtre
6. Maurice Lachâtre to Karl Marx
7. Karl Marx to Maurice Lachâtre
8. Maurice Lachâtre to Karl Marx
9. Just Vernouillet to Karl Marx
10. Karl Marx to Maurice Lachâtre
11. Just Vernouillet to Karl Marx
12. Karl Marx to Maurice Lachâtre
13. Friedrich Engels to Maurice Lachâtre
14. Karl Marx to Louis Lahure
15. Maurice Lachâtre to Karl Marx
16. Friedrich Engels to Maurice Lachâtre
17. Karl Marx to Maurice Lachâtre
18. Karl Marx to Just Vernouillet
19. Maurice Lachâtre to Karl Marx
20. Maurice Lachâtre to Karl Marx
21. Maurice Lachâtre to Karl Marx
22. Karl Marx to Maurice Lachâtre
23. Maurice Lachâtre to Karl Marx
24. Maurice Lachâtre to Karl Marx
25. Maurice Lachâtre to Karl Marx
26. Just Vernouillet to Karl Marx
27. Maurice Lachâtre to Karl Marx
28. Maurice Lachâtre to Karl Marx
29. Just Vernouillet to Karl Marx
30. Maurice Lachâtre to Karl Marx
31. Maurice Lachâtre to Karl Marx
Index
