Theories of Surplus Value (Marx)

Get the Marx-Engels Collected Works edition. This includes the entire (1861-1863) manuscripts which Theories of Surplus-Value is a part of. Naturally if you don't want to read the whole thing you don't have to but've I heard it's useful to have the whole manuscripts to understand the place of Theories of Surplus-Value in Marx's intellectual development (and there's really no reason to read Theories of Surplus-Value except to understand Marx's intellectual development -- it's unlikely that you'll learn anything about capitalism in it that isn't in the three volumes of Capital). Each book costs $25 so this would run you about $100 total. (I swear it used to be $15 per book within the last year or two.)
http://www.intpubnyc.com/Authors.html

Or, you might be able to find them used for a better price, either at a used bookstore or on abebooks.com.

If you'd rather just get Theories of Surplus-Value, get the three volumes of the Progress Publishers edition used from abebooks. This is the version that was generally cited until the 1980's (when the MECW began to gain favor). I bet you could find all 3 for around $50.

I highly recommend NOT getting the single-volume edition (I forget who publishes it). It's shitty quality and just gigantic. A friend of mine has it and I can't imagine trying to read it. You wouldn't be able to take it with you anywhere. (The one redeeming factor is that if I'm not mistaken it has the same pagination as the Progress Publishers edition, so you should be able to find citations without terrible difficulties.) Better to get it in separate volumes. The price will not be much different and you can just buy it volume by volume as you read it, if necessary. Plus they're hardcover.

I know the feeling makaira. I'm saving up now to buy the whole thing, but it's over 2g's. I hope to be able to buy it sometime this millinium. My partner is adamant that we are not going to forego eating, rent, and other lifestyle choices like clothing and transportation.

If anybody ever releases a collected works of Bakunin or Kropotkin, then I'm going to end up a hermit in a cave.

NOOOOOOOO!!!! Felix!! How can you do this to me!!! Now I know that it exists, and it will haunt me until I own it.

Dammit.

My life is over.

There's a MEGA II project??? Whoa! That's great!

Where can I find out more about it?

Also, I wouldn't really go so far as to say that MECW is poorly edited. It's just that its task is different. They did not unpublished versions of published works. They only published works which were published, or works which were unpublished. Thus they published 1861-63 Manuscripts (which contains Theories of Surplus-Value) and Engels' editions of Vol. 2 and 3 of Capital, but not the original versions of Vol. 2 and 3 of Capital. MEGA, on the other hand, is publishing everything and leaving it unedited. I understand that each volume consists of two books, one of the original writings and one of an editors take on the writing, background, etc. They are extremely expensive though. I think it' something like 100 euros for each volume (which consists of two books), maybe more.

Mike

The Latin American academic you are speaking of is Enrique Dussel. He has a number of books on Marx's manuscripts. If I remember correctly there is one on the Grundrisse, one on the 1861-1863 manuscripts, one on the 1864-1865 manuscripts, and one on the unedited versions of Vol. 2 and 3. I believe only Dussel's book on the 1861-63 manuscripts has been translated into English, and it is a high-cost academic press book. But if you speak Spanish see this, which has Dussel's books about the 1861-63 manuscripts and the Grundrisse at more reasonable prices.

You can find two papers by Fred Moseley about Enrique Dussel here and here as well as an article by Enrique Dussel here.

I don't know of any other studies of the manuscripts that are as in depth and Dussel's but there are a lot of articles, most of which, in my opinion, aren't worth the time it takes to read them.

I'm not too familiar with literature on Lenin and I haven't read very much Lenin himself either.

For two appraisals of Lenin that might interest you, however, see Lucio Colletti's article on "State and Revolution" in his book "From Rousseau to Lenin". I disagree with the general thrust but it's definitely interesting. Judging from your other posts you might appreciate "Lenin, Hegel and Western Marxism" by Kevin Anderson, which is a Hegelian Marxist appraisal of Lenin and particularly his philosophical notebooks. (Anderson's main thesis is that Lenin was the first "Western Marxist." I'm not so sure that's a good thing.) I haven't read it but Kevin Anderson is generally interesting despite the fact that I'm no Hegelian Marxist.

As for Lenin on imperialism, I don't think there's very much substance that would be possible to criticize or appraise. It's just a popular pamphlet. But there are abundant criticisms of his sources, particularly Hilferding and Hobson. I've heard Bukharin's book on imperialism is also quite bad, although I haven't read it. But judging by the quality (or lack thereof) in his critique of Luxemburg I tend to believe this. Also the fact that open criticism of Lenin was not allowed by the mainstream of Marxism has helped immunize his pamphlet against criticism, at least from the debates that ocurred through and perhaps beyond WWII. (In a letter of Grossman to William Blake he says "In your book you should avoid any direct criticism of Lenin. You can make your different view clear, without attacking him—otherwise your book will be doomed as heretic. You can say 'older Marxian theorist told this that. Today situation is changed'[sic], etc.")

Mikus, thanks for the information, I have the articles you mention and they are interesting. Unfortunately, my Spanish is not up to reading books of this depth with ease. Have you read them and if so what do you think? Who is the William Blake that Grossman wrote to? I have read somewhere that he wrote a book about the crisis.
Lenin's analysis of imperialism is a serious effort to try and analysis imperialism and the war. Don't forget it was written in 1916 (I think) at the beginning of the war and was written specifically to give greater theoretical depth to the Bolsheviks defence of internationalism. Lenin made not claims to have any great economic depth, it was the Stalinist that did this. His book on imperialism is important for understanding how the Marxist Left understood the question of imperialism. As for Bakharin's Imperialism, this is an excellent book which develops a very important analysis of imperialism and above all the question of state capitalism, whilst not agreeing with all of it, it is certain an important contribution to the development of Marxism's analysis of imperialism and the period opened up by the war. Bakharin's critique of Luxemburg express the deterioration of his political understanding, especially given that in the Economics of the Period of Transition, is underlines the importance of Luxemburg's understanding of reproduction to understanding the development of imperialism and the objective conditions for the revolution. Hilderdig's Finance Capital, whilst clearly marked by his reformism etc is still an important attempt to develop marxism's analysis of capitalism taking into account the developments of capitalism after Marx wrote Kapital.

I haven't read Dussel's books, only Dussel's essay I linked to as well as Moseley's essays about Dussel. My impression is most of his analysis would be very disagreeable. He interprets Marx's texts in such a way as to provide justification for Liberation Theology and Third Worldism. (This is based on a particular reading of the relation of variable capital to total capital, as well as an attempt to revive the thought of Fichte, if I remember correctly.) So I don't plan on reading his books, since I can read the original manuscripts instead (with the exception of the Capital manuscripts). But when I have the time I do plan on eventually reading his book on the unedited manuscripts of Capital, since those are still unavailable in English and probably will be for a long time to come.

William Blake's book is available online here, although since it's over 500 pages long you probably would want to get the book itself if you want to read it. I've only read parts of it and it's quite good, especially considering when it was written (1930's, I believe). Certainly far superior to the other interpretations of Marx popular in the Anglo-Saxon world at the time (I'm particularly thinking of Dobb, Sweezy, and Robinson).

If you search for it used, be sure to search both "Elements of Marxian Economic Theory and its Criticism" as well as "An American Looks at Karl Marx", as it was published under both titles (the books are otherwise identical).

I don't know that the last statement can be reliably made. The bulk of the pamphlet is directly based on sources like Hobson and Hilferding, who by no stretch of the imagination can be considered to be a part of the "Marxist Left". I also don't see how it can be called a serious analysis. Analysis (as opposed to description) is largely absent. I'm not aware of any theoretical innovations or novelties that came from the pamphlet. All of the conclusions about imperialism are basically derived from quotations from Hobson and Hilferding.

This is not to say I find it terribly disagreeable (aside from the fact that I don't like Lenin's writing style). It's just that it's not of much interest except as a historical document.

I'll read it soon. I've had it for some time and just never got around to it. Grossman makes quite a few criticisms of Bukharin's book, which were assumably also implicitly aimed at Lenin.

I've never read Hilderding's Finance Capital. I was never very interested until I heard a surprisingly interesting lecture given by Costas Lapavitsas on Hilferding's theory, which was an attempt to evaluate the problems Hilferding posed without agreeing with Hilferding's theory. (I actually have this recorded so if you'd like I can send it to you within the next few weeks. I first have to edit the file to make it a manageable size.) Supposedly there is a new translation of Hilferding's book int the works, which should be available at the end of 2007 or beginning of 2008. (This is at least what I heard in December 2006.) It also should have an introduction by Costas Lapavitsas. I figure I'll wait to read the book until then. Most used copies of the damn thing run over $50.

Regards,
Mike

Rick Kuhn is a lecturer in the Political Science department at the Australian National University. I took one of his units when I was studying there.

I think he was one of the founders of the ISO/SWP in Australia or if not he joined fairly early in its existence here. He has since left to join Socialist Alternative which split from the Australian ISO/SWP in 95 over fairly insubstantial differences among some of the national leadership. SA still has similar Cliffite politics.

I have Kuhn's Grossman biography but still haven't read it. I do think Kuhn's articles on Grossman are very good, especially considering how little information there is on Grossman in English (the fact that the whole of his book still hasn't been translated is ridiculous).

Kuhn's politics do sometimes come out in his discussion of Grossman. Like you said, he does try to distance Grossman from the politics derived from it by Mattick. He also tries to distance Grossman from Stalinism. But I don't think Kuhn is actually wrong about either of these things -- Grossman himself disagreed with the politics of Mattick, and for a time he definitely was not a Stalinist.

Peter said that SA has Cliffite politics, which I was not aware of. I know Kuhn shares Cliff's analysis of state capitalism. Kuhn does have a very different economic theor, however (Cliff being something of an underconsumptionist and Kuhn seeming to agree with Grossman).

Costas Lapavitsas is a fairly well-known Marxist economics type who focuses on money and financial theory. I've never read him but his analysis of Hilferding was quite interesting.

At the same panel Kuhn gave a lecture on Grossman, which was also pretty good. I'll try to get both of these into a downloadable form within the next week.