Karl Marx - Karl Korsch

Comments

Hieronymous
Oct 5 2015 00:15

Thanks for this. I've only read a rough photocopy of this scanned version (before Ken Knabb formatted and edited it for his website), but Korsch's biography of Marx is the best I've ever read. Second place goes to Otto Rühle's Karl Marx: His Life and His Work, although I agree with Paul Mattick Sr.'s critique (from Anti-Bolshevik Communism) in "Otto Rühle and the German Labour Movement"

Mattick wrote:
. . . that Rühle applied his new psycho-sociological concept of Marxism [in the biography] . . . This kind of ‘historical materialism’, which searched for reasons of ‘inferiority and superiority complexes’ in the endless domains of biology, anthropology, sociology, economics and so forth in order to discover a kind of ‘balance-of-power of complexes by way of compensations’ which could be considered the proper adjustment between individual and society . . .

Korsch didn't make the same mistake.

And interesting backstory to Korsch's biography on Ken Knabb's website is that a comrade was working in the Cascade Mountains as a fire lookout, à la Jack Kerouac in the Dharma Bums, and had laptop, scanner and a photovoltaic charger and spent much of his free time scanning the whole book that he'd borrowed from Ken.

EDIT: I just added Mattick's review of Korsch's biography http://libcom.org/library/review-“karl-marx”-karl-korsch.

Steven.
Oct 4 2015 18:09

That is interesting!

At a previous job of mine I managed to digitise loads of stuff as well. Definitely a good use of work time…

admin note: the troll who keeps registering accounts to down vote comments by Hieronymus has had two more accounts banned. I would really suggest he get a life, and maybe a hobby, if he has nothing better to do

Steven.
Oct 4 2015 18:11

H, it's a shame you removed your comment, as it was interesting. As previously, the down-votes were from a troll who has personal beef with you, who has been banned yet again. I would just ignore him and edit your comment back in