Marx On Technology

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The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought

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Marx on technical change in the critical edition

Regina Roth Published online: 14 Dec 2010.
To cite this article: Regina Roth (2010) Marx on technical change in the critical edition, The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 17:5, 1223-1251, DOI: 10.1080/09672567.2010.522239 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09672567.2010.522239
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Euro. J. History of Economic Thought 17:5 12231251 December 2010
Marx on technical change in the critical edition
Regina Roth
1. Introduction Modern industry never looks upon and treats the existing form of a process as nal, Karl Marx observed in Volume 1 of Capital, concluding: The technical basis of that industry therefore is revolutionary (Marx [1867] 1983: 399). Writing the draft for a resolution of the International Working Mens Association (IWMA) in August 1868, he added that the development of machinery creates the material conditions necessary for the superseding of the wages system by a truly social system of production.1 These quotes throw some light on the fundamental importance that Marx attributed to technical change in his analysis of capitalist production. Asking for the sources of this position, we nd that it was a result of a longterm examination of machinery by Marx. To trace back these sources we should look at more than only Marxs published works because they do not provide a very broad foundation from which to judge his work. As is generally known, Marx himself only published the rst volume of Capital in 1867, amended twice in the second and French editions between 1872 and 1875. Further publication of additional volumes became the task of
Address for correspondence Regina Roth, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Marx Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA), Jaegerstrasse 22/23, Berlin D-10117, Germany; e-mail: roth@bbaw.de A rst draft of this paper was presented at the ESHET conference in Thessaloniki in April 2009. 1 Resolution of the General Council of IWMA, proposed by Marx on 11 August, 1868 (Marx and Engels [186771] 2009: 587). This was the second proposition, the rst stating a growing exploitation of working people through modern industry. The IWMA had put the inuence of machinery in the hands of capitalists on the agenda of the congress in Brussels in September 1868. (See below section 6)
The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought ISSN 0967-2567 print/ISSN 1469-5936 online 2010 Taylor & Francis http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/09672567.2010.522239
Regina Roth
Frederick Engels, who edited Marxs papers to compile a second volume in 1885 and a third volume in 1894. To understand Marxs views on technical change, his whole legacy, which is also comprised of numerous drafts, excerpts, letters, and so forth, must be considered. In this article I would rst like to give an overview of the complete edition of the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the MarxEngelsGesamtausgabe (MEGA), of its organisation and its structure. Then Marx and his working method shall come into view as it is present in the newly published volumes of this edition, which mainly cover Books 2 and 3 of Capital. Marx turns out to be someone who often revised what he wrote because he was looking for new sources and solutions to deal with the problems of his analysis. The next two sections will address Marxs technical studies in his excerpts from the 1840s to the 1870s and how they were used in his manuscripts, focusing more on Marxs method of working than on his economic theory in its diverse aspects. Before some concluding remarks a short excursion into politics may be appropriate, looking at the discussions which took place in 1868 on the effects of machinery in the hands of capitalist within the IWMA. These debates were strongly inuenced by Marx and his views on technical change. 2. Marx in the MEGA To look at Marxs legacy for the development of his thought is much easier today than it was for Marxs contemporaries due to the continued efforts in critical editions of his work. The earliest of them was the MEGA. It was inspired and guided by David Rjazanov who from the 1920s to the mid 1930s used the newly established MarxEngels Institute in Moscow for this purpose.2 It was not until the 1960s that this project was revived under the control of the respective Institutes of Marxism-Leninism in the Soviet Union and in Germany connected to the Central Committee at the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. The International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam, whose archives holds most of the original manuscripts, agreed to cooperate. In 1972, a sample volume was well received by international editors from different editorial projects, and the rst volume appeared in 1975. After 1989, a new institutional basis had to be created for the edition to be continued.
2 They published seven volumes with works, drafts and articles (from 1844 to December 1848) and four volumes with correspondence between Marx and Engels (18441883). Without being numbered a volume of the MEGA, two additional volumes later appeared (Engels: Anti-Du hring, 1935; Marx: Grundrisse, 1939/41.) Planned were 42 volumes. 1224
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Five institutions set up the International MarxEngels Foundation (IMES): The BerlinBrandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the FriedrichEbert Foundation, the International Institute for Social History (IISH) in Amsterdam, the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI) in Moscow, and the Russian Independent Institute of Social and National Problems (RNI), also in Moscow.3 This politically independent institution assumed academic responsibility for the project, with the Institute in Amsterdam in charge rst and since 2000 the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Work on the edition is currently being carried out by the Academy, who also coordinates the work of several teams of researchers from Germany, Russia, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, the USA and Japan.4 Back to the material which only these editions brought to light: for example The German Ideology from 1845, or the Grundrisse of Political Economy from 1857/58 were published for the rst time in the late 1920s and 1940s.5 From the mid-1970s onwards, the MEGA continued with the publication of unknown material, now called the Second MEGA. The edition presents all its documents in four sections. The fourth section is completely new and presents excerpts, notes and marginalia of Marx and Engels, most of them for the rst time. They give more detailed information on the origins and formation of his ideas, concepts or subjects.6 The third section covers
3 The RNI was disbanded in the late 1990s. 4 For further information on the MEGA, see Hubmann et al (2001) and Rojahn (1998). Up to 1990 there appeared 14 volumes from the rst section, nine volumes from the second section, eight volumes from the third section and six volumes from the fourth section, in all 37 volumes (if you number also the parts of volumes, 43 parts of volumes were published). In 1991 appeared MEGA2 II/ 10 and IV/9, in 1992 MEGA2 I/20 and II/4.2. Up to 2010 there appeared four volumes from the rst section, ve volumes from the second section, four volumes from the third section and four volumes from the fourth section. In all there are now 57 volumes from the planned 114 volumes: 19 volumes from the planned 32 in the rst section, 15 volumes from the planned 15 in the second section (the last part of Volume 4 will presumably be published in 2011), 12 volumes from planned 35 in the third section and 11 volumes from the planned 32 in the fourth section. (See also the MEGA website http://mega.bbaw.de.) 5 The Grundrisse did not appear within the series of MEGA, but it was prepared by some of their editors using the material kept in the MarxEngelsLenin Institut, and it was published in 1939/41. The Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts from 1844 had already appeared in 1932 as MEGA volume I/3, simultaneously with an edition by S. Landshut and J.P. Mayer; in 1927, a Russian translation of these notebooks had been published. See Rojahn (1985: 651, footnote 28). 6 For example, the excerpts in the Pariser Hefte from 1844/45 in MEGA2 IV/2 and IV/3, which are closely intertwined with the EconomicPhilosophical Manuscripts in MEGA2 I/2. For the Londoner Hefte, see MEGA2 IV/711; already published are MEGA2 IV/79 (19831991). 1225
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correspondence between both authors and approximately 2000 others, that is: all the letters received by Marx and Engels again, most of which were published for the rst time.7 In the rst section containing works, drafts and articles from Marx and Engels besides Capital, there is also new information to be found, especially concerning their journalistic work. More articles than previously known have been proven written by them.8 Moreover, the edition also is able to place already published material into a new context as it explores the background in which those texts were composed in detail for example, (Marx [184344] 1982: 187438; see also Rojahn 1985).9 The greatest amount of newly edited material is to be found in the second section of the MEGA, which is dedicated to Marxs work Capital. Only in the MEGA have all of the different versions been published, drafts or treatises on single questions, or plans concerning Marxs Critique of Political Economy. The new material to be found includes the Manuscript 186163 apart from the sections which Marx had written on the Theories of Surplus Value, or all of the manuscripts that Marx produced for Capital from 1863 until his death in 1883: . for Book 2: far more than a dozen manuscripts or about 500 pages (18641881); . for Book 3: about 10 manuscripts or about 800 pages (18641877/78); and . for Books 2 and 3: various manuscripts that Engels produced while preparing both books for the printers from 1883 to 1894, all in all more than 100 pages.10
7 Bagaturija (2002). 8 Examples may be found in Marx and Engels ([1854] 1985, [185960] 1984 or [186467] 1992 MEGA2 I/13, I/18 und I/20), and the same may be expected for their work as writers and chief editors for the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in 1848/49 which will be presented in MEGA2 I/79. There are also to be found some drafts or passages for later manuscripts that Marx had written down in notebooks, often scattered between his excerpts: for example, Randnoten von Marx zu Du hring in Engels [1878] 1988: 131144 (MEGA2 I/27). 9 Another example are the Theses on Feuerbach, which were published in MEGA2 IV/3 within their original context, a notebook (Marx [184447] 1998: 1921). The same applies to documents from the IWMA 186771, presented in MEGA2 I/21, which show Marx being part of a greater European network of labour movement activists, acting more as a mediator than a dictatorial leader of this international organization (Marx and Engels [186771] 2009: 1150, 1163seqq.). 10 Some preparatory materials on Book 1, (e.g. for an American translation) have also survived; one also nds plans and outlines for Capital or lists of corrections for the French and the third edition of Book 1. 1226

Table 1 Economic manuscripts and printed versions in the second section of the MEGA and in MECW Manuscripts on the Economics Grundrisse Manuscript 186163 Printed parts from the Economics A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy Capital, Book I Manuscript material Printed versions 1857/58 186163 1859 MEGA2 II/1 MEGA2 II/3 MEGA2 II/2 MECW 2829 MECW 3034 MECW 29
1863/64 1871/72 1877 1867, 1872, 187275, 1883, 1890 1887 1865 1867/68 186881 1884/85 1885, 1893 1864/65 1867/68 187181 1894
MEGA2 MEGA2 MEGA2 MEGA2
II/4.1 II/6 II/8 II/58,
MECW 34
MEGA2 II/10 MEGA2 II/9 MEGA2 MEGA2 MEGA2 MEGA2 MEGA2 MEGA2 MEGA2 MEGA2 MEGA2 II/4.1 II/4.3 II/11 II/12 II/13 II/4.2 II/4.3 II/14 II/15
MECW 35
Capital, Book 2 Manuscript material
Printed versions Capital, Book 3 Manuscript material Printed version
MECW 36
MECW 37
Moreover, the MEGA also presents texts not easily available, such as the several editions of Book and Volume 1 that Marx had published up to 1875. Some of the earlier manuscripts as presented in the MEGA have been used as textual basis for the MarxEngels Collected Works (MECW), namely the full Manuscript 186163 and the so-called Sixth Chapter from 1863/64 on the results of the immediate production process. To get an overview on where to nd what in the MEGA and in MECW see Table 1.
3. Marx, a master of revision and collector Let us have a closer look at the recently published manuscripts. There are, rather hot off the press, the bulk of the drafts for Book 2 (Marx [186881]
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2008b).11 They show, rst of all, that Marx was never content with what he had written: he started ve drafts of his rst chapter, and added four fragments to the same subject, each of them with numerous changes within each text. He tried several ways to deal with his problems, with words as well as with numerical examples, variables and numbers; for example, when discussing the reproduction process or the substitution of constant capital in the section creating means of production on the level of social capital. To examine the conditions of the turnover of capital he developed different models to deduce patterns for the turnover of capital over time. To do this he listed 22 tables to trace the development of this turnover with varying working and circulation periods.12 In more than one case Marx was in midst of deciding which concepts and terms to use for his many categories. Sometimes he seemed to be experimenting with them. In one of his manuscripts for instance, he reected on using u ssiges Kapital [liquid capital] or Betriebskapital [business capital] instead of circulating capital (Marx 1867/68, IISH, MarxEngels-Collection, A 76: 56). At the same time, the term circulating capital was also used with different meanings: as superordinate concept of the ever changing form of capital within the circulation and production process, as the opposite of xed capital, or as what the Physiocrats called avances annuelles.13 In contrast to the many beginnings, Marx once wrote a single rst draft for an analysis of expanded reproduction. It is to be found in his last manuscript, dating from 1877 to 1881 (Marx [186881] 2008b: 790825.) Here he also wrote down more than one schema to trace the development of the different departments during the process of reproduction and accumulation, sometimes identifying new questions he wanted to deal with (Ibid.; see also 87381.) Sometimes he seemed to be discouraged by calculation errors and dropped the subject. This may also be seen in the important part of his last manuscript where Marx developed some hypotheses and numerical examples in an attempt to describe a process of accumulation. Often in his manuscripts, at least in those which were not written with a view to publication, Marx unlike modern economists did
11 Some drafts dating from 1867/68 are still missing. They are currently prepared to be edited in the forthcoming MEGA-volume II/4.3. I would like to thank CarlErich Vollgraf for having drawn my attention to the following points on Book 2. 12 In one of them he mixed up two models. Engels tried to simplify the presentation by reducing the number of these tables but he also was not completely consistent with his version which was criticized in later editions (Mori 2004). 13 Engels decided to introduce another term, Zirkulationskapital [circulating capital] for the superordinate concept (Marx [1885] 2008a: 5168). For a different approach of Marx to the schemata of reproduction, see Mori 2009. 1228
not explicitly state the premises for his numerical examples. This could be one reason for mistakes in his examples and discontinuing works without identifying them. (Ibid.: 81014.)14 Only Engels saw that these schemata could be easily corrected which he did in the printed version in 1885 neither mentioning the mistakes in the original nor hypotheses or conclusions resulting from these examples. At the end of his example he just stated that total capital and total surplus value had grown. However, his example made it possible to interpret Marx as a forerunner of considerations on balanced growth. (Marx [1885] 2008a: 4747, 5435.) It also appears to be noteworthy that this last manuscript, covering 77 pages, can hardly be called a draft written for publication, being rather more a compilation of ideas and arguments written down before they were forgotten. The text was poorly structured, his rst heading being Ch[apter] III) b[ook] II) probably added in a later phase of writing (Marx [186881] 2008b: 698 and 1609). Instead of using headings Marx often separated his various thoughts by long horizontal lines. The two other headings found start with anticipated . . .. They indicate that Marx wanted to add these parts to other drafts, either already existing or still to be written. The rst quarter of the text resulted from Marxs encounter with the writings of Eugen Du hring in 1877/78, undertaken to support Engels in writing his Anti-Du hring (Engels [1878] 1988); it is unclear exactly when he continued to write down the rest of the manuscript (Marx [186881] 2008b: 1610). All drafts and material written for Book 2 taken together leave several questions open: an elaboration of the analysis of expanded reproduction including the question of growth and crises in capitalist production, an examination of how constant capital in the section creating the means of production is substituted, and a consideration of the role of money in the reproduction process. None of those manuscripts was suitable as a proper draft for Book 2, a fact that became clear to Engels when he led the manuscripts after Marxs death. More fragmentary still was the state of Book 3. A rough draft of the whole book existed, dating only from 1864/65, containing severe decits and gaps (Marx [1864/65] 1992). Marx thought on paper. This meant that he made postulates or expressed intentions (e.g. in the beginning of a paragraph or chapter) that did not prevent him from changing his premises when, in the course of his examination, he found additional evidence or material contradicting them. Thus, within his fth chapter, he began a point on
14 In this case he used a surplus value of 700 instead of 750 as well as a smaller organic composition for the additional capital, 3 : 1 instead of 4 : 1 (Marx [1868 81] 2008b: 878). For earlier manuscripts with numerical examples, see Marx ([1864/65] 1992: 4107); Marx and Engels ([187195] 2003: 8150). 1229
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credit and ctitious capital and started with the statement that he would refrain from an analysis of the real movement of the credit system and the instruments it creates. In the pages to follow he nevertheless gathered much material with regard to the credit system, including numerous excerpts that presented only a collection of ideas and facts still awaiting full interpretation. (Marx [1864/65] 1992: 469; see also 431 and 853) Later on, he indicated more than once that this same fth chapter should be the chapter on credit. (Marx to Engels, 30 April 1868; Marx and Engels [1875 82] 1985: 443) Moreover, he stated in a later manuscript that capitalist production needed credit for development after having considered in the French edition of the rst volume that credit developed into an immense social machinery to centralise capital15. (Marx [186881] 2008b: 335; [187275] 1989: 547; see also Vollgraf 2004: 1316 and 22) These facts later convinced Engels to change the sentence from Marxs manuscript in that a detailed analysis lay outside the plan of this work (Marx [1894] 2004: 389; emphasis added). In other cases, Marx had also modied his plans; for example, when he included a long chapter on ground rent in his rough draft 1864/65 instead of dealing with it in a separate book (Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle, 22 February 1858) or using it in his manuscript as an illustration for the distinction between value and production price (Marx [186163] 197682: 1861). This also applies to the world market or share capital. In 1858 he envisaged dealing with these topics in separate books, but in his later years he might have thought, as Vollgraf suggests, of including them at least various considerations on them into Capital because he might have not enough time to write separate books on them (Vollgraf 2004: 134). Moreover Marx, as in other manuscripts, wrote down numerous thoughts, commentaries or even bibliographical data regardless of whether they were appropriate for the subject he was dealing with or not. He used horizontal lines or square brackets to separate them from the surrounding context. The vast majority of the later manuscripts on Book 3 deal more or less with problems from the rst chapter on the correlation between surplus value and prot.16 There were two key questions that occupied Marx: the transition of categories on the level of value to categories on the level of prices; and the laws that determined the movement of the rate of prot. Therefore, Marx wrote at least four additional drafts for another beginning
15 In the edition from 1867 Marx still spoke of a specic machine for the concentration of capital (Marx [1867] 1983: 505; Vollgraf 2004: 22). 16 The manuscripts from 1871 to 1878 are to be found in Marx and Engels ([1871 95] 2003; MEGA2 II/14). Missing here are still some drafts from 1867/68 that are going to be edited in MEGA2 II/4.3. 1230
to Book 3 and he intensely studied the movement of the rate of prot and the main factors determining this movement. Changes in wages, in the length of the working day or in the intensity of labour were important, as were technical progress and its inuence on quantity and price of constant capital. Marx explored these changes by calculating numerous examples, keeping one or more of the determining factors variable capital, constant capital, total capital, surplus value, rate of surplus value, prot, rate of prot or the turnover of capital constant while varying the others. A second subject not completed in 1864/65 was the analysis of ground rent. Marx himself made notes for rearranging the text of this chapter to give it a more detailed structure as well as a summarising section on the transformation of surplus value into rent (Marx [1864/65] 1992: 81617). A third subject remaining open in many ways was, as just mentioned, was that of credit, interest, money and capital. This state of the manuscript was one of the main reasons why Engels needed 10 years to nish his edition. The enumeration of the extra manuscript material on his three books on Capital emphasizes a rst point: Marx was a master of revision. This is conrmed by several of Marxs statements, for instance, when he says that the nal revision was still pending as he wanted to decide what should be kept for the ofcial presentation and what should be omitted (Marx [1864/65] 1992: 83; 1867/68, IISH, MarxEngels Collection, A 76: 3).17 Or when, in early 1866, he told Engels that his manuscript for all three books of Capital was ready, but again, within the same breath, Marx qualied this news because no one could publish this manuscript except he himself (Marx to Engels, 13 February 1866). A second point I want to stress is that the MEGA offers more material than other editions, not only regarding the manuscripts mentioned above but also with other types of written material. If we look at the material gathered in the MEGA we nd examples of several distinct levels of communication. We may think of manuscripts on a rst level as witnessing the communication between the author with himself and with his potential readers. On a second level, his letters give us notice of what he talked about to the people around him. And, on a third level, there is the vast part of his legacy that documents Marxs discourse with authors of his time: his excerpts, the books he read and his collections of newspaper cuttings.
17 Already in 1858, in a letter to Ferdinand Lassalle from 22 February, Marx had admitted: [. . . ] no sooner does one set about nally disposing of subjects to which one has devoted years of study than they start revealing new aspects and demand to be thought out further See also Marx to Carl Leske on 1 August 1846 or Marx to Nikolai Danielson on 13 December 1881. 1231
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As we have seen above, Marx left his manuscripts for the missing books of Capital rather unnished. This left a margin to Engels, which he used in structuring and revising passages when compiling the printed versions of those books out of Marxs papers, in many cases for the use of the reader. Comparing the drafts from Marx and the printed versions from Engels18 there are many differences to be found, and in some cases they turn out to be shifts in emphasis between the author Marx and the editor Engels. Some indications for such a shift might be discerned in the third chapter on the law of the tendency of the rate of prot to fall in Book 3 of Capital, which is, in a certain way, also connected to the discussion of technical change (see Section 5). First, it was Engels who structured this chapter Marx had left those 40 handwritten pages with only few clues useful for such a structuring, namely when he numbered several paragraphs and/or emphasised their beginnings: for example, with the six counteracting inuences (Marx [1864/65] 1992: 3019). Yet it was Engels who identied the text of Marx as providing some general considerations within the development of the laws internal contradictions, and Engels chose to close this point with the sentence that this process would entail the rapid breakdown of capitalist production (Marx [1894] 2004: 243 and 10778; [1864/65] 1992: 315; see also Heinrich 2001: 360). By the way, this passage is the only one in Book 3 where the term breakdown of capitalist production is used. Breakdown or collapse as Marx would have said19 is rarely chosen, and if so then in connection with prices or credit. Second, Marx had included in his manuscripts many passages in square brackets indicating that what was to follow had to be thought over once again, or be it with regard to the contents, be it with regard to the place where to discuss the argument. In such a passage, Marx considered in which conditions the rate of prot could remain constant or even rise.20 He remained mute about the probability of such conditions and judged them
18 This has become easier with the edition of all drafts, treatises and notes left by Marx and the printed versions compiled by Engels in the MEGA. First there are the texts, but second there are several means of facilitating such a comparison: particular lists dening the origin of passages in the printed versions, comparing headings and structure, or listing additions made by Engels and textual differences between the versions of Marx and Engels. 19 In this case, Marx had used a term not very common in his manuscript: zum Klappen bringen which might be translated as being folded (Marx [1864/65] 1992: 315). So the term breakdown of capitalist production was, in a way, a formulation of Engels. 20 I would like to thank Heinz D. Kurz for having drawn my attention to this and the next point. 1232
to be mere abstract possibilities without excluding them explicitly (Marx [1864/65] 1992: 319). Engels inserted the following sentence in the printed version:
But in reality [. . .] the rate of prot will fall in the long run. (Marx [1894] 2004: 227)
Third, Engels reworked a passage of Marx on the consequences of the increase of the productivity of labour on the composition of capital, which he presented as a Supplementary Remark to this third chapter. In his addition, Engels argued that not every invention was an innovation.21 What is remarkable here is the conclusion that Engels drew: a capitalist who does not introduce a labour-saving machine misses the historical mission of the capitalist mode of production; namely, to expand the productivity of human labour. Therefore, Engels continued, this capitalist mode of production is becoming senile and has further and further outlived its epoch. (Marx [1894] 2004: 2589.) Marx did not give such a clear opinion with a view to the future of capitalism, at least not in Capital. In other places, Marx considered the tendency of the rate of prot to fall as the real tendency and talked of the great importance that should be attached to this law for the capitalist mode of production (Marx [1864/65] 1992: 286 and 288, see also 467). Moreover, later on, in a letter from April 1868, he identied this tendency as one of the greatest triumphs over [. . .] all previous political economy (Marx to Engels, April 30, 1868). However, these differences between manuscripts and printed versions indicate that Marx attached more importance to balancing reasons and arguments without always deciding which ones he preferred. In this case, he did consider counteracting inuences as well as cases with a constant or increasing rate of prot. This is also conrmed in his later manuscripts dealing with the rate of prot and the rate of surplus value. Yet he did not always specify if his cases were conned to single industries or not, nor if one of them could or would prevail in the long run.22 Unlike Engels, Marx did not rule out explicitly those cases and left the question open. Such a balancing was also to be found in several parts of the manuscripts of Books 2 and 3, as was shown above; for example, in the case of credit or ground
21 For further details, see Kurz 2010, Section 4. 22 See e.g. his last manuscript on this matter from 1875 (Marx and Engels [1871 95] 2003: 29, 1245). In an earlier manuscript, Marx discussed consequences of an increasing productivity of labour in a paragraph titled The General Laws of the Rate of Prot (Marx 1867/68, IISH, MarxEngels Collection, A 71: 156; see also 1920). 1233
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rent, where Marx had considered different ways of structuring his thoughts and arguments. Thus, without being conclusively proven it appears that Marx had some doubts as to the validity of the law on the falling rate of prot.23 Engels, on the other hand, preferred distinct expressions and therefore in some cases, did not seem to balk at sharpening Marxs formulations as long as they were in the spirit of the author, as he understood it (Marx [1885] 2008a: 8; for further evidence see Vollgraf 2004: 2729). Kenji Mori has drawn attention to another example of Marxs way of submitting his analysis to a careful examination that is only to be found in the manuscripts of Marx, and not in the printed version presented by Engels. In Manuscript II, dedicated to the reproduction process in Book 2 of Capital, Marx developed a very detailed reproduction model comprising of not two but six departments, discussing the transfer of products between the departments and the money necessary for these transfers, the way in which the surplus value is realized in the different departments and the conditions for an equilibrium between these departments. Marx also asked the question how these processes functioned after the equalization of the rate of prot. After a few lines he broke off and left this problem to later examination, which did not take place (Marx [186881] 2008b: 495; [1885] 2008a: 5403; Mori 2009).
4. Marxs excerpts on technology Marxs interest in technical subjects arose early. In 1845 he had already studied French translations of the works of Andrew Ure and Charles Babbage, stimulated by the second edition of the Histoire de le conomie politique en Europe, depuis les anciens jusqua ` nos jours from Adolphe Blanqui in 1842. (Marx [184447] 1998: 8 and 10; Winkelmann 1982: LXXXIIIII.) Marx lled one of six notebooks with excerpts referring to the machinery question, a term common in the discussions of this time. However, during this phase, Marx left out most of the genuine technical aspects dealt with by Babbage and Ure, such as the discussions on the differences between machinery and tools or detailed considerations on the division of labour. Instead, he focused rstly, on economic questions: what inuence did machines have on price, cost, exports or overproduction? And secondly, on the social effects of machinery: what impact did machinery
23 Perhaps an anecdote can be told here: Playing a popular parlour game called Confessions in 1865, Marx offered as his motto: De omnibus dubitandum everything is to be doubted (Familie Marx privat. 2005: 118 (Abb. 1), 2345). 1234
have on the working people? (Winkelmann 1982: LXXXIVseqq; Paulinyi 1998: 201.)24 Shortly after having signed a contract with the publisher Carl Leske on a Kritik der Politik und Nationalo konomie in two volumes in February 1845, Marx had decided to expand his studies and to include several works dealing with the social effects of the industrialisation, known under the keyword of pauperism (Marx [184447] 1998: 4578). Marxs examination of the machinery question and the factory system particularly identied a displacement of workers, a prolongation of the working day and an intensication of work. He made rst use of his excerpts in 1847 along with some additions on the excerpts from Ure when refuting the suggestions of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. (Marx 1847; Winkelmann 1982: CXXIIIII). We may see that Marx intended neither to consider technical aspects in any detail nor to examine those questions in separate chapters of his critique; instead he probably had in mind to deal with them in relation to respective economic or social topics. In 1850/51, after the failure of the revolution and his emigration to London, Marx started comprehensive studies in the British Museum. They included political economy in its very diverse aspects, but went far beyond that. He made extensive excerpts from books dealing with cultural history, the social condition and inuence of women through time and society, and technology, the history thereof, and agronomy (Marx to Engels, 13 October 1851). Marx used, as he already had in 1845, the term technology in the style of Adolphe Blanqui and Andrew Ure (Marx [184447] 1998: 460 and 540) as well as Johann Beckmann, who, as Marx recorded in one of his notebooks, rst used it to denote the connection of mechanics, physics, and chemistry with artisanry, which, as Marx added, should mean production (Mu ller 1981: 50; see also Marx [186163] 197682: 1932). Marx later on in the rst edition of Capital also used technology when he talked of aspects that in German we would denote today as belonging to Technik (Paulinyi 1998: 20; Mu ller 1981: X). In the second edition, as the editors of MEGA2 II/6 observed, Marx often replaced Technologie by Technik, and also the adjective technological by technical.25 In any case, Marx still more often used other terms to talk of technical processes, instruments or procedures; for example, machine, machinery or instru-
24 More details might be seen looking at the marginalia in the copy of Ures two volumes in French that Marx had in his private library. This copy shows a lot of marks within the text and in the margins with different types of pencils which have not yet been evaluated in detail (MEGA2 IV/32 1999: No. 1343). 25 Incidentally, along with this Marx replaced the somewhat opaque notion technological composition of capital in the beginning of Chapter 23 just by composition (Jungnickel 1987: 223). 1235
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ments of labour. Technical change is often discussed as one factor of the increase of the productivity of labour (see also Ropohl 2007: 66). Even during the autumn of 1851, Marx sounded out several contacts to publishers in Germany for a way to publish his economics, two volumes on the history of political economy, a third on socialism and a fourth on his critique.26 These plans coincided with Marxs intense studies mentioned above. On the one hand, those studies covered German literature on technology, mainly J.H. Moritz Poppe, also Johann Beckmann and a German edition from Andrew Ures Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines, translated and revised by Karl Karmasch and Friedrich Heeren. In his excerpts, Marx concentrated on the history of inventions since the Middle Ages, this time also with growing interest for technical details, preferably for mills, timepieces and steam (Mu ller 1981: LVseqq; LXXI). On the other hand, they also contained works of Justus von Liebig and James F.W. Johnston dealing with ndings in agricultural chemistry and geology and their application to practical agriculture. In contrast to his early excerpts on political economy for example, from 1844 (Marx [1844 47] 1998: 472; Rojahn 2002: 32seqq.) , Marxs excerpts on technical aspects show a somewhat neutral approach. He stuck to the structure used by the authors and noted their points without commentary or criticism (Mu ller 1981: LXXIXX; Winkelmann 1982: XCIIseqq. and CVseqq.). Marxs key interest in all of his studies seemed to be acquiring basic knowledge of these technical elds. We nd detailed notes on various procedures to break up and separate numerous substances that were probably not written down with the intention of using them in later manuscripts. Also, numerous parts of the excerpts from Liebig and Johnston meticulously pinned down the chemical and geological processes, leaving the prevailing impression that they were written out of a genuine interest in the technical details. Marx left open where and in which ways he wanted to make use of these excerpts within his economics (Mu ller 1981: LVIseqq.; Marx [1851] 1991: 172seqq., 276seqq. and 327seqq.). Moreover, Marx continued to research the social effects of machinery on working people, focusing on the textile industry in his Londoner Hefte. Peter Gaskell, writing on the condition of labouring people in his Artisans and Machinery, drew Marxs attention to the at rst increasing demand for labour in the wake of the introduction of spinning-machines, which was followed by numerous labourers being replaced by other machines. John
26 These efforts eventually failed in 1852, as well as an attempt to write at least an essay presenting modern literature on political economy in England from 1830 to 1852 for Die Gegenwart, an anthology published in serial volumes by Brockhaus (Rubel 1957: 415seqq.; McLellan 1974: 303). 1236
Fielden described the increasing demand for children as labourers and the abuses they had to suffer in his Curse of the Factory System (Mu ller 1992: 277 8, 286seqq.; Marx [1851] 1991: 104seqq. and 43seqq.). One of the main interests of Marxs analysis of capitalist production was to identify the major causes of why the industrial revolution started in the eighteenth century in Great Britain. Mu ller concludes that Marx, in his excerpts from 1851 on German technology, did not come to a satisfying result, neither with his studies on technical processes nor on the historical development of those inventions (Mu ller 1981: CIseqq.). Marx returned to his studies on machinery only in 1856. He started a collection with the intention of gathering material on money, credit and crises out of his excerpts. There he also noted some excerpts from the German edition of Ures Technisches Wo rterbuch and Poppes Geschichte der Technologie, referring to physical properties of gold for coins (Mu ller 1981: 169 and LXXXV). Some pages before this he had also noted earlier excerpts from two other books he had read in 1850 on questions of coinage (IISH, MarxEngels-Collection, B 75: 24; for 1850, see Marx [184951] 1983: 214seqq.). In his rst effort to write down the outlines of his economics in 1857/58 in the so-called Grundrisse, Marx made some use of his excerpts, not in a systematic way but rather with a few more or less widespread remarks on the question of machinery and technology.27 At the beginning of the 1860s Marx envisaged starting with a systematization of his considerations on the role of machinery in the economy. In a notebook he collected quotes from his earlier excerpts under different topics, calling them his Citatenheft (notebook of quotes). He chose two headings for his excerpts on machinery, rst Productivity of Labour (Winkelmann 1982: 95seqq. and CXXVIIVIII) and second M) Machinery (Mu ller 1992: 329seqq.). In the rst, Marx gathered four quotes from Babbage out of his notebook from 1851 along with other quotes from Adam Smith, shortening them to the essence of machinery and division of labour as he then saw it (Winkelmann 1982: CXXXVIIVIII). In the second, he also started with a collection of quotes, referring to the social effects of machinery. Most of them warned that machines would decrease the demand for labour and in fact increase the length of the working day, by more shifts or overtime. Marx then continued with the economic and social effects presented by Peter Gaskell, now turning to write down a sort of essay on the development of weaving in the wake of the introduction of
27 Marx quotes Ure (Marx [1857/58] 2006: 569/70) and Babbage (Marx [1857/ 58] 2006: 257, 291, 480, 569, 597) from the early note-books as well as Poppe (Marx [1857/58] 2006: 718) and Gaskell (Marx [1857/58] 2006: 478, 697) from the Londoner Hefte. 1237
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spinning mills, thereby, as Mu ller points out, arguing for the machine as a distinguishing element of capitalist production, a position Marx did not adhere to in other contexts or even rejected. In later manuscripts, he changed his mind and did not make use of this essay, but only of the quotes from the other authors. (Mu ller 1992: 308seqq. and 331seqq.). At the same time, Marx also made new excerpts of many books in a notebook carrying the title Political Economy Criticism of.28 He had already read numerous books earlier; that was the case with Babbage, whose work Marx now read in the rst English edition from 1832. These excerpts appear to have been noted after those in the Citatenheft. Marx again noticed Babbages distinction of three categories of machines; his other excerpts cover various topics that were not considered in the early notes.29 The early 1860s may be interpreted as a turning point in Marxs treatment of the role of technical change. Early on he had been aware of the existence of this subject and also perhaps of its latent potential; however, he had treated it only in relation to his purely economic questions. But then his interest in technical change and in technical processes in general grew considerably and so did his will to deal with machinery, factories, modern industry and industrial revolution. In his Manuscript 186163 Marx developed the presentation of relative surplus value and, in this context, he considered treating technical aspects in a more detailed way; in his letter to Engels from 28 January 1863 he talked of a section on machinery. To do this Marx re-evaluated his excerpts from 1851 and made intensive use of them in his manuscript. Most of the markups to be found in his excerpts date from this period (Winkelmann 1982: CXXVIVII; Mu ller 1981: LXXXVIIseqq.). Marx drew on Babbage and his views on the cost of technical innovations (Marx [186183] 197682: 3056, 1681 and 1867)30 and on conditions for the development of machinery as an element which revolutionises the mode of production and the relations of production ([186163] 197682: 1914). He started with Babbages denition of the machine as the union of several simple tools driven by a common power. Then, looking for the causes of industrial revolution, Marx
28 IISH, MarxEngels Collection, B 91 A. The notebook carries the notion Heft VII, because Marx had used its rst 63 pages to write down the last part of the Grundrisse written in seven note books (Hefte). (IISH, MarxEngels Collection, A 49.) 29 IISH, (MarxEngels Collection, B 91 A: 1845) and Winkelmann (1982: 101seqq. and CXXVIIIIX). Marx did not use the fourth edition from 1835 already available. The French edition that he had read in 1845 had been a translation from the third English edition from 1833 (Winkelmann 1982: CLXXXVII, footnote 11). 30 Marx used examples of Babbage for the devaluation of new machines in the wake of improvements and for the costs due to the maintenance of machinery. 1238
added a historical examination of how machines from the textile and other industries had developed since the Middle Ages, especially quoting Poppe31 (Marx [186163] 197682: 1915, 191825, 192835 and 1940.) He also spotted new sources of information on the technical principles of machinery because he aimed to elaborate on the conditions for inventions and development of machinery. Once again he dived deep into his research reading and taking extensive notes out of the second volume of The Industry of Nations, a compendium on machines that had been presented at the world exhibition in London in 1851. Decisive parts of it were probably written by James Nasmyth, a distinguished inventor and mechanical engineer.32 Another source was Robert Willis, an inventor and professor of mechanical engineering and pivotal in the education of applied mechanics. Marx attended one of the lectures Willis gave to workers in his Government School of Mines in Jermyn Street, London. Marx concentrated on manufacturing technology, a branch of machinery that would become vital to the development of industry and economy, and he gained remarkable insights into the nature of machine technology as Paulinyi observes (Paulinyi 1998: 23seqq.). However, these studies also reveal Marxs genuine interest in technical processes, instruments and procedures (Marx [186183] 197682: 193549 and 197988.) Later on, in spring 1863, Marx turned again to the ve-volume collection of Johann Beckmann on the history of inventions since the Middle Ages, at the time more extensively read than in 1851.33 Already in his Beihefte, a collection of notebooks with numerous new excerpts from literature that Marx stored for the writing of Capital in spring 1863, there are traces to be found from another subject on which he would spent a lot of time on in the years to follow: agricultural chemistry and its repercussions on farming. In Beiheft D some rst excerpts appear from ber Theorie und Praxis in der Landwirthschaft, published in Justus v. Liebigs U 1856 (IISH, MarxEngelsCollection, B 93: 3740). Marx then, in 1865/66, lled a voluminous notebook while writing his rst draft of Capital Book 3, especially regarding its sixth chapter on the transformation of surplus value into ground rent. As a consequence, the part on ground rent became almost long enough to be a book in itself (Marx to Engels, 13 February
31 Marx mainly used Poppes Geschichte der Technologie; he did not draw on the remaining treatises from Poppe, which he had also read in the 1850s (Mu ller 1981: 347). 32 Nasmyth also promoted his and others ndings in Remarks on the Introduction of the Slide Principle in 1841 (Paulinyi 1998: 312). 33 The excerpts are to be found in the so-called Beiheft D (Mu ller 1994). Marx noticed some examples for the displacement of workers by early machines and also details of the improvements for mills in early centuries and societies. 1239
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1866). Among the excerpts on the economic and social condition of rural economies in different countries many of them were used in this sixth chapter there are about 100 pages dedicated to Justus v. Liebig. Marx was interested in information on the relationship between agricultural methods and crop yields, in particular the effects and costs of modern ways of fertilizing soil compared with older ones such as crop rotation or drainage, or Liebigs considerations on the feeding of the population.34 On 13 February 1866, Marx explained to Engels that the recent works of Liebig and other chemists were more important for the question of ground rent than all economists together.35 In his rst Volume of Capital, Marx devoted about one-sixth of his presentation to Machinery and Modern Industry. His extensive studies during the past 20 years had left their mark, namely his excerpts from Charles Babbage and Andrew Ure. Yet to evidence the social effects of machinery on labouring people he had consulted more recent sources, mainly reports from parliamentary enquiries and from inspectors of factories (Winkelmann 1982: LXXXIXseqq., CVI and CXXXVIseqq.). Still after the publication of his rst Volume of Capital in 1867, Marx continued his detailed studies on improvements in agriculture, now reading several books by Carl Fraas.36 In one of them, Klima und Panzenwelt in der Zeit, he provided evidence for the destructive impact of cultivation in general, as Marx pointed out in a letter to Engels: The rst effect of cultivation is useful, but nally devastating through deforestation, etc. [. . .] The conclusion is that cultivation when it proceeds in natural growth and is not consciously controlled [. . .] leaves deserts behind it, Persia, Mesopotamia, etc., Greece (Marx to Engels, 25 March 1868). In the last decade of his life, along with his political engagement in the international labour movement and his continuing efforts to manage Books 2 and 3 of Capital, Marx started a new phase of comprehensive studies leading him in diverse directions. Many of them had their origins in the gaps and questions left open in Capital mentioned above. Money, credit and banks were on his agenda, just as were ground rent and landed
34 IISH, MarxEngels Collection, B 106: 29135. Marx read Liebigs Einleitung in die Naturgesetze des Feldbaus and Die Chemie in ihrer Anwendung auf Agricultur und Physiologie, both from 1862. See Marx ([1864/65] 1992) for the rst draft of Capital, Book 3. 35 See also Marx to Engels, (3 January 1868): I would like to know from Schorlemmer what is the latest and best book (German) on agricultural chemistry. [. . . ] For the chapter on ground rent I shall have to be aware of the latest state of the question at least to some extent. 36 IISH, Marx-Engels-Collection, B 107, 111 and 112. He also re-read Poppes Geschichte der Mathematik (ibid. B 107: 3). 1240
property. Moreover, Marx also immersed himself deeply in studies of natural sciences: physiology, chemistry, geology and mathematics, to mention the most prominent. Most of them are documented by extensive excerpts, others by the books he read and that have survived the passage of time. We also know of his various readings because he referred to them in letters or in lists of books to read or buy in his notebooks (Vollgraf 2002: 4950). They show, I would suggest from the material available at the moment, a change in his interests. Indeed, some of them were still linked to economic problems in the broadest sense of the word. This may be said, for example, of his reading of Julius Au: Die Hilfsdu ngemittel in ihrer volks- und privatwirthschaftlichen Bedeutung, a book he kept in his private library (MEGA2 IV/32 1999: No. 42). This author explicitly declared the economic effects of fertilizers to be his main subject, and Marxs marginal notes show his interest in Aus discussion of Malthus population theory.37 Other studies reveal, as already to be seen from his commentary on Fraas in 1868, that Marx was interested in technical and scientic subjects as such; that is, in a more general way. In some cases, when he started his reading there was a hint of economics; for example, when he read several books dealing with agriculture and natural sciences, he noted the title Agricultur Bodenpreis, Rent. But then he noted geological and other technical processes in great detail without any further reference to economics (IISH, Marx-Engels-Collection, B 143), as was the case in most of his late studies in natural sciences (see, for example, Marx and Engels [187783] 1999).
5. Technical Change in Marxs manuscripts Some considerations on the inuence of the excerpts on Marxs economic theory should be mentioned here, although this question is still to be explored in greater detail when these texts will become available in the MEGA. In Capital, terms such as technical progress, technical change or simply technology turn up rarely. Still the investigation of different forms of technical change was central to Marxs analysis of the capitalist mode of production, in particular for the process of accumulation and to explain the rate of prots tendency to fall. In his view, the prime motor of capitalist production was the valorization of capital, the production of or, to be more precise, the increase of the production of surplus value. Methods to produce relative surplus value by raising the productivity of labour proved
37 RGASPI, fonds 1, opis 1, delo 6425: 285, 289, 303, 306 and 309. Marx also highlighted a passage on reasons for ground rent (ibid.: 346). 1241
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to be more efcient and not as limited as those increasing the absolute surplus value (e.g. by extending the working day). The basics are well known. Examining the division of labour, cooperation, manufacture, and machinery Marx found that these forms saved labour, or variable capital, while constant capital raw materials, products used in the construction of machines, and so forth remained unchanged or increased; thus the organic composition of capital38 was raised. This, Marx observed, would tend to lower the rate of prot, being dened as the relation of surplus value or prots to the total capital outlay. To explain why capitalists wanted to introduce new techniques that would lower their prots, Marx turned to the forces of competition. Capitalists who used new cost-cutting techniques were able to win super-prots until other capitalists also adopted the new method. Then the price of the product fell, and a lower rate of prot would be established. Marx assumed labour-saving innovations to be the dominant form of technical change, and his presentation offers much evidence to the view that they would ultimately lead to developments detrimental to the capitalists interests. However, as Marx did not elaborate the process in greater detail, he left room for diverting interpretations about the connection between a falling rate of prot and a theory of crises or of a breakdown of capitalism. (Schefold 1976: 818; Elster 1983: 177, 17980; Heinrich 2001: 31170; see also above). Early on, Schefold, using Sraffas theory of prices to analyse the impact of different forms of technical progress on the composition of capital, the wage rate, and so on, showed that the organic composition of capital could remain constant with labour-saving technical progress, because labour saving in all sectors lowers values not only of nal products, but in the long run also of the elements of constant capital. If the saving of labour affects all sectors equally, the relative values of products and of the means of production stay constant. The same will hold if commodities are measured in terms of prices of production both as inputs and as outputs. Moreover, the economy need not but can sustain a golden age . . . if no outside disturbance takes place, and if a constant rate of prot provides adequate savings for the investments required. He also pointed out that Marx himself already worried about the possibility of capital-saving progress; for example, savings of raw materials that would tend to lower the organic composition hence the importance of the discovery that the introduction of machinery implied the tendency to the productive consumption of more materials. The introduction of the machine would not change the materials of which the commodity to be produced was
38 See Heinrich (2001: 31522) for a well-informed and detailed discussion of this category and its meanings within the different versions of Marxs work. 1242
made, but more materials were needed to produce the machine: the organic composition had to rise in this case.39 In fact, Marx did mention the counteracting savings of means of production, particularly of raw materials.40 He dealt with such savings in the third book of Capital, and dened them as a countertendency to the fall in the rate of prot because, while the value of raw materials may fall considerably, quantities used in production might increase. Within these considerations Marx also noted that there were factors limiting this countertendency, which seems to be a repercussion of the passage on the restricted cheapening of raw materials primarily organic raw materials in the earlier Manuscript 186163 already quoted by Schefold.41 This is also an example for Marxs method to balance reasons and arguments very carefully. In 1864/65 Marx wrote:
[It should be taken into account . . .] that the value of the constant capital does not increase in the same proportion as its material volume is growing [. . .] E.g. the quantity of cotton [. . . ] It is the same with machines and other xed capital, [[Again, there are also counteractive causes; prices of certain animal or plant products increasing]]42 coal etc. (Marx [1864/65] 1992: 305; my translation)
It could be noteworthy that this passage in square brackets was one that Engels left out in the printed version of the third book of Capital, (Marx [1894] 2004: 233 and 954.) Although he knew Manuscript 186163 since 1884/85, there is little evidence that Engels knew of the passage in which Marx clearly argues that
[. . .] capitalist production has not yet succeeded, and never will succeed in mastering these processes [i.e. animal organic processes] in the same way as it has mastered purely mechanical or inorganic chemical processes. (Marx [186163] 197682: 1809)
From 1884 onwards, Engels repeatedly leafed through several of Marxs 23 notebooks, Manuscript 186163, as we know from his letters, and he
39 Schefold (1976: 808 and 817). I would like to thank Bertram Schefold for helpful comments on these forms of technical change and Marxs views on them. 40 Marx considered them as a distinct operation, that is, as methods not concerning and independent of the labourer. This and the following quotes from Capital, volume 1 refer to the second edition from 1872, the last German one that Marx himself has arranged (Marx [1872] 1987: 322). 41 Marx ([1864/65] 1992: 11064 and 305; [186163] 19761982: 180910) and Schefold (1976: 81718); see also Ricoy (2003). 42 Marx often used square brackets to keep hold of ideas, notes and so on. I have used double square brackets here to distinguish Marxs brackets from the editorial ones. 1243
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compiled a table of contents for it using the entries that Marx had left on the covers of those notebooks. Having deciphered the third book up to page 230 Marxs observation being on page 217 Engels declared in a letter to Laura Lafargue from 8 March 1885 that the essential part of this manuscript had already been dealt with in this older Manuscript 186163. However, it is open to question whether Engels spotted the passage on the limits of organic raw materials possibly because it is found in a discussion on Cherbuliez in the later part where Marx resumes his elaboration of Theories on Surplus Value, and not in the part dedicated explicitly to capital, prot and the rate of prot.43 In his presentation in Capital, Marx specied another countertendency to the falling rate of prot, the increased exploitation rate resulting from the introduction of new machines. It marks another controversial issue with view to technical change and the falling rate of prot that can only be mentioned in passing here (Elster 1983: 181; Marx [1864/65] 1992: 3025; Heinrich 2001: 32770). How did Marx make use of his excerpts in his manuscripts? First, he used a historical approach to trace the conditions in which cooperation and mechanisation developed into a new system based on the production of machines by machines. Starting with the denition of a machine by Babbage, he examined the development from tool to machinery combining the observations of the technical movement since the Middle Ages made by Poppe with more modern developments, such as the slide-rest and the steam-hammer, discussed in the Industry of Nations. In consequence, Marx spotted the increasing number of working machines as the decisive factor of the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century, not steam power as he had emphasized in earlier writings and was widely assumed in Marxs time (Marx [1872] 1987: 362seqq.; Paulinyi 1998: 12, 24 and 345). He also stated that the revolution of working methods in one industry caused similar transformations in other industries (Marx [1872] 1987: 3745). Second, the excerpts emphasize the fundamental importance that Marx attributed to science for the growth of productivity, making it a decisive productive factor without suggesting a complete dependence of science from economic needs. This aspect has already been addressed by Rosenberg (1974); and Ricoy added that, apart from science, the accumulation of practical experience proved to be essential for the development of machinery (Ricoy 2003: 51 and 613).44 Marxs considerations
43 Marx and Engels ([187195] 2003: 3456, 10223); Marx ([186163] 197682: 1544 and 1802). 44 For instance, Marx singled out a new principle for the improvement of working methods; namely, the principle of dividing any process into its constituent phases or components, essential for any natural or mechanical science (Marx [1872] 1987: 442, 410 and 465). 1244
were not limited to the industrial sphere, with mechanical engineering, transportation and communication playing a prominent role apart from the textile industry. Moreover, his notebooks afrm that technical change in agriculture should be discussed in greater detail. Marxs interest was devoted to the effects of new ndings in chemistry on the cultivation methods that were crucial for his analysis of differential rent (see, for example, Marx [1864/65] 1992: 7634, 768 and 833), while at the same time alluding to the destructive powers of these methods (Marx [1864/65] 1992: 753; [1872] 1987: 4757). Third, in Capital an interaction between economic theory and politics may be observed, when the social effects of machinery that had dominated the early excerpts once again became the focus of attention. In Marxs view, only the capitalist use of machinery was responsible for a serious decline in working conditions (Marx [1872] 1987: 399424). When summarizing, Marx considers the factory system in the hand of capitalists as a means for the systematic robbery of what is necessary for the life of the workman ([1872] 1987: 413). His lasting interest in these social aspects is shown in autumn 1877, in one of his lists with modications compiled for a planned third and a possible American edition of the rst book.45 Here Marx noted several alterations for the chapter on Machinery and Modern Industry; for instance, one referring to the interaction between economic crisis and technical change.46 On the other hand, Marx also shows that legal controls and restrictions for the working conditions were a necessary product of modern industry. And although these regulations were insufcient in many ways, they were enforced slowly but nevertheless universally, improving safety levels and in fact shortening the length of the working day (Marx [1872] 1987: 45675).
45 It could be useful to know that in these lists Marx also noted that his analysis of the origin of the capitalist mode of production should be limited to Western European countries. Marx had revised his presentation in the French edition, 187275, and conrmed this view in his letter to Vera Zasulich from 8 March 1881. Anderson has pointed out that this modication was disregarded in the third and in the English edition arranged by Engels (Marx [1883] 1989: 17 and 670; [1872] 1987: 646; [187275] 1989: 634; Anderson 1983). 46 Marx points out that for workers, the effects of an economic crisis would be aggravated by the introduction of machines; he quotes an example from the American cotton industry during the War of Secession. He presents a statistic showing that new machines have caused an enormous process of concentration within the cotton industry during the war and have led to the dismissal of more than 50,000 workers (Marx [1883] 1989: 8; [187275] 1989: 374). 1245
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6. Technical change in Marxs politics Finally, I would like to make an excursion into politics of the nineteenth century to see the impact of the ideas and concepts that Marx developed in his studies and his work for his political activities.47 In September 1868 the IWMA discussed The Effects of Machinery in the Hands of the Capitalist Class at its third congress assembled at Brussels. After the congress in Lausanne in September 1867, the Paris bureau of the IWMA published a proposal for the programme in Brussels, which included the use of machines in industry. In January 1868, Marx opened the debate on the questions to be submitted to the congress at Brussels in the General Council of the IWMA. Machinery and its effects ranked in the second place next to credit, cooperatives, education, then the property of land, mines, railways and other trafc infrastructure, and also strikes (Marx and Engels [186771] 2009: 535, 5389 and 1835). In July 1868, the debate on those questions started within the General Council, and it was Marx who made a point of discussing rst and foremost machinery and its effects (Marx and Engels [186771] 2009: 577). In the discussion in the General Council, Marx argued that machines had effects that turned out to be the opposite of what was expected: they prolonged the working day instead of shortening it; the proportion of women and children working in mechanized industries increased; labourers suffered from a growing intensity of labour and became more dependent on capitalists because they did not own the means of production any more labourers turned out to be slaves of their masters; many workers were dismissed from work, to use Marxs words, according to the minutes, written down by Johann Georg Eccarius: they were positively killed (Marx and Engels [186771] 2009: 581); and in agriculture the introduction of machinery produced an increasing surplus population and thereby induced a wage lowering pressure (ibid.). Arguments in favour of machinery did not meet much response. John Weston pointed out that it would be useful to take industries other than only the textile industry into account; he argued that in the carpentry trade, machinery shortened the working day and did not decrease the demand for labour. Harriet Law, one of the most prominent libertines in London, indicated, according to the minutes, that [m]achinery had made women less dependent on men [. . .] & would ultimately emancipate them from domestic slavery (ibid.: 585). Neither of those arguments came up in the resolution to be presented to
47 I am grateful to Ju rgen Herres, who pointed this out in sharing his extensive knowledge on the IWMA with me. Details and evidence for this chapter are mostly to be found in Marx and Engels [186771] 2009. 1246
the above, mentioned congress that the General Council adopted in the meeting of 11 August. Instead, the resolution dealt exclusively with the difference between the capitalists despotism & extortion when used by capitalists and the material premise for the abolition of wage-labour. This was reminiscent of the distinction between a machine as such and a machine in the hands of the capitalist in Capital (Marx [1867] 1983: 375).48 All of the delegates to the congress at Brussels agreed that the introduction of machinery tended to be less advantageous for labourers than for capitalists, stressing the lowering of wages and the dismissal of workers. The commission accepted the resolution proposed by the General Council. (Marx and Engels [186771] 2009: 18846).
7. Conclusion Shortly before the publication of Volume 1 of Capital, Engels worried: I had really begun to suspect from one or two phrases in your last letter that you had again reached an unexpected turning-point which might prolong everything indenitely. (Engels to Marx, 7 August 1865). Current editions of his work appears to conrm Engels worries and show Marx as a master of revision, his eyes open for new sources and other views on his economics. He often looked for several ways to resolve a problem, not always being adequately satised with the solutions he found. This can be seen in his unpublished papers that make up a large part of his legacy. Regarding technical change, we may observe that Marx started his enquiry focusing on the social effects of machinery: namely, on the dismissal of workers, and a wide-ranged deterioration of working conditions. Apart from that he also examined the relation of machinery to economic aspects. In his later studies he included the development of machinery in history and developed an interest in how the technical devices functioned, in other words, in the more technical aspects. Moreover, he also took agriculture into account and the improvements that natural sciences ndings offered for the cultivation of soil and the breeding of cattle. However, there is another side of the coin to Marxs openness. He sometimes drifted away from his primary questions and subjects, and discovered new areas of research. This may be seen in his excerpts of the early 1850s as well as in those of the 1870s where he, besides exploring political economy, plunged into extensive
48 Speaking at the congress in Brussels, Friedrich Lessner referred to Marxs Capital. In the proceedings there are no details as to the passages Lessner quoted (La Premie ` re Internationale 1962: 297). 1247
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studies of geology, chemistry and mathematics. Nevertheless, he arrived at a detailed analysis of technical change and its importance for capitalist production, emphasizing the revolutionary effects, the pivotal role of the mechanical engineering and its signicance in the emancipation of the labourers by building a truly social system of production (Marx and Engels [186771] 2009: 587). He also occasionally alluded to the destructive power of technical change.
Acknowlegements I would like to thank Ju rgen Herres, Heinz D. Kurz, Bertram Schefold and three anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions, and James Gay and Ian Whalley who checked the English. The responsibility for the text rests, of course with the author.
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Vollgraf, C.-E. (2002). Marx Arbeit am dritten Buch des Kapital in den 1870/80er Jahren. In In memoriam Wolfgang Jahn: Der ganze Marx. Alles Verfasste vero ffentlichen, erforschen und den ungeschriebenen Marx rekonstruieren. Hamburg: Argument, pp. 3366. Vollgraf, C.-E. (2004). Engels Kapitalismus-Bild und seine inhaltlichen Zusa tze zum dritten Band des Kapitals. Beitra ge zur Marx-Engels-Forschung. N.F. 2004: 753. Winkelmann, R. (Ed.) (1982). Exzerpte u ber Arbeitsteilung, Maschinerie und Industrie. Historisch-kritische Ausgabe. Transkribiert und hrsg. von R. Winkelmann. Mit einem Vorwort von L. Krader. Frankfurt/M: Ullstein.
Abstract Karl Marx is well known for sharply criticizing the social effects that technical change had on the employment and the working conditions of the labourers. At the same time, he was fascinated by the revolutionary power that technical innovations offered and assigned such innovations to play a prominent role in the development of modern society. We may explore the origin and development of his views in greater detail referring to the whole of his legacy, not only to his writings but also to his numerous excerpts from the technological literature of his time. Keywords Karl Marx, technical change, industry, agriculture, working method
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