Marx: A Guide for the Perplexed (Guides for the Perplexed)

200 Pages·2010·1.09 MB·English

by  John Seed

MARX:
A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED
Continuum Guides for the Perplexed
Continuum’s Guides for the Perplexed are clear, concise and accessible introductions to
thinkers, writers and subjects that students and readers can fi nd especially challenging.
Concentrating specifi cally on what it is that makes the subject diffi cult to grasp,
these books explain and explore key themes and ideas, guiding the reader towards a
thorough understanding of demanding material.
Guides for the Perplexed available from Continuum:
Adorno: A Guide for the Perplexed, Alex Thomson
Arendt: A Guide for the Perplexed, Karin Fry
Aristotle: A Guide for the Perplexed, John Vella
Augustine: A Guide for the Perplexed, James Wetzel
Bentham: A Guide for the Perplexed, Philip Schofi eld
Berkeley: A Guide for the Perplexed, Talia Bettcher
Deleuze: A Guide for the Perplexed, Claire Colebrook
Derrida: A Guide for the Perplexed, Julian Wolfreys
Descartes: A Guide for the Perplexed, Justin Skirry
The Empiricists: A Guide for the Perplexed, Laurence Carlin
Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed, Stephen Earnshaw
Freud: A Guide for the Perplexed, Celine Surprenant
Gadamer: A Guide for the Perplexed, Chris Lawn
Habermas: A Guide for the Perplexed, Lasse Thomassen
Hegel: A Guide for the Perplexed, David James
Heidegger: A Guide for the Perplexed, David Cerbone
Hobbes: A Guide for the Perplexed, Stephen J. Finn
Hume: A Guide for the Perplexed, Angela Coventry
Husserl: A Guide for the Perplexed, Matheson Russell
Kant: A Guide for the Perplexed, T. K. Seung
Kierkegaard: A Guide for the Perplexed, Clare Carlisle
Leibniz: A Guide for the Perplexed, Franklin Perkins
Levinas: A Guide for the Perplexed, B. C. Hutchens
Locke: A Guide for the Perplexed, Patricia Sheridan
Merleau-Ponty: A Guide for the Perplexed, Eric Matthews
Nietzsche: A Guide for the Perplexed, R. Kevin Hill
Plato: A Guide for the Perplexed, Gerald A. Press
Pragmatism: A Guide for the Perplexed, Robert B. Talisse and Scott F. Aikin
Quine: A Guide for the Perplexed, Gary Kemp
Relativism: A Guide for the Perplexed, Timothy Mosteller
Ricoeur: A Guide for the Perplexed, David Pellauer
Rousseau: A Guide for the Perplexed, Matthew Simpson
Sartre: A Guide for the Perplexed, Gary Cox
Schopenhauer: A Guide for the Perplexed, R. Raj Singh
Socrates: A Guide for the Perplexed, Sara Ahbel-Rappe
Spinoza: A Guide for the Perplexed, Charles Jarrett
The Stoics: A Guide for the Perplexed, M. Andrew Holowchak
Utilitarianism: A Guide for the Perplexed, Krister Bykvist
MARX:
A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED
JOHN SEED
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© John Seed, 2010
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 978-0-8264-9334-7
PB: 978-0-8264-9335-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Seed, John, 1950–
Marx : a guide for the perplexed / John Seed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ).
ISBN 978-0-8264-9334-7 -- ISBN 978-0-8264-9335-4
1. Marx, Karl, 1818–1883. I. Title.
B3305.M74S44 2010
335.4092--dc22
2010004491
Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India
Printed and bound in Great Britain by the MPG Books Group
CONTENTS
Abbreviations vii
1 Introduction: Reading Marx 1
2 Politics: The 1848 Revolutions 15
3 Materialist Histories 44
4 Political Economy and the History of Capitalism 73
5 The Politics of Labour 103
6 Reform and Revolution 126
7 Conclusion: After Capitalism 159
Notes 171
Further Reading 179
Select Bibliography 184
Index 189
v
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ABBREVIATIONS
MECW Collected Works of Marx and Engels, 50 Vols, London:
Lawrence & Wishart, 1975–2000
1971 Marx and Engels. Articles on Britain, Moscow: Progess
Publishers, 1971
1973a Revolutions of 1848, Political Writings. Vol. 1, ed. D.
Fernbach, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973
1973b Surveys from Exile, Political Writings. Vol. 2, ed. D.
Fernbach, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973
1973c Grundrisse. Foundations of the Critique of Political
Economy (Rough Draft), trans. M. Nicolaus,
Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973
1974 The First International and After, Political Writings. Vol. 3,
ed. D. Fernbach, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974
1975a Early Writings, introduced by Lucio Colletti, trans R.
Livingstone and G. Benton, Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1975
1975b Marx and Engels Selected Correspondence, ed. S. W.
Ryazanskaya, trans. I. Lasker, 3rd edition, Moscow:
Progress Publishers, 1975
1976 Capital. A Critique of Political Economy. Vol. 1, intro. E.
Mandel, trans. B. Fowkes, Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1976
vii
ABBREVIATIONS
1978 Capital. A Critique of Political Economy. Vol. 2, intro. E.
Mandel, trans. D. Fernbach, Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1978
1981 Capital. A Critique of Political Economy. Vol. 3, intro. E.
Mandel, trans. D. Fernbach, Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1981
2002 The Communist Manifesto, intro. G. Stedman Jones,
Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2002
2007 Dispatches from the New York Tribune: Selected Journal-
ism of Karl Marx, ed. J. Ledbetter, Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 2007
2009 Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in
England, ed. V. Kiernan, intro. T. Hunt, Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 2009
viii
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION: READING MARX
All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead the-
ory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and
in the comprehension of that practice.
(1975b: 423)
Is there any nineteenth-century face as familiar as that of the
bearded revolutionary sternly looking out of a Victorian London
day and into the future from which we look back? By any scale of
measurement, Karl Marx has been one of the most important intel-
lectual figures of recent centuries, stimulating arguments across
almost every intellectual discipline in every major language. Darwin
and Freud are two other figures who have had a not dissimilar kind
of impact. But neither of them was the inspiration for political
movements which were to transform large parts of the globe in the
twentieth century and to create states which proclaimed their com-
mitment to his principles.
But this is where the problems begin. This is not a book about
twentieth-century European politics or about the varieties of twen-
tieth-century Marxism or about the Soviet Union. But it is imposs-
ible to read Marx without confronting a terrible and unfinished
history. Any approach to Marx has to take some measure of his
complex relations with Marxism, or rather, Marxism’s relationship
to Marx. Everyone knows his prescient quip: ‘Ce qu’il y a de certain
c’est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste.’1
THE RUINS OF MARXISM
For much of the twentieth century the names ‘Marx’ or
‘Marxism’ immediately evoked the Soviet Union. The Russian
1