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Marx on technical change in thecritical editionRegina RothPublished online: 14 Dec 2010.

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Marx on technical change in the criticaledition

Regina Roth

1. Introduction

‘Modern industry never looks upon and treats the existing form of aprocess as final’, 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 InternationalWorking Men’s Association (IWMA) in August 1868, he added that ‘thedevelopment of machinery creates the material conditions necessary forthe superseding of the wages system by a truly social system of production.’1

These quotes throw some light on the fundamental importance that Marxattributed to technical change in his analysis of capitalist production.Asking for the sources of this position, we find that it was a result of a long-term examination of machinery by Marx. To trace back these sources weshould look at more than only Marx’s published works because they do notprovide a very broad foundation from which to judge his work. As isgenerally known, Marx himself only published the first volume of Capital in1867, amended twice in the second and French editions between 1872 and1875. Further publication of additional volumes became the task of

Address for correspondenceRegina Roth, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Marx–Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA), Jaegerstrasse 22/23, Berlin D-10117, Germany;e-mail: roth@bbaw.deA first draft of this paper was presented at the ESHET conference in Thessaloniki inApril 2009.1 Resolution of the General Council of IWMA, proposed by Marx on 11 August,

1868 (Marx and Engels [1867–71] 2009: 587). This was the second proposition,the first stating a growing exploitation of working people through modernindustry. The IWMA had put the ‘influence of machinery in the hands ofcapitalists’ on the agenda of the congress in Brussels in September 1868. (Seebelow section 6)

Euro. J. History of Economic Thought 17:5 1223–1251 December 2010

The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought

ISSN 0967-2567 print/ISSN 1469-5936 online � 2010 Taylor & Francis

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DOI: 10.1080/09672567.2010.522239

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Frederick Engels, who edited Marx’s papers to compile a second volume in1885 and a third volume in 1894. To understand Marx’s views on technicalchange, his whole legacy, which is also comprised of numerous drafts,excerpts, letters, and so forth, must be considered.

In this article I would first like to give an overview of the complete editionof the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the Marx–Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA), of its organisation and its structure. Then Marxand his working method shall come into view as it is present in the newlypublished volumes of this edition, which mainly cover Books 2 and 3 ofCapital. Marx turns out to be someone who often revised what he wrotebecause he was looking for new sources and solutions to deal with theproblems of his analysis. The next two sections will address Marx’s technicalstudies in his excerpts from the 1840s to the 1870s and how they were usedin his manuscripts, focusing more on Marx’s method of working than onhis economic theory in its diverse aspects. Before some concluding remarksa short excursion into politics may be appropriate, looking at thediscussions which took place in 1868 on the effects of machinery in thehands of capitalist within the IWMA. These debates were stronglyinfluenced by Marx and his views on technical change.

2. Marx in the MEGA

To look at Marx’s legacy for the development of his thought is much easiertoday than it was for Marx’s contemporaries due to the continued efforts incritical editions of his work. The earliest of them was the MEGA. It wasinspired and guided by David Rjazanov who from the 1920s to the mid 1930sused the newly established Marx–Engels Institute in Moscow for thispurpose.2 It was not until the 1960s that this project was revived under thecontrol of the respective Institutes of Marxism-Leninism in the Soviet Unionand in Germany connected to the Central Committee at the CommunistParty of the Soviet Union; and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. TheInternational Institute for Social History in Amsterdam, whose archivesholds most of the original manuscripts, agreed to cooperate. In 1972, asample volume was well received by international editors from differenteditorial projects, and the first volume appeared in 1975. After 1989, a newinstitutional basis had to be created for the edition to be continued.

2 They published seven volumes with works, drafts and articles (from 1844 toDecember 1848) and four volumes with correspondence between Marx andEngels (1844–1883). Without being numbered a volume of the MEGA, twoadditional volumes later appeared (Engels: Anti-Duhring, 1935; Marx: Grundrisse,1939/41.) Planned were 42 volumes.

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Five institutions set up the International Marx–Engels Foundation (IMES):The Berlin–Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, theFriedrich–Ebert Foundation, the International Institute for Social History(IISH) in Amsterdam, the Russian State Archive of Social and PoliticalHistory (RGASPI) in Moscow, and the Russian Independent Institute ofSocial and National Problems (RNI), also in Moscow.3 This politicallyindependent institution assumed academic responsibility for the project,with the Institute in Amsterdam in charge first and since 2000 the Berlin–Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Work on the edition iscurrently being carried out by the Academy, who also coordinates the workof several teams of researchers from Germany, Russia, France, theNetherlands, Denmark, the USA and Japan.4

Back to the material which only these editions brought to light: forexample The German Ideology from 1845, or the Grundrisse of Political Economyfrom 1857/58 were published for the first time in the late 1920s and 1940s.5

From the mid-1970s onwards, the MEGA continued with the publication ofunknown material, now called the ‘Second MEGA’. The edition presents allits documents in four sections. The fourth section is completely new andpresents excerpts, notes and marginalia of Marx and Engels, most of themfor the first time. They give more detailed information on the origins andformation 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 first section, ninevolumes from the second section, eight volumes from the third section and sixvolumes from the fourth section, in all 37 volumes (if you number also the partsof 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 fourvolumes from the first section, five volumes from the second section, fourvolumes from the third section and four volumes from the fourth section. In allthere are now 57 volumes from the planned 114 volumes: 19 volumes from theplanned 32 in the first section, 15 volumes from the planned 15 in the secondsection (the last part of Volume 4 will presumably be published in 2011), 12volumes from planned 35 in the third section and 11 volumes from the planned32 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 bysome of their editors using the material kept in the Marx–Engels–Lenin Institut,and it was published in 1939/41. The Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts from1844 had already appeared in 1932 as MEGA volume I/3, simultaneously with anedition by S. Landshut and J.P. Mayer; in 1927, a Russian translation of thesenotebooks 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 andIV/3, which are closely intertwined with the Economic–Philosophical Manuscripts inMEGA2 I/2. For the Londoner Hefte, see MEGA2 IV/7–11; already published areMEGA2 IV/7–9 (1983–1991).

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correspondence between both authors and approximately 2000 others, thatis: all the letters received by Marx and Engels – again, most of which werepublished for the first time.7 In the first section containing works, draftsand articles from Marx and Engels besides Capital, there is also newinformation 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 anew context as it explores the background in which those texts werecomposed in detail for example, (Marx [1843–44] 1982: 187–438; see alsoRojahn 1985).9

The greatest amount of newly edited material is to be found in thesecond section of the MEGA, which is dedicated to Marx’s work Capital.Only in the MEGA have all of the different versions been published, draftsor treatises on single questions, or plans concerning Marx’s Critique ofPolitical Economy. The new material to be found includes the Manuscript1861–63 apart from the sections which Marx had written on the Theories ofSurplus Value, or all of the manuscripts that Marx produced for Capital from1863 until his death in 1883:

. for Book 2: far more than a dozen manuscripts or about 500 pages(1864–1881);

. for Book 3: about 10 manuscripts or about 800 pages (1864–1877/78);and

. for Books 2 and 3: various manuscripts that Engels produced whilepreparing both books for the printers from 1883 to 1894, all in all morethan 100 pages.10

7 Bagaturija (2002).8 Examples may be found in Marx and Engels ([1854] 1985, [1859–60] 1984 or

[1864–67] 1992 MEGA2 I/13, I/18 und I/20), and the same may be expected fortheir work as writers and chief editors for the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in 1848/49which will be presented in MEGA2 I/7–9. There are also to be found some draftsor passages for later manuscripts that Marx had written down in notebooks,often scattered between his excerpts: for example, Randnoten von Marx zuDuhring in Engels [1878] 1988: 131–144 (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 [1844–47] 1998: 19–21).The same applies to documents from the IWMA 1867–71, presented in MEGA2

I/21, which show Marx being part of a greater European network of labourmovement activists, acting more as a mediator than a – dictatorial – leader of thisinternational organization (Marx and Engels [1867–71] 2009: 1150, 1163seqq.).

10 Some preparatory materials on Book 1, (e.g. for an American translation) havealso survived; one also finds plans and outlines for Capital or lists of correctionsfor the French and the third edition of Book 1.

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Moreover, the MEGA also presents texts not easily available, such asthe several editions of Book and Volume 1 that Marx had published up to1875.

Some of the earlier manuscripts as presented in the MEGA havebeen used as textual basis for the Marx–Engels Collected Works (MECW),namely the full Manuscript 1861–63 and the so-called Sixth Chapter from1863/64 on the results of the immediate production process.

To get an overview on where to find what in the MEGA and in MECW seeTable 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 [1868–81]

Table 1 Economic manuscripts and printed versions in the second section of theMEGA and in MECW

Manuscripts on the EconomicsGrundrisse 1857/58 MEGA2 II/1 MECW 28–29Manuscript 1861–63 1861–63 MEGA2 II/3 MECW 30–34

Printed parts from the EconomicsA Contribution to the Critique of

Political Economy1859 MEGA2 II/2 MECW 29

Capital, Book IManuscript material 1863/64 MEGA2 II/4.1 MECW 34

1871/72 MEGA2 II/61877 MEGA2 II/8

Printed versions 1867, 1872,1872–75, 1883,

MEGA2 II/5–8,

1890 MEGA2 II/101887 MEGA2 II/9 MECW 35

Capital, Book 2Manuscript material 1865 MEGA2 II/4.1

1867/68 MEGA2 II/4.31868–81 MEGA2 II/111884/85 MEGA2 II/12

Printed versions 1885, 1893 MEGA2 II/13 MECW 36

Capital, Book 3Manuscript material 1864/65 MEGA2 II/4.2

1867/68 MEGA2 II/4.31871–81 MEGA2 II/14

Printed version 1894 MEGA2 II/15 MECW 37

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2008b).11 They show, first of all, that Marx was never content with what hehad written: he started five drafts of his first chapter, and added fourfragments to the same subject, each of them with numerous changes withineach text. He tried several ways to deal with his problems, with words as wellas with numerical examples, variables and numbers; for example, whendiscussing the reproduction process or the substitution of constant capitalin the section creating means of production on the level of social capital.To examine the conditions of the turnover of capital he developeddifferent 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 withvarying working and circulation periods.12 In more than one case Marx wasin midst of deciding which concepts and terms to use for his manycategories. Sometimes he seemed to be experimenting with them. In one ofhis manuscripts for instance, he reflected on using ‘flussiges Kapital’ [liquidcapital] or ‘Betriebskapital’ [business capital] instead of ‘circulating capital’(Marx 1867/68, IISH, Marx–Engels-Collection, A 76: 56). At the same time,the term ‘circulating capital’ was also used with different meanings: assuperordinate concept of the ever changing form of capital within thecirculation and production process, as the opposite of fixed capital, or aswhat the Physiocrats called ‘avances annuelles’.13

In contrast to the many beginnings, Marx once wrote a single first draftfor an analysis of expanded reproduction. It is to be found in his lastmanuscript, dating from 1877 to 1881 (Marx [1868–81] 2008b: 790–825.)Here he also wrote down more than one schema to trace the developmentof the different departments during the process of reproduction andaccumulation, sometimes identifying new questions he wanted to deal with(Ibid.; see also 873–81.) Sometimes he seemed to be discouraged bycalculation errors and dropped the subject. This may also be seen in theimportant part of his last manuscript where Marx developed somehypotheses and numerical examples in an attempt to describe a processof accumulation. Often in his manuscripts, at least in those which were notwritten with a view to publication, Marx – unlike modern economists – did

11 Some drafts dating from 1867/68 are still missing. They are currently preparedto be edited in the forthcoming MEGA-volume II/4.3. I would like to thank Carl-Erich 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 thepresentation by reducing the number of these tables but he also was notcompletely consistent with his version which was criticized in later editions(Mori 2004).

13 Engels decided to introduce another term, ‘Zirkulationskapital’ [circulatingcapital] for the superordinate concept (Marx [1885] 2008a: 516–8). For adifferent approach of Marx to the schemata of reproduction, see Mori 2009.

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not explicitly state the premises for his numerical examples. This could beone reason for mistakes in his examples and discontinuing works withoutidentifying them. (Ibid.: 810–14.)14 Only Engels saw that these schematacould be easily corrected – which he did in the printed version in 1885neither mentioning the mistakes in the original nor hypotheses orconclusions resulting from these examples. At the end of his example hejust stated that total capital and total surplus value had grown. However, hisexample made it possible to interpret Marx as a forerunner ofconsiderations on balanced growth. (Marx [1885] 2008a: 474–7, 543–5.)

It also appears to be noteworthy that this last manuscript, covering 77pages, can hardly be called a draft written for publication, being rather morea compilation of ideas and arguments written down before they wereforgotten. The text was poorly structured, his first heading being ‘Ch[apter]III) b[ook] II)’ probably added in a later phase of writing (Marx [1868–81]2008b: 698 and 1609). Instead of using headings Marx often separated hisvarious thoughts by long horizontal lines. The two other headings found startwith ‘anticipated . . .’. They indicate that Marx wanted to add these parts toother drafts, either already existing or still to be written. The first quarter ofthe text resulted from Marx’s encounter with the writings of Eugen Duhringin 1877/78, undertaken to support Engels in writing his Anti-Duhring (Engels[1878] 1988); it is unclear exactly when he continued to write down the restof the manuscript (Marx [1868–81] 2008b: 1610).

All drafts and material written for Book 2 taken together leave severalquestions open: an elaboration of the analysis of expanded reproductionincluding the question of growth and crises in capitalist production, anexamination of how constant capital in the section creating the means ofproduction is substituted, and a consideration of the role of money in thereproduction process. None of those manuscripts was suitable as a properdraft for Book 2, a fact that became clear to Engels when he filed themanuscripts after Marx’s death.

More fragmentary still was the state of Book 3. A rough draft of the wholebook existed, dating only from 1864/65, containing severe deficits and gaps(Marx [1864/65] 1992). Marx thought on paper. This meant that he madepostulates or expressed intentions (e.g. in the beginning of a paragraph orchapter) that did not prevent him from changing his premises when, in thecourse of his examination, he found additional evidence or materialcontradicting them. Thus, within his fifth chapter, he began a point on

14 In this case he used a surplus value of 700 instead of 750 as well as a smallerorganic 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: 4–107); Marx and Engels ([1871–95] 2003: 8–150).

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credit and fictitious capital and started with the statement that he wouldrefrain from an analysis of the real movement of the credit system and theinstruments it creates. In the pages to follow he nevertheless gatheredmuch material with regard to the credit system, including numerousexcerpts that presented only a collection of ideas and facts still awaiting fullinterpretation. (Marx [1864/65] 1992: 469; see also 431 and 853) Later on,he indicated more than once that this same fifth 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 capitalistproduction needed credit for development after having considered in theFrench edition of the first volume that credit developed into an immensesocial machinery to centralise capital15. (Marx [1868–81] 2008b: 335;[1872–75] 1989: 547; see also Vollgraf 2004: 13–16 and 22) These facts laterconvinced Engels to change the sentence from Marx’s manuscript in that ‘adetailed analysis’ lay outside the plan of this work (Marx [1894] 2004: 389;emphasis added). In other cases, Marx had also modified his ‘plans’; forexample, when he included a long chapter on ground rent in his roughdraft 1864/65 instead of dealing with it in a separate book (Marx toFerdinand Lassalle, 22 February 1858) or using it in his manuscript as ‘anillustration for the distinction between value and production price’ (Marx[1861–63] 1976–82: 1861). This also applies to the world market or sharecapital. In 1858 he envisaged dealing with these topics in separate books,but in his later years he might have thought, as Vollgraf suggests, ofincluding them – at least various considerations on them – into Capitalbecause he might have not enough time to write separate books on them(Vollgraf 2004: 13–4). Moreover Marx, as in other manuscripts, wrote downnumerous thoughts, commentaries or even bibliographical data regardlessof whether they were appropriate for the subject he was dealing with or not.He used horizontal lines or square brackets to separate them from thesurrounding context.

The vast majority of the later manuscripts on Book 3 deal more or lesswith problems from the first chapter on the correlation between surplusvalue and profit.16 There were two key questions that occupied Marx: thetransition of categories on the level of value to categories on the level ofprices; and the ‘laws’ that determined the movement of the rate of profit.Therefore, Marx wrote at least four additional drafts for another beginning

15 In the edition from 1867 Marx still spoke of a ‘specific machine for theconcentration 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 thatare going to be edited in MEGA2 II/4.3.

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to Book 3 and he intensely studied the movement of the rate of profit andthe main factors determining this movement. Changes in wages, in thelength of the working day or in the intensity of labour were important, aswere technical progress and its influence on quantity and price of constantcapital. Marx explored these changes by calculating numerous examples,keeping one or more of the determining factors – variable capital, constantcapital, total capital, surplus value, rate of surplus value, profit, rate of profitor the turnover of capital – constant while varying the others. A secondsubject not completed in 1864/65 was the analysis of ground rent. Marxhimself made notes for rearranging the text of this chapter to give it a moredetailed structure as well as a summarising section on the ‘transformationof surplus value into rent’ (Marx [1864/65] 1992: 816–17). A third subjectremaining open in many ways was, as just mentioned, was that of credit,interest, money and capital. This state of the manuscript was one of themain reasons why Engels needed 10 years to finish his edition.

The enumeration of the extra manuscript material on his three books onCapital emphasizes a first point: Marx was a master of revision. This isconfirmed by several of Marx’s statements, for instance, when he says thatthe final revision was still pending as he wanted to decide what should bekept for the ‘official’ presentation and what should be omitted (Marx[1864/65] 1992: 83; 1867/68, IISH, Marx–Engels Collection, A 76: 3).17 Orwhen, in early 1866, he told Engels that his manuscript for all three booksof Capital was ‘ready’, but again, within the same breath, Marx qualifiedthis 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 materialthan other editions, not only regarding the manuscripts mentioned abovebut also with other types of written material. If we look at the materialgathered in the MEGA we find examples of several distinct levels ofcommunication. We may think of manuscripts on a first level as witnessingthe communication between the author with himself and with hispotential readers. On a second level, his letters give us notice of whathe talked about to the people around him. And, on a third level, there isthe vast part of his legacy that documents Marx’s discourse with authors ofhis time: his excerpts, the books he read and his collections of newspapercuttings.

17 Already in 1858, in a letter to Ferdinand Lassalle from 22 February, Marx hadadmitted: ‘[. . . ] no sooner does one set about finally disposing of subjects towhich one has devoted years of study than they start revealing new aspects anddemand to be thought out further’ See also Marx to Carl Leske on 1 August 1846or Marx to Nikolai Danielson on 13 December 1881.

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As we have seen above, Marx left his manuscripts for the missingbooks of Capital rather unfinished. This left a margin to Engels, whichhe used in structuring and revising passages when compiling the printedversions of those books out of Marx’s papers, in many cases for the useof the reader. Comparing the drafts from Marx and the printed versionsfrom Engels18 there are many differences to be found, and in somecases they turn out to be shifts in emphasis between the author Marxand the editor Engels.

Some indications for such a shift might be discerned in the third chapteron the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall in Book 3 of Capital,which is, in a certain way, also connected to the discussion of technicalchange (see Section 5). First, it was Engels who structured this chapter –Marx had left those 40 handwritten pages with only few clues useful forsuch a structuring, namely when he numbered several paragraphs and/oremphasised their beginnings: for example, with the six ‘counteractinginfluences’ (Marx [1864/65] 1992: 301–9). Yet it was Engels whoidentified the text of Marx as providing some ‘general considerations’within the ‘development of the law’s internal contradictions’, and Engelschose to close this point with the sentence that this ‘process would entailthe rapid breakdown of capitalist production’ (Marx [1894] 2004: 243 and1077–8; [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 ofcapitalist production’ is used. ‘Breakdown’ – or ‘collapse’ as Marx wouldhave said19 – is rarely chosen, and if so then in connection with prices orcredit.

Second, Marx had included in his manuscripts many passages in squarebrackets indicating that what was to follow had to be thought over onceagain, or be it with regard to the contents, be it with regard to the placewhere to discuss the argument. In such a passage, Marx considered inwhich conditions the rate of profit could remain constant or even rise.20 Heremained 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 byMarx and the printed versions compiled by Engels in the MEGA. First there arethe texts, but second there are several means of facilitating such a comparison:particular lists defining the origin of passages in the printed versions, comparingheadings and structure, or listing additions made by Engels and textualdifferences between the versions of Marx and Engels.

19 In this case, Marx had used a term not very common in his manuscript: ‘zumKlappen bringen’ which might be translated as ‘being folded’ (Marx [1864/65]1992: 315). So the term ‘breakdown of capitalist production’ was, in a way, aformulation of Engels.

20 I would like to thank Heinz D. Kurz for having drawn my attention to this andthe next point.

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to be mere ‘abstract’ possibilities without excluding them explicitly (Marx[1864/65] 1992: 319). Engels inserted the following sentence in the printedversion:

But in reality [. . .] the rate of profit will fall in the long run.

(Marx [1894] 2004: 227)

Third, Engels reworked a passage of Marx on the consequences of theincrease of the productivity of labour on the composition of capital, whichhe presented as a ‘Supplementary Remark’ to this third chapter. In hisaddition, Engels argued that not every invention was an innovation.21 Whatis remarkable here is the conclusion that Engels drew: a capitalist who doesnot introduce a – labour-saving – machine misses the ‘historical mission’ ofthe capitalist mode of production; namely, ‘to expand the productivityof human labour’. Therefore, Engels continued, this capitalist mode ofproduction ‘is becoming senile and has further and further outlived itsepoch.’ (Marx [1894] 2004: 258–9.) Marx did not give such a clear opinionwith a view to the future of capitalism, at least not in Capital.

In other places, Marx considered the tendency of the rate of profit to fallas ‘the real tendency’ and talked of the great importance that should beattached 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 April1868, he identified 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 thatMarx attached more importance to balancing reasons and argumentswithout always deciding which ones he preferred. In this case, he didconsider ‘counteracting influences’ as well as cases with a constant orincreasing rate of profit. This is also confirmed in his later manuscriptsdealing with the rate of profit and the rate of surplus value. Yet he did notalways specify if his cases were confined to single industries or not, nor ifone of them could or would prevail in the long run.22 Unlike Engels, Marxdid not rule out explicitly those cases and left the question open. Such abalancing was also to be found in several parts of the manuscripts of Books2 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, 124–5). In an earlier manuscript, Marx discussed consequences ofan increasing productivity of labour in a paragraph titled ‘The General Laws ofthe Rate of Profit’ (Marx 1867/68, IISH, Marx–Engels Collection, A 71: 15–6; seealso 19–20).

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rent, where Marx had considered different ways of structuring his thoughtsand arguments. Thus, without being conclusively proven it appears thatMarx had some doubts as to the validity of the law on the falling rate ofprofit.23 Engels, on the other hand, preferred distinct expressions andtherefore in some cases, did not seem to balk at sharpening Marx’sformulations as long as they were ‘in the spirit of the author’, as heunderstood it (Marx [1885] 2008a: 8; for further evidence see Vollgraf2004: 27–29).

Kenji Mori has drawn attention to another example of Marx’s way ofsubmitting his analysis to a careful examination that is only to be found inthe manuscripts of Marx, and not in the printed version presented byEngels. In Manuscript II, dedicated to the reproduction process in Book 2of Capital, Marx developed a very detailed reproduction model comprisingof not two but six departments, discussing the transfer of products betweenthe departments and the money necessary for these transfers, the way inwhich the surplus value is realized in the different departments and theconditions for an equilibrium between these departments. Marx also askedthe question how these processes functioned after the equalization of therate of profit. After a few lines he broke off and left this problem to laterexamination, which did not take place (Marx [1868–81] 2008b: 495; [1885]2008a: 540–3; Mori 2009).

4. Marx’s excerpts on technology

Marx’s interest in technical subjects arose early. In 1845 he had alreadystudied French translations of the works of Andrew Ure and CharlesBabbage, stimulated by the second edition of the Histoire de l’economiepolitique en Europe, depuis les anciens jusqu’a nos jours from Adolphe Blanqui in1842. (Marx [1844–47] 1998: 8 and 10; Winkelmann 1982: LXXXII–III.)Marx filled one of six notebooks with excerpts referring to the ‘machineryquestion’, a term common in the discussions of this time. However, duringthis phase, Marx left out most of the genuine technical aspects dealt with byBabbage and Ure, such as the discussions on the differences betweenmachinery and tools or detailed considerations on the division of labour.Instead, he focused firstly, on economic questions: what influencedid machines have on price, cost, exports or overproduction? Andsecondly, 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), 234–5).

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have on the working people? (Winkelmann 1982: LXXXIVseqq; Paulinyi1998: 20–1.)24 Shortly after having signed a contract with the publisher CarlLeske on a Kritik der Politik und Nationalokonomie in two volumes in February1845, Marx had decided to expand his studies and to include several worksdealing with the social effects of the industrialisation, known under thekeyword of pauperism (Marx [1844–47] 1998: 457–8). Marx’s examinationof the machinery question and the factory system particularly identified adisplacement of workers, a prolongation of the working day and anintensification of work. He made first use of his excerpts in 1847 – alongwith some additions on the excerpts from Ure – when refuting thesuggestions of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. (Marx 1847; Winkelmann 1982:CXXII–III). We may see that Marx intended neither to consider technicalaspects in any detail nor to examine those questions in separate chapters ofhis ‘critique’; instead he probably had in mind to deal with them in relationto respective economic or social topics.

In 1850/51, after the failure of the revolution and his emigration toLondon, Marx started comprehensive studies in the British Museum. Theyincluded political economy in its very diverse aspects, but went far beyondthat. He made extensive excerpts from books dealing with cultural history,the social condition and influence of women through time and society, and‘technology, the history thereof, and agronomy’ (Marx to Engels, 13October 1851). Marx used, as he already had in 1845, the term ‘technology’in the style of Adolphe Blanqui and Andrew Ure (Marx [1844–47] 1998:460 and 540) as well as Johann Beckmann, who, as Marx recorded in one ofhis notebooks, first used it to denote the connection of mechanics, physics,and chemistry with artisanry, which, as Marx added, should mean‘production’ (Muller 1981: 50; see also Marx [1861–63] 1976–82: 1932).Marx later on in the first edition of Capital also used ‘technology’ when hetalked of aspects that in German we would denote today as belonging to‘Technik’ (Paulinyi 1998: 20; Muller 1981: X). In the second edition, as theeditors of MEGA2 II/6 observed, Marx often replaced ‘Technologie’ by‘Technik’, and also the adjective ‘technological’ by ‘technical’.25 In anycase, 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 Ure’s twovolumes in French that Marx had in his private library. This copy shows a lot ofmarks within the text and in the margins with different types of pencils whichhave 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 bycomposition (Jungnickel 1987: 22–3).

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ments of labour. Technical change is often discussed as one factor of theincrease of the productivity of labour (see also Ropohl 2007: 66).

Even during the autumn of 1851, Marx sounded out several contacts topublishers in Germany for a way to publish his ‘economics’, two volumes onthe history of political economy, a third on socialism and a fourth on his‘critique’.26 These plans coincided with Marx’s intense studies mentionedabove. On the one hand, those studies covered German literature on‘technology’, mainly J.H. Moritz Poppe, also Johann Beckmann and aGerman edition from Andrew Ure’s Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, andMines, translated and revised by Karl Karmasch and Friedrich Heeren. Inhis excerpts, Marx concentrated on the history of inventions since theMiddle Ages, this time also with growing interest for technical details,preferably for mills, timepieces and steam (Muller 1981: LVseqq; LXX–I).On the other hand, they also contained works of Justus von Liebig andJames F.W. Johnston dealing with findings in agricultural chemistry andgeology and their application to practical agriculture. In contrast to hisearly excerpts on political economy – for example, from 1844 (Marx [1844–47] 1998: 472; Rojahn 2002: 32seqq.) –, Marx’s excerpts on technicalaspects show a somewhat neutral approach. He stuck to the structure usedby the authors and noted their points without commentary or criticism(Muller 1981: LXXIX–X; Winkelmann 1982: XCIIseqq. and CVseqq.).

Marx’s key interest in all of his studies seemed to be acquiring basicknowledge of these technical fields. We find detailed notes on variousprocedures to break up and separate numerous substances that wereprobably not written down with the intention of using them in latermanuscripts. Also, numerous parts of the excerpts from Liebig andJohnston meticulously pinned down the chemical and geological processes,leaving the prevailing impression that they were written out of a genuineinterest in the technical details. Marx left open where and in which ways hewanted to make use of these excerpts within his ‘economics’ (Muller 1981:LVIseqq.; Marx [1851] 1991: 172seqq., 276seqq. and 327seqq.).

Moreover, Marx continued to research the social effects of machinery onworking people, focusing on the textile industry in his Londoner Hefte. PeterGaskell, writing on the condition of labouring people in his Artisans andMachinery, drew Marx’s attention to the at first increasing demand forlabour in the wake of the introduction of spinning-machines, which wasfollowed 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 anessay presenting modern literature on political economy in England from 1830to 1852 for Die Gegenwart, an anthology published in serial volumes by Brockhaus(Rubel 1957: 415seqq.; McLellan 1974: 303).

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Fielden described the increasing demand for children as labourers and theabuses they had to suffer in his Curse of the Factory System (Muller 1992: 277–8, 286seqq.; Marx [1851] 1991: 104seqq. and 43seqq.).

One of the main interests of Marx’s analysis of capitalist production wasto identify the major causes of why the industrial revolution started in theeighteenth century in Great Britain. Muller concludes that Marx, in hisexcerpts from 1851 on German ‘technology’, did not come to a satisfyingresult, neither with his studies on technical processes nor on the historicaldevelopment of those inventions (Muller 1981: CIseqq.).

Marx returned to his studies on machinery only in 1856. He started acollection with the intention of gathering material on money, credit andcrises out of his excerpts. There he also noted some excerpts from theGerman edition of Ure’s Technisches Worterbuch and Poppes Geschichte derTechnologie, referring to physical properties of gold for coins (Muller 1981:169 and LXXXV). Some pages before this he had also noted earlierexcerpts from two other books he had read in 1850 on questions of coinage(IISH, Marx–Engels-Collection, B 75: 24; for 1850, see Marx [1849–51]1983: 214seqq.). In his first effort to write down the outlines of his‘economics’ in 1857/58 in the so-called Grundrisse, Marx made some use ofhis excerpts, not in a systematic way but rather with a few more or lesswidespread remarks on the question of machinery and technology.27

At the beginning of the 1860s Marx envisaged starting with asystematization of his considerations on the role of machinery in theeconomy. In a notebook he collected quotes from his earlier excerptsunder different topics, calling them his ‘Citatenheft’ (notebook of quotes).He chose two headings for his excerpts on machinery, first ‘Productivity ofLabour’ (Winkelmann 1982: 95seqq. and CXXVII–VIII) and second ‘M)Machinery’ (Muller 1992: 329seqq.). In the first, Marx gathered four quotesfrom Babbage out of his notebook from 1851 along with other quotes fromAdam Smith, shortening them to the essence of machinery and division oflabour as he then saw it (Winkelmann 1982: CXXXVII–VIII). In thesecond, he also started with a collection of quotes, referring to the socialeffects of machinery. Most of them warned that machines would decreasethe demand for labour and in fact increase the length of the working day,by more shifts or overtime. Marx then continued with the economic andsocial effects presented by Peter Gaskell, now turning to write down a sortof 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) fromthe Londoner Hefte.

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spinning mills, thereby, as Muller points out, arguing for the machine as adistinguishing element of capitalist production, a position Marx did notadhere to in other contexts or even rejected. In later manuscripts, hechanged his mind and did not make use of this ‘essay’, but only of thequotes from the other authors. (Muller 1992: 308seqq. and 331seqq.).

At the same time, Marx also made new excerpts of many books in anotebook carrying the title ‘Political Economy Criticism of’.28 He hadalready read numerous books earlier; that was the case with Babbage, whosework Marx now read in the first English edition from 1832. These excerptsappear to have been noted after those in the ‘Citatenheft’. Marx againnoticed Babbage’s distinction of three categories of machines; his otherexcerpts cover various topics that were not considered in the early notes.29

The early 1860s may be interpreted as a turning point in Marx’streatment of the role of technical change. Early on he had been aware ofthe existence of this subject and also perhaps of its latent potential;however, he had treated it only in relation to his ‘purely’ economicquestions. But then his interest in technical change and in technicalprocesses in general grew considerably and so did his will to deal withmachinery, factories, modern industry and industrial revolution. In hisManuscript 1861–63 Marx developed the presentation of relative surplusvalue and, in this context, he considered treating technical aspects in amore detailed way; in his letter to Engels from 28 January 1863 he talked ofa ‘section on machinery’. To do this Marx re-evaluated his excerpts from1851 and made intensive use of them in his manuscript. Most of the mark-ups to be found in his excerpts date from this period (Winkelmann 1982:CXXVI–VII; Muller 1981: LXXXVIIseqq.). Marx drew on Babbage and hisviews on the cost of technical innovations (Marx [1861–83] 1976–82: 305–6,1681 and 1867)30 and on ‘conditions for the development of machinery asan element which revolutionises the mode of production and the relationsof production’ ([1861–63] 1976–82: 1914). He started with Babbage’sdefinition of the machine as the union of several simple tools driven by acommon power. Then, looking for the causes of industrial revolution, Marx

28 IISH, Marx–Engels Collection, B 91 A. The notebook carries the notion ‘Heft VII’,because Marx had used its first 63 pages to write down the last part of the Grundrissewritten in seven note books (‘Hefte’). (IISH, Marx–Engels Collection, A 49.)

29 IISH, (Marx–Engels Collection, B 91 A: 184–5) and Winkelmann (1982:101seqq. and CXXVIII–IX). Marx did not use the fourth edition from 1835already available. The French edition that he had read in 1845 had been atranslation 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 thewake of improvements and for the costs due to the maintenance of machinery.

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added a historical examination of how machines from the textile and otherindustries had developed since the Middle Ages, especially quoting Poppe31

(Marx [1861–63] 1976–82: 1915, 1918–25, 1928–35 and 1940.)He also spotted new sources of information on the technical principles of

machinery because he aimed to elaborate on the conditions for inventionsand development of machinery. Once again he dived deep into hisresearch reading and taking extensive notes out of the second volume ofThe Industry of Nations, a compendium on machines that had beenpresented at the world exhibition in London in 1851. Decisive parts of itwere probably written by James Nasmyth, a distinguished inventor andmechanical engineer.32 Another source was Robert Willis, an inventor andprofessor of mechanical engineering and pivotal in the education ofapplied mechanics. Marx attended one of the lectures Willis gave toworkers in his ‘Government School of Mines’ in Jermyn Street, London.Marx concentrated on manufacturing technology, a branch of machinerythat would become vital to the development of industry and economy, andhe gained remarkable insights into the nature of machine technology asPaulinyi observes (Paulinyi 1998: 23seqq.). However, these studies alsoreveal Marx’s genuine interest in technical processes, instruments andprocedures (Marx [1861–83] 1976–82: 1935–49 and 1979–88.) Later on, inspring 1863, Marx turned again to the five-volume collection of JohannBeckmann on the history of inventions since the Middle Ages, at the timemore extensively read than in 1851.33

Already in his Beihefte, a collection of notebooks with numerous newexcerpts from literature that Marx stored for the writing of Capital in spring1863, there are traces to be found from another subject on which he wouldspent a lot of time on in the years to follow: agricultural chemistry and itsrepercussions on farming. In Beiheft D some first excerpts appear fromJustus v. Liebigs Uber Theorie und Praxis in der Landwirthschaft, published in1856 (IISH, Marx–Engels–Collection, B 93: 37–40). Marx then, in 1865/66,filled a voluminous notebook while writing his first draft of Capital Book 3,especially regarding its sixth chapter on the transformation of surplus valueinto 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 theremaining treatises from Poppe, which he had also read in the 1850s (Muller1981: 3–47).

32 Nasmyth also promoted his and others’ findings in Remarks on the Introduction ofthe Slide Principle in 1841 (Paulinyi 1998: 31–2).

33 The excerpts are to be found in the so-called Beiheft D (Muller 1994). Marxnoticed some examples for the displacement of workers by early machines andalso details of the improvements for mills in early centuries and societies.

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1866). Among the excerpts on the economic and social condition of ruraleconomies in different countries – many of them were used in this sixthchapter – there are about 100 pages dedicated to Justus v. Liebig. Marx wasinterested in information on the relationship between agricultural methodsand crop yields, in particular the effects and costs of modern ways offertilizing soil compared with older ones such as crop rotation or drainage,or Liebig’s considerations on the feeding of the population.34 On 13February 1866, Marx explained to Engels that the recent works of Liebigand other chemists were more important for the question of ground rentthan all economists together.35

In his first Volume of Capital, Marx devoted about one-sixth of hispresentation to ‘Machinery and Modern Industry’. His extensive studiesduring the past 20 years had left their mark, namely his excerpts fromCharles Babbage and Andrew Ure. Yet to evidence the social effects ofmachinery on labouring people he had consulted more recent sources,mainly reports from parliamentary enquiries and from inspectors offactories (Winkelmann 1982: LXXXIXseqq., CVI and CXXXVIseqq.). Stillafter the publication of his first Volume of Capital in 1867, Marx continuedhis detailed studies on improvements in agriculture, now reading severalbooks by Carl Fraas.36 In one of them, Klima und Pflanzenwelt in der Zeit, heprovided evidence for the destructive impact of cultivation in general, asMarx pointed out in a letter to Engels: ‘The first effect of cultivation isuseful, but finally devastating through deforestation, etc. [. . .] Theconclusion is that cultivation – when it proceeds in natural growth and isnot 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 theinternational labour movement and his continuing efforts to manage Books2 and 3 of Capital, Marx started a new phase of comprehensive studiesleading him in diverse directions. Many of them had their origins in thegaps and questions left open in Capital mentioned above. Money, creditand banks were on his agenda, just as were ground rent and landed

34 IISH, Marx–Engels Collection, B 106: 29–135. Marx read Liebig’s Einleitung in dieNaturgesetze des Feldbaus and Die Chemie in ihrer Anwendung auf Agricultur undPhysiologie, both from 1862. See Marx ([1864/65] 1992) for the first draft ofCapital, Book 3.

35 See also Marx to Engels, (3 January 1868): ‘I would like to know fromSchorlemmer what is the latest and best book (German) on agriculturalchemistry. [. . . ] For the chapter on ground rent I shall have to be aware of thelatest state of the question at least to some extent’.

36 IISH, Marx-Engels-Collection, B 107, 111 and 112. He also re-read PoppesGeschichte der Mathematik (ibid. B 107: 3).

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property. Moreover, Marx also immersed himself deeply in studies ofnatural sciences: physiology, chemistry, geology and mathematics, tomention the most prominent. Most of them are documented by extensiveexcerpts, others by the books he read and that have survived the passage oftime. We also know of his various readings because he referred to them inletters or in lists of books to read or buy in his notebooks (Vollgraf 2002:49–50). They show, I would suggest from the material available at themoment, a change in his interests. Indeed, some of them were still linked toeconomic problems in the broadest sense of the word. This may be said, forexample, of his reading of Julius Au: Die Hilfsdungemittel in ihrer volks- undprivatwirthschaftlichen Bedeutung, a book he kept in his private library(MEGA2 IV/32 1999: No. 42). This author explicitly declared the economiceffects of fertilizers to be his main subject, and Marx’s marginal notes showhis interest in Au’s discussion of Malthus’ population theory.37

Other studies reveal, as already to be seen from his commentary on Fraasin 1868, that Marx was interested in technical and scientific subjects ‘assuch’; that is, in a more general way. In some cases, when he started hisreading there was a hint of economics; for example, when he read severalbooks dealing with agriculture and natural sciences, he noted the title‘AgriculturþBodenpreis, Rent’. But then he noted geological and othertechnical processes in great detail without any further reference toeconomics (IISH, Marx-Engels-Collection, B 143), as was the case in mostof his late studies in natural sciences (see, for example, Marx and Engels[1877–83] 1999).

5. Technical Change in Marx’s manuscripts

Some considerations on the influence of the excerpts on Marx’s economictheory should be mentioned here, although this question is still to beexplored in greater detail when these texts will become available in theMEGA. In Capital, terms such as technical progress, technical change orsimply technology turn up rarely. Still the investigation of different forms oftechnical change was central to Marx’s analysis of the capitalist mode ofproduction, in particular for the process of accumulation and to explainthe rate of profit’s tendency to fall. In his view, the prime motor of capitalistproduction was the valorization of capital, the production of or, to be moreprecise, the increase of the production of surplus value. Methods toproduce ‘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 alsohighlighted a passage on reasons for ground rent (ibid.: 346).

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to be more efficient and not as limited as those increasing the absolutesurplus value (e.g. by extending the working day). The basics are wellknown. Examining the division of labour, cooperation, manufacture, andmachinery Marx found that these forms saved labour, or variable capital,while constant capital – raw materials, products used in the construction ofmachines, and so forth – remained unchanged or increased; thus the‘organic composition of capital’38 was raised. This, Marx observed, wouldtend to lower the rate of profit, being defined as the relation of surplusvalue or profits to the total capital outlay. To explain why capitalists wantedto introduce new techniques that would lower their profits, Marx turned tothe forces of competition. Capitalists who used new cost-cutting techniqueswere able to win super-profits until other capitalists also adopted the newmethod. Then the price of the product fell, and a lower rate of profit wouldbe established. Marx assumed labour-saving innovations to be the dominantform of technical change, and his presentation offers much evidence to theview that they would ultimately lead to developments detrimental to thecapitalists’ interests. However, as Marx did not elaborate the process ingreater detail, he left room for diverting interpretations about theconnection between a falling rate of profit and a theory of crises or of abreakdown of capitalism. (Schefold 1976: 818; Elster 1983: 177, 179–80;Heinrich 2001: 311–70; see also above).

Early on, Schefold, using Sraffa’s theory of prices to analyse the impact ofdifferent forms of technical progress on the composition of capital, thewage rate, and so on, showed that the organic composition of capital couldremain constant with labour-saving technical progress, because laboursaving in all sectors lowers values not only of final products, but – in thelong run – also of the elements of constant capital. If the saving of labouraffects all sectors equally, the relative values of products and of the meansof production stay constant. The same will hold if commodities aremeasured in terms of prices of production both as inputs and as outputs.Moreover, the economy need not but ‘can sustain a golden age . . . if nooutside disturbance takes place’, and if a constant rate of profit provides‘adequate savings’ for the investments required. He also pointed out that‘Marx himself already worried about the possibility of capital-savingprogress’; for example, savings of raw materials that would tend to lowerthe organic composition – hence the importance of the discovery that theintroduction of machinery implied the tendency to the productiveconsumption of more materials. The introduction of the machine wouldnot change the materials of which the commodity to be produced was

38 See Heinrich (2001: 315–22) for a well-informed and detailed discussion of thiscategory and its meanings within the different versions of Marx’s work.

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made, but more materials were needed to produce the machine: theorganic composition had to rise in this case.39

In fact, Marx did mention the counteracting savings of means ofproduction, particularly of raw materials.40 He dealt with such savings in thethird book of Capital, and defined them as a countertendency to the fall inthe rate of profit because, while the value of raw materials may fallconsiderably, quantities used in production might increase. Within theseconsiderations Marx also noted that there were factors limiting thiscountertendency, which seems to be a repercussion of the passage on therestricted cheapening of raw materials – primarily organic raw materials –in the earlier Manuscript 1861–63 already quoted by Schefold.41 This is alsoan example for Marx’s method to balance reasons and arguments verycarefully. In 1864/65 Marx wrote:

[It should be taken into account . . .] that the value of the constant capital does notincrease in the same proportion as its material volume is growing [. . .] E.g. thequantity of cotton [. . . ] It is the same with machines and other fixed capital, [[Again,there are also counteractive causes; prices of certain animal or plant productsincreasing]]42 coal etc. (Marx [1864/65] 1992: 305; my translation)

It could be noteworthy that this passage in square brackets was one thatEngels left out in the printed version of the third book of Capital, (Marx[1894] 2004: 233 and 954.) Although he knew Manuscript 1861–63 since1884/85, there is little evidence that Engels knew of the passage in whichMarx clearly argues that

‘[. . .] capitalist production has not yet succeeded, and never will succeed in masteringthese processes [i.e. animal organic processes] in the same way as it has masteredpurely mechanical or inorganic chemical processes.’ (Marx [1861–63] 1976–82:1809)

From 1884 onwards, Engels repeatedly leafed through several of Marx’s 23notebooks, Manuscript 1861–63, as we know from his letters, and he

39 Schefold (1976: 808 and 817). I would like to thank Bertram Schefold for helpfulcomments on these forms of technical change and Marx’s views on them.

40 Marx considered them as ‘a distinct operation’, that is, as methods notconcerning and independent of the labourer. This and the following quotesfrom Capital, volume 1 refer to the second edition from 1872, the last Germanone that Marx himself has arranged (Marx [1872] 1987: 322).

41 Marx ([1864/65] 1992: 110–64 and 305; [1861–63] 1976–1982: 1809–10) andSchefold (1976: 817–18); see also Ricoy (2003).

42 Marx often used square brackets to keep hold of ideas, notes and so on. I haveused double square brackets here to distinguish Marx’s brackets from theeditorial ones.

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compiled a table of contents for it using the entries that Marx had left onthe covers of those notebooks. Having deciphered the third book up topage 230 – Marx’s observation being on page 217 – Engels declared in aletter to Laura Lafargue from 8 March 1885 that the essential part of thismanuscript had already been dealt with in this older Manuscript 1861–63.However, it is open to question whether Engels spotted the passage on thelimits of organic raw materials possibly because it is found in a discussion onCherbuliez in the later part where Marx resumes his elaboration of Theorieson Surplus Value, and not in the part dedicated explicitly to capital, profitand the rate of profit.43 In his presentation in Capital, Marx specifiedanother countertendency to the falling rate of profit, the increasedexploitation rate resulting from the introduction of new machines. It marksanother controversial issue with view to technical change and the fallingrate of profit that can only be mentioned in passing here (Elster 1983: 181;Marx [1864/65] 1992: 302–5; Heinrich 2001: 327–70).

How did Marx make use of his excerpts in his manuscripts? First, he useda historical approach to trace the conditions in which cooperation andmechanisation developed into a new system based on the production ofmachines by machines. Starting with the definition of a machine byBabbage, he examined the development from tool to machinery combiningthe observations of the technical movement since the Middle Ages made byPoppe with more modern developments, such as the slide-rest and thesteam-hammer, discussed in the Industry of Nations. In consequence, Marxspotted the increasing number of working machines as the decisive factorof the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century, not steam power ashe had emphasized in earlier writings and was widely assumed in Marx’stime (Marx [1872] 1987: 362seqq.; Paulinyi 1998: 12, 24 and 34–5). He alsostated that the revolution of working methods in one industry causedsimilar transformations in other industries (Marx [1872] 1987: 374–5).

Second, the excerpts emphasize the fundamental importance that Marxattributed to science for the growth of productivity, making it a decisiveproductive factor without suggesting a complete dependence of sciencefrom economic needs. This aspect has already been addressed byRosenberg (1974); and Ricoy added that, apart from science, theaccumulation of practical experience proved to be essential for the develop-ment of machinery (Ricoy 2003: 51 and 61–3).44 Marx’s considerations

43 Marx and Engels ([1871–95] 2003: 345–6, 1022–3); Marx ([1861–63] 1976–82:1544 and 1802).

44 For instance, Marx singled out a new principle for the improvement of workingmethods; namely, the principle of dividing any process into its constituentphases or components, essential for any natural or mechanical science (Marx[1872] 1987: 442, 410 and 465).

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were not limited to the industrial sphere, with mechanical engineering,transportation and communication playing a prominent role apart fromthe textile industry. Moreover, his notebooks affirm that technical changein agriculture should be discussed in greater detail. Marx’s interest wasdevoted to the effects of new findings in chemistry on the cultivationmethods that were crucial for his analysis of differential rent (see, forexample, Marx [1864/65] 1992: 763–4, 768 and 833), while at the sametime alluding to the destructive powers of these methods (Marx [1864/65]1992: 753; [1872] 1987: 475–7).

Third, in Capital an interaction between economic theory and politicsmay be observed, when the social effects of machinery that had dominatedthe early excerpts once again became the focus of attention. In Marx’s view,only the capitalist use of machinery was responsible for a serious decline inworking conditions (Marx [1872] 1987: 399–424). When summarizing,Marx considers the factory system in the hand of capitalists as a means forthe ‘systematic robbery of what is necessary for the life of the workman’([1872] 1987: 413). His lasting interest in these social aspects is shown inautumn 1877, in one of his lists with modifications compiled for a plannedthird and a possible American edition of the first book.45 Here Marx notedseveral alterations for the chapter on Machinery and Modern Industry; forinstance, one referring to the interaction between economic crisis andtechnical change.46 On the other hand, Marx also shows that legal controlsand restrictions for the working conditions were a ‘necessary product ofmodern industry’. And although these regulations were insufficient inmany ways, they were enforced slowly but nevertheless universally,improving safety levels and in fact shortening the length of the workingday (Marx [1872] 1987: 456–75).

45 It could be useful to know that in these lists Marx also noted that his analysisof the origin of the capitalist mode of production should be limited toWestern European countries. Marx had revised his presentation in the Frenchedition, 1872–75, and confirmed this view in his letter to Vera Zasulich from8 March 1881. Anderson has pointed out that this modification wasdisregarded in the third and in the English edition arranged by Engels(Marx [1883] 1989: 17 and 670; [1872] 1987: 646; [1872–75] 1989: 634;Anderson 1983).

46 Marx points out that for workers, the effects of an economic crisis would beaggravated by the introduction of machines; he quotes an example from theAmerican cotton industry during the War of Secession. He presents astatistic showing that new machines have caused an enormous process ofconcentration within the cotton industry during the war and have led to thedismissal of more than 50,000 workers (Marx [1883] 1989: 8; [1872–75]1989: 374).

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6. Technical change in Marx’s politics

Finally, I would like to make an excursion into politics of the nineteenthcentury to see the impact of the ideas and concepts that Marx developed inhis studies and his work for his political activities.47 In September 1868 theIWMA discussed ‘The Effects of Machinery in the Hands of the CapitalistClass’ at its third congress assembled at Brussels. After the congress inLausanne in September 1867, the Paris bureau of the IWMA published aproposal for the programme in Brussels, which included the use ofmachines in industry. In January 1868, Marx opened the debate on thequestions to be submitted to the congress at Brussels in the GeneralCouncil of the IWMA. Machinery and its effects ranked in the second placenext to credit, cooperatives, education, then the property of land, mines,railways and other traffic infrastructure, and also strikes (Marx and Engels[1867–71] 2009: 535, 538–9 and 1835). In July 1868, the debate on thosequestions started within the General Council, and it was Marx who made apoint of discussing first and foremost machinery and its effects (Marx andEngels [1867–71] 2009: 577).

In the discussion in the General Council, Marx argued that machineshad effects that turned out to be the opposite of what was expected: theyprolonged the working day instead of shortening it; the proportion ofwomen and children working in mechanized industries increased;labourers suffered from a growing intensity of labour and became moredependent on capitalists because they did not own the means of productionany more – labourers turned out to be ‘slaves’ of their masters; manyworkers were dismissed from work, to use Marx’s words, according to theminutes, written down by Johann Georg Eccarius: they ‘were positivelykilled’ (Marx and Engels [1867–71] 2009: 581); and in agriculture theintroduction of machinery produced an increasing surplus population andthereby induced ‘a wage lowering pressure’ (ibid.). Arguments in favour ofmachinery did not meet much response. John Weston pointed out that itwould be useful to take industries other than only the textile industry intoaccount; he argued that in the carpentry trade, machinery shortened theworking day and did not decrease the demand for labour. Harriet Law, oneof the most prominent libertines in London, indicated, according to theminutes, 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 Jurgen Herres, who pointed this out in sharing his extensiveknowledge on the IWMA with me. Details and evidence for this chapter aremostly to be found in Marx and Engels [1867–71] 2009.

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the above, mentioned congress that the General Council adopted in themeeting of 11 August. Instead, the resolution dealt exclusively with thedifference between the capitalists’ ‘despotism & extortion’ when used bycapitalists and the material premise for the abolition of wage-labour. Thiswas reminiscent of the distinction between a ‘machine as such’ and amachine 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 introductionof machinery tended to be less advantageous for labourers than forcapitalists, stressing the lowering of wages and the dismissal of workers. Thecommission accepted the resolution proposed by the General Council.(Marx and Engels [1867–71] 2009: 1884–6).

7. Conclusion

Shortly before the publication of Volume 1 of Capital, Engels worried: ‘Ihad really begun to suspect from one or two phrases in your last letterthat you had again reached an unexpected turning-point which mightprolong everything indefinitely.’ (Engels to Marx, 7 August 1865).Current editions of his work appears to confirm Engels’ worries andshow Marx as a ‘master of revision’, his eyes open for new sources andother views on his ‘economics’. He often looked for several ways toresolve a problem, not always being adequately satisfied with the solutionshe found. This can be seen in his unpublished papers that make up alarge part of his legacy. Regarding technical change, we may observe thatMarx started his enquiry focusing on the social effects of machinery:namely, on the dismissal of workers, and a wide-ranged deterioration ofworking conditions. Apart from that he also examined the relation ofmachinery to economic aspects. In his later studies he included thedevelopment of machinery in history and developed an interest in howthe technical devices functioned, in other words, in the more technicalaspects. Moreover, he also took agriculture into account and theimprovements that natural sciences’ findings offered for the cultivationof soil and the breeding of cattle. However, there is another side of thecoin to Marx’s openness. He sometimes drifted away from his primaryquestions and subjects, and discovered new areas of research. This may beseen in his excerpts of the early 1850s as well as in those of the 1870swhere he, besides exploring political economy, plunged into extensive

48 Speaking at the congress in Brussels, Friedrich Lessner referred to Marx’sCapital. In the proceedings there are no details as to the passages Lessner quoted(La Premiere Internationale 1962: 297).

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studies of geology, chemistry and mathematics. Nevertheless, he arrived ata detailed analysis of technical change and its importance for capitalistproduction, emphasizing the revolutionary effects, the pivotal role of themechanical engineering and its significance in the emancipation of thelabourers by building a ‘truly social system of production’ (Marx andEngels [1867–71] 2009: 587). He also occasionally alluded to thedestructive power of technical change.

Acknowlegements

I would like to thank Jurgen Herres, Heinz D. Kurz, Bertram Schefold andthree anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions, andJames Gay and Ian Whalley who checked the English. The responsibility forthe text rests, of course with the author.

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Abstract

Karl Marx is well known for sharply criticizing the social effects thattechnical change had on the employment and the working conditions ofthe labourers. At the same time, he was fascinated by the revolutionarypower that technical innovations offered and assigned such innovations toplay a prominent role in the development of modern society. We mayexplore the origin and development of his views in greater detail referringto the whole of his legacy, not only to his writings but also to his numerousexcerpts from the technological literature of his time.

Keywords

Karl Marx, technical change, industry, agriculture, working method

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