Marx: A Very Short Introduction Very Short Introductions are for anyone wanting a stimulating and accessible way in to a new subject. They are written by experts, and have been published in 13 languages worldwide. Very Short Introductions available from Oxford Paperbacks: ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY MARX Peter Singer Julia Annas MEDIEVAL BRITAIN THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE John Gillingham and John Blair Ralph A. Griffiths ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn MUSIC Nicholas Cook ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner THE BIBLE John Riches NINETEENTH-CENTURY BUDDHISM Damien Keown BRITAIN Christopher Harvie and CLASSICS Mary Beard and H. C. G. Matthew John Henderson POLITICS Kenneth Minogue DESCARTES Tom Sorell Psychology Gillian Butler and EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY Freda McManus BRITAIN Paul Langford ROMAN BRITAIN Peter Salway HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood SOCIAL AND CULTURAL HINDUISM Kim Knott ANTHROPOLOGY HISTORY John H. Arnold John Monaghan and Peter Just HUME A. J. Ayer SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce ISLAM Malise Ruthven Socrates C. C. W. Taylor JUDAISM Norman Solomon STUART BRITAIN John Morrill THE KORAN Michael Cook THEOLOGY David F. Ford LITERARY THEORY THE TUDORS John Guy Jonathan Culler TWENTIETH-CENTURY LOGIC Graham Priest BRITAIN Kenneth O. Morgan MACHIAVELLI Quentin Skinner Forthcoming Very Short Introductions: ANIMAL RIGHTS David DeGrazia EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY ART THEORY Cynthia Freeland Oliver Curry BIOETHICS Helga Kuhse THE FIRST WORLD WAR CHAOS Leonard Smith Michael Howard CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY FREE WILL Thomas Pink Simon Critchley INDIAN PHILOSOPHY COSMOLOGY Peter Coles Sue Hamilton ECONOMICS Partha Dasgupta INTELLIGENCE Ian Deary EMOTION Dylan Evans MATHEMATICS Timothy Gowers ETHICS Simon Blackburn OPERA Roger Parker THE EUROPEAN UNION PHILOSOPHY Edward Craig John Pinder PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION Jack Copeland and Diane Proudfoot Peter Singer Marx A Very Short Introduction 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in OxfordNew York AthensAucklandBangkokBogotáBuenos AiresCalcutta Cape TownChennaiDar es SalaamDelhiFlorenceHong KongIstanbul Karachi Kuala LumpurMadridMelbourneMexico CityMumbai NairobiParisSão PauloShanghaiSingaporeTaipeiTokyoTorontoWarsaw with associated companies inBerlinIbadan Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Peter Singer 1980 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 1980 as an Oxford University Press paperback Reissued 1996 First published as a Very Short Introduction 2000 All rights reserved. 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Contents Preface vii Abbreviations ix List of Illustrations xi 1 A Life and its Impact 1 2 The Young Hegelian 16 3 From God to Money 23 4 Enter the Proletariat 28 5 The First Marxism 32 6 Alienation as a Theory of History 39 7 The Goal of History 47 8 Economics 59 9 Communism 78 10 An Assessment 86 Note on Sources 101 Further Reading 103 Index 106 Preface There are many books on Marx, but a good brief introduction to his thought is still hard to find. Marx wrote at such enormous length, on so many different subjects, that it is not easy to see his ideas as a whole. I believe that there is a central idea, a vision of the world, which unifies all of Marx’s thought and explains what would otherwise be puzzling features of it. In this book I try to say, in terms comprehensible to those with little or no previous knowledge of Marx’s writings, what this central vision is. If I have succeeded, I need no further excuse for having added yet another book to the already abundant literature on Marx and Marxism. For biographical details of Marx’s life, I am especially indebted to David McLellan’s fine work, Karl Marx: His Life and Thought (Macmillan, London, 1973). My view of Marx’s conception of history was affected by G.A. Cohen’s Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1979), although I do not accept all the conclusions of that challenging study. Gerald Cohen sent me detailed comments on the draft of this book, enabling me to correct several errors. Robert Heilbroner, Renata Singer, and Marilyn Weltz also made helpful comments on the draft, for which I am grateful. In the interest of clear prose I have occasionally made minor amendments to the translations of Marx’s works from which I have quoted. Finally, were it not for an invitation to take part in this series from Keith Thomas, the general editor of the series, and Henry Hardy, of Oxford University Press, I would never have attempted to write this book; and were it not for a period of leave granted me by Monash University, I would never have written it. Peter Singer Washington, DC, June 1979 Abbreviations References in the text to Marx’s writings are generally given by an abbreviation of the title, followed by a page reference. Unless otherwise indicated below, these page references are to David McLellan (ed.), Karl Marx: Selected Writings (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1977). B ‘On Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy’ CI Capital, Volume I (Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1961) CIII Capital, Volume III CM Communist Manifesto D Doctoral thesis EB The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte EPM Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 G Grundrisse (translated M. Nicolaus, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1973) GI The German Ideology GP ‘Critique of the Gotha Program’ I ‘Towards a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction’ J ‘On the Jewish Question’ M ‘On James Mill’ (notebook) MC Letters and miscellaneous writings cited in David McLellan, Karl Marx: His Life and Thought (Macmillan, London, 1973) P Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy PP The Poverty of Philosophy R Correspondence with Ruge of 1843 T ‘Theses on Feuerbach’ WLC Wage Labour and Capital WPP ‘Wages, Price and Profit’ (in K. Marx, F. Engels, Selected Works, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1951)