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The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and the Communist Manifesto (Great Books in Philosophy)

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Karl Marx. His ideas have been interpreted and reinterpreted time and time again. Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, Luxembourg, Debs, and countless others have used him, some of them more faithfully than others. Most people see Marx as the older Capital Marx. Yet these manuscripts show his true spirit, his devotion to mankind, and why democracy cannot be accomplished without communism. Marx here convincingly shows why capitalism alienates man from man and why equality cannot be accomplished under it. These texts are easily ten times more important than Capital. You can see the youth in this book, the yearning for a better society, and a man with the ideas to do so. If you are opposed to communism, read this book before making any more denouncements. If you believe, this book will show you that Marx was truly for mankind, that he had very little to do with the so-called communist countries today. Also included are a work by Engels attacking the other forms of socialism, all of which are undemocratic socialism-from-above. Finally, the Communist Manifesto is included, for those who want to see a concise outline of what communism is really about

Many people have sounded the Death Knell of Marx with the fall of the Eastern Bloc in the 80's and 90's. Many who have been interested in Marx read 'The Communist Manifesto' an admitedly dated work and never go beyond it. It must be remembered the Manifesto was a simplified form of practical ideas printed to drive the working class to action.

Marx was a student of Hegel, a notoriously difficult and deep philosopher to understand, but it shaped Marx to a degree that few understand. Marx was more than an economic philoshpher, he was an astute observer of psychology, sociology and anthropology. All of his philosophy shines in clarity in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844.

Of all of Marx's works we see most the thesis and theory devised from his understanding of the human condition through historical analysis. This work is the most accessable, easily understood work by this great thinker. If you have the desire to truly understand a major influence for the framework of many socialized democracies of modern Europe, the drives for nationhood and equality that rocked Europe in revolt in 1848 or desire to truly understand the whole theory of Marx this small book is an absolute must.

Marx was a both a materialist and process theorist in philosophical terms. His later socio-econmic works were a sort of working blueprint based upon the historical, psyhcological, sociolgoical, economic and anthropologic theories laid down in this work.

Social theorists, Marxists among them, often make a sharp distinction between Marx's early work, especially the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, and everything that came after The German Ideology. In this view, the early Marx was a social philosopher who had not yet promulgated a method or constructed a coherent conceptual framework, while his later work, especially the first volume of Capital, escaped the soft amorphousness of social philosophy and gave us rigorous social and economic science through application of historical materialism. There may be merit to this distinction, but I think that, at best, it is vastly overdrawn.

Either explicitly or by unmistakable implication, the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts give us nearly all the basic and most compelling ideas that provide the foundation for Marx's later work. The objectively determined antagonism between capital and labor is explained with clarity and force. The fact that capital and labor constitute classes in a macro-level sense, rather than through reference to characteristics of individuals or status groups seems undeniable. The structural determination of behavior takes the focus off ostensibly rapacious capitalists and laboring class victims, making notions like "good guys," "bad guys," and even free will seem obsolete and beside the point. Determinism is the watchword.

Perhaps the most insightful and interesting observation in the Manuscripts is Marx's conclusion that the more workers produce the stronger the hand of capital. The more productive the worker the more he undercuts his position with respect to capital. Technological innovations, for example, make workers more productive, but they also reduce the demand for labor and reduce labor costs.

When Marx wrote the Economic and Philosophical manuscripts he had not yet made the distinction between labor and labor power, and the commoditization of labor was less clear. Furthermore, he had not yet augmented use value and exchange value with his own notion of value, measurable units which could be objectively quantified in terms of labor power. The distinction between labor and labor power, however, seems obvious even if unstated in the Manuscripts, and Marx's elaborated account of value has always seemed to generate confusion, raising all sorts of measurement problems which seem unlikely to be solved. Thorstein Veblen, generally sympathetic toward Marx's work, dismissed the labor theory of value as unduly metaphysical; probably as good a characterization as any.

To his credit, toward the end of the Manuscripts, Marx engages in an hypothetical discussion of something he calls "primitive communism." This is a world fraught with envy and resentment, the product of a premature effort to produce a genuinely communist society. This illustration was used to emphasize Marx's admission that he did not know what form a genuinely communist or socialist society would take. Instead, this was something that would have to emerge historically.

At the risk of gross over-simplification, I'll offer a Marxist explanation of the economic mess we share today: too many laboring people make too little money and are forced to rely on credit offered by the capitalist class. When borrowers are completely tapped out, unable to pay what they've borrowed, the system collapses. Fundamentally, this is not because loans were unduly risky, but because most people had so little that risky loans were essential to maintaining the bare rudiments of a lower-middle class life style.

While Marx's later works (Grundrisse, Capital etc) have a solid focus on the scientific interpretation and analysis of history, society and political economy, one gets the feeling that this is quite absent in such early works like the Manuscripts of 1844. Marx is clearly taking a philosophical approach in his discussions in the Manuscripts, and while it is true that the effects of his philosophy are still evident in his later works, in the Manuscripts the difference between the so called young and mature Marx, is quite clear. Of course, that is not to say that the views of the young Marx oppose that of the mature - rather, there is a shift of focus from philosophy to science between the two. In a sense, one can be seen to complete the other.

The Manuscripts of 1844 are a text that is still relevant and influential in the social sciences. Major ideas are examined here, such as the theory of alienation, and an early construction of the later economic theories of Marx. As a philosophical and anthropological key text, the Manuscripts are a valuable source for intellectual curiosity and theoretical analysis. However, one has to consider that they are not an easy read, since they are unfinished and incomplete. Large parts of the Manuscripts are quotations from the works of major economic thinkers of the time, making the text a difficult read. I would advice it for anyone interested, but consider its difficulty before attempting to read it.

With the crumbling of the Berlin Wall--symbolizing for many the end of the relevance of Marx's political theory--and the veering toward a "third way" (read, neo-liberal way) in various Western European countries by formerly avowed socialist parties, Marxism, and its brand of socialism, is now universally assumed to be an historical artifact, and maybe neither a very interesting nor productive one at that.

"The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844" offers a point of rebuttal to those neo-liberals and their quick-handed assumptions that the totality of Marx's theory can be gleaned from The Communist Manifesto, a work written with the intention of motivating political action.

The "Manuscripts" is an essential read for those seeking Marx's revlevancy in the 21st century.

You don't have to agree with Marx to appreciate this book. Inside you will find a concise collection of his writings that speak to the heart of the Marxists idea of economics. Compelling, controversial, and even flat out wrong - the challenge of Marxism is one that all serious thinkers about economics must face at some point - whether we agree with it or not. This small volume serves as a very useful introduction to the thoughts of Karl Marx.

Marx's Philosophic Manuscripts are just that. Dont think you'll get a nice package of arguments. I'd like to think of this as Marx "in the raw" so be ready to follow Marx as he organizes his own thoughts.

I derived great amusement from the book's cover being that atrocious shade of hot pink. Perhaps red was too provocative for them?
Moving on to the contents itself, this books shows Marx's interesting interpretation of economics and its histroy. For such a dry topic, I found Marx's prose entertaining. He's not a skillful writer, such as Nietzsche or Wittgenstein, some of his sentences are long and torturous. But when his prose is overheated it is quite amusing. "Money is the pimp and whore of all nations."
His idea of alienation is not perhaps fully accurate psychologically, but it is a profound insight into our modern condition. Looking at the entertainment and advertising super-structure of Western society, you cannot help but be sickened by the objectification of man.
Class struggle is also interesting. That often seems to be true. The point is illustrated when higher tax breaks are given to the rich apposed to the poor.
I find it doubtful that all of history is subservient to an abstract economic movement though. This reduces man to a wholly material being as much as the machinery of capitalism does. Not that his cry to change the structure of society should go unheard. The most disturbing aspect is the way that Marx's ideas were implemented. The fact that the people in power are corrupt and pervert ideas to their own end says nothing about the idea itself. A highly readable introduction to Marx.

THE ECONOMIC AND PHILOSOPHIC MANUSCRIPTS MAY NOT BE HIS MOST COMPLEX OR INFLUENTIAL BOOK, BUT IT CONTAINS THE GENESIS OF COMMUNISM AND MARXIST IDEOLOGY. IT CLEARLY SHOWS THE PLIGHT OF THE WORKING MAN,CLASS DISTINCTIONS AND ALIENATION. THIS IS NOT A UTOPIAN MESSAGE, IT IS REALITY, JUST AS RELEVANT TODAY AS WHEN IT WAS WRITTEN. IF YOU DESPISE CAPITALISM AND WANT TO TAKE ACTION AGAINST IT AND IT'S VANGUARDS, READ THIS BOOK AND YOU WILL BE CONSCIOUS OF ALTERNATIVES TO THIS RIGID SOCIO-ECONOMIC AMERICAN SYSTEM. YOU WILL BE AWAKENED AND UNDERSTAND THAT COMMUNISM IS NOT EVIL, IN FACT, IT IS AN IDEAL SYSTEM FOR 90% OF THE NATIONS INHABITANTS.

The Paris manuscripts go back to a young and idealist Marx - perhaps one which few would bother to read, as today the concentration (and much contempt of Marxian theory) is based on his contributons to the understandings of a communist state. All that can be said is that Marx was trying not only to understand man as "homo economicus" (as seen clearly in Capital) but also as "homo sociologicus"...a fact which students of sociology should not forget.