Ebook: The Marxian System: An Interpretation

This paper deals with the doctrines of Marx and Engels. It does not consider such post-Marxian developments as Lenin's theory of imperialism, etc. The main goal is interpretation, which involves here and there a re-examination of other interpretations, particularly the prevailing ores. The interpretation of Marxian economics in this pacer is based on the view that the separate parts of the Marxian system can be understood only light of the general aims and there is no point in considering "value."

Part I sketches the general Marxian analysis and predictions, and its philosophic basis, after which the separate economic elements are considered against the background of this general schema. The chapters dealing with separate elements of the Marxian system may be considered more as separate applications of the same approach than as steps in a developing argument. However, the later of these rest to some extent on things established in the earlier, and in the final summary an attempt is made to establish the particular interconnections between the element—between, for example, the theory of history and the theory of value.

If there is a recurrent object of attack in this paper, it is the approach whereby separate aspects of Marx's thought are considered in isolation and their meaning derived from such consideration, often from a consideration of mere phrases, rather than from the substance of Marx's arguments. For example, in such an approach Marx's dichotomy between “classical" economics and "vulgar" economics involves nothing more than a value judgment on Marx's part, and a consideration of this nothing more than the question whether this value judgment was "fair" or "true," etc. The approach here, on the other hand, will be to seek the substance of this dichotomy, why Marx had the obvious hostility to one school as shown by the value judgment words, and the implications of this for understanding Marx's own analysis, including the question of a "contradiction" between volumes I and III of Capital and the relevance of Bohm-Bawerk's famous "refutation" of Marx.

Although the main aim here is interpretation, some attention will be paid to questions of the internal logic and external (particularly historical) validity of Marx's doctrines. Positions of attack, defense or neutrality are assumed here and there as seems appropriate in each case, without any attempt to reach a predetermined "balance."
Emphasis in quotations cited herein are all in the original. The editions of works referred to in footnotes are those listed in the bibliography. Occasionally shortened titles are used, and in one instance there is a complete substitution of the popular title, Anti-Duhring, for the official one which appears in the bibliography: Herr Eugen Duhring's Revolution in Science.