Prologue to the First Edition PDF

# Prologue to the first edition The work whose first volume I submit to the public is the continuation of my work _Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy_, published in 1859. The prolonged pause between the beginning and continuation is due to a sickness that has plagued me for years and...

# Prologue to the first edition The work whose first volume I submit to the public is the continuation of my work _Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy_, published in 1859. The prolonged pause between the beginning and continuation is due to a sickness that has plagued me for years and interrupted my work repeatedly. In the first chapter of this volume, the content of that earlier work is summarized.[1]. And this is not just to provide a continuous and complete presentation. It was improved. To the extent that the circumstances allowed, the development of many points that were only sketched out before has been expanded, whereas, conversely, points that were discussed at length there are here only alluded to. Naturally, the sections on the history of the theory of value and of money are now entirely omitted. Still, the reader of the previous work will find in the notes to the first chapter new sources for the history of this theory. Beginnings are always difficult, and this is true for all sciences. Comprehension of the first chapter, and in particular of the part devoted to the analysis of the commodity, will therefore present the greatest difficulty. I have given the most popular character possible to what refers more concretely to the analysis of the substance and magnitude of value. The form of value, in its finished form, is extremely simple and devoid of content. However, for more than two thousand years human intelligence has sought in vain to unravel its secret while, at least by approximation, achieving this goal when it came to more complex and full of content forms. Why? Because it is easier to study the developed organism than the cells that compose it. On the other hand, when we analyze economic forms we cannot use the microscope or chemical reagents. The capacity for abstraction must serve as the substitute for both. For bourgeois society, the commodity form, adopted for the product of labor, or the value form of the commodity is the economic cell form. It appears to the layman that to analyze it is to lose oneself in mere trivia and subtleties. It is a question of trivia and subtleties, but in the same way as the micro-anatomical study is devoted to trivia and subtleties. Excepting the section dealing with the form of value, this work cannot be accused of being difficult to grasp. I naturally trust that my readers will be people who wish to learn something new and, therefore, also to think for themselves. The physicist observes natural processes where they present themselves in the purest and least obscured form through disturbing influences or, whenever possible, conducts experiments under conditions that will ensure that the process unfolds undisturbed. The object of this work is capitalist production and the relations of production and exchange that correspond to it. The classical location for this mode of production is still, today, England. This is why, as I explicate my theory, I use this country as the main source of examples. But, if the German reader should shrug his shoulders sanctimoniously at the situation of English industrial or agricultural workers or if he should console himself with the optimistic idea that in Germany things haven't deteriorated quite as badly, I would have to warn him: _De te fabula narratur!_[2]. In itself and for itself, this is not about the greater or lesser degree of development achieved by social antagonisms that result from the natural laws of capitalist production. It is about these laws themselves, about these tendencies that operate and prevail with iron necessity. While a more industrially developed country does nothing more than show the less-developed country a reflection of its own future. Let us leave this aside. Where capitalist production is fully established among us, for example, in factories proper, conditions are much worse than in England, lacking the counterbalance of factory laws. In the other spheres, as in the other European countries of the West, we are tormented, not only by modern misery, but also by the misery of inherited backwardness, the result of the continued existence of obsolete production methods, mere survivals, with all their attendant accompanying socio-political anachronisms. We suffer not only because of the living, but also of the dead: _Le mort saisit le vif!_[2bis). Compared with the English, the social statistics of Germany, and the other Western European countries, is extremely poor. Yet it does lift the veil enough to reveal the head of Medusa behind it. Our own conditions would fill us with horror if, as in England, our governments and parliaments were to appoint commissions to investigate economic conditions; if these commissions were given the same full powers as their English counterparts to investigate the truth; if, for this purpose, one could find men as competent, impartial and inflexible as the English factory inspectors, as the authors of reports on _Public Health_, as the officials in charge of investigating the exploitation of women and children, and the conditions of housing and food, etc. Perseus covered himself with a mist helmet to pursue monsters. [3] We cover ourselves with a mist helmet, blinding our eyes and ears so as not to have to acknowledge the existence of monsters. We mustn't deceive ourselves. As the North American War for Independence in the 18th century sounded the alarm for the European middle class, the North American Civil War of the 19th century did the same for the European working class. In England, this process of upheaval is tangible. When it reaches a certain level, it will have an impact on the continent. It will take on more brutal or more humane forms, depending on the degree of development reached by the working class itself. Setting aside loftier motives, their own special interests, therefore, require today's ruling classes to remove all legally enforceable obstacles that impede the development of the working class. This is why, in this volume, I have given a prominent place, among other things, to the history, content and results of English factory legislation. A nation must and can learn from others. Even though a society has discovered the natural law governing its own motion—and the ultimate objective of this work is, after all, to bring to light the economic law that governs the motion of modern society—it cannot leap over natural stages of development or abolish them by decree. But it can shorten and mitigate the pains of childbirth. Just two words to preclude any possible misunderstanding. I do not paint the figures of the capitalist and the landlord in rosy colors. But here, they are only individuals insofar as they are the embodiment of categories of economics, bearers of certain class relations and interests. My perspective, which regards the development of the socioeconomic formation as a natural historical process, could less than any other hold individuals responsible for relations that they are still socially creatures of, however much they may subjectively rise above them. In the domain of political economy, free scientific research encounters not only the same enemy as in all other fields. The particular nature of its object calls forth a struggle against it by the most violent, niggardly and hateful passions of the human heart: the furies of private interest. For example, the High Church of England [4] will forgive an attack against thirty-eight of its thirty-nine articles of faith more readily than it will forgive an attack against thirty-nine one-hundredths of its revenue. Even atheism itself is today a _culpa levis_ [venial sin] if compared with criticism of traditional property relations. However, it cannot be denied that there has been some progress in this regard. I refer, for example, to the recent Blue Book [5]: _Correspondence with Her Majesty’s Missions Abroad: Regarding Industrial Questions and Trade Unions_, in which the English Crown representatives abroad state, without circumlocution, that in Germany, France—in a word, in all the civilized states of the European continent—the alteration of the existing relations between capital and labor is just as perceptible and inevitable as in England. At the same time, across the Atlantic Ocean, Mr. Wade, Vice President of the United States of America, declared at public meetings: Following the abolition of slavery, it is now up to the day to address the transformation of the relations between capital and landed property. They are signs of the times which cannot be concealed by purple robes or black cassocks. They do not heralds of miracles to come tomorrow. They reveal how, even in the ruling classes, there is a glimmering feeling that present society is not a fixed crystal, but an organism that is subject to change and constantly in flux. The second volume of this work will deal with the process of the circulation of capital (second book) and the configurations of this process as a whole (third book); the third and final volume (fourth book), the history of the theory. [6] Welcome all criticisms based on scientific analysis. As for the prejudices of the so-called public opinion, to which I have never made concessions, my motto will remain, as ever, that of the great Florentine: * Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti!** * [Follow your course, and let the people talk!] * [7] **Karl Marx** London, 25 July 1867