Book Description

Karl Marx’s History of Economic Theories from the Physiocrats to Adam Smith is Part I of the legendary but previously untranslated Volume IV of Marx’s Capital. Although it was written some ninety years ago, it remained unpublished until the first German edition appeared in 1904. Originally, Marx had intended to prepare the first three volumes for publication, then, from the remaining mass of manuscript, to extract a final volume constituting a history of theories of surplus value. Engels, who became Marx’s literary executor, was unable to follow this plan during his lifetime and assigned the task to Kautsky. Kautsky, however, found it impossible to carry out the project in the form intended. Much of the material indicated by Marx and Engels for inclusion in Volume IV had already been covered, in part at least, in the three preceding volumes. Consequently, the work as it now stands does not follow Marx’s precise plan. It is more comprehensive in scope, deals with economic theories whose relation to surplus value and profit is not immediate, and more closely approaches a complete and critical history of economic theories than the narrower concept which Marx had had in mind.