The Life And Teaching Of Karl Marx

As one can guess from the title, the following book covers the biography and some of the ideological legacy left behind by Karl Marx. Marx was a German philosopher, critic of political economy, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto and the four-volume Das Kapital (1867–1883). Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and his work has been both lauded and criticized. His work in economics laid the basis for some current theories about labor and its relation to capital.

Reproduction of the original: The Life and Teaching of Karl Marx by M. Beer

Karl Marx belongs to the ranks of those philosophical and sociological thinkers who throw potent thought-ferment into the world, and set in motion the masses of mankind. They awaken slumbering doubts and contradictions. They proclaim new modes of thought, new social forms. Their systems may sooner or later become obsolete, and the ruthless march of time may finally overthrow their intellectual edifice; meanwhile, however, they stimulate into activity the minds of countless men, inflame countless human hearts, imprinting on them characteristics which are transmitted to coming generations. This is the grandest and finest work to which any human being can be called. Because these thinkers have lived and worked, their contemporaries and successors think more clearly, feel more intensely, and are richer in knowledge and self-consciousness.

First published in English in 1921, this work was originally written by renowned Marxist historian Max Beer to commemorate the centenary of Marx's birth. It is a definitive biography, full of interesting personal details and a clear and comprehensive account of Marx's economic and historical doctrines A special feature of this unique work is the new light thrown on Marx's attitude to the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" and Bolshevist methods generally.As an example of stern compression and yet lucid exposition of Marx's teachings, this little book deserves high praise. In 132 pages of fair-sized type there is given a sketch of the life of Marx, his development in knowledge and thought, his work in the various movements of the Working Class, his theories of history and class struggles, and his economic discoveries. In addition, a brief account of the Hegelian Philosophy, so far as it deals with the Dialectic, is placed in 19 pages of the Introduction. Marx's connection and debt to this school of philosophy is well shown.How familiar, even stale, all this reads to the student of Marx. How long, for instance, is it since W. H. Mallock said very similar things and tried to justify the Capitalists' ownership of wealth by claiming that it was due to the wonderful intellectual endowment "of the Few."And in another respect M. Beer is like Mallock and Co.-he is unable to give any alternative explanation. Nay, more; he does not even attempt to demonstrate or prove his case-he merely states it and passes on. Fortunately, there is one author who has met the objection of M. Beer that "creative and directive work" does not count in the theory of value. This author says: "All combined labour on a large scale requires more or less a directing authority in order to secure the harmonious working of the individual activities, and to perform the general functions that have their origin in the action of the combined organism, as distinguished from the action of its separate organs. A single violin player is his own conductor; an orchestra requires a separate one."Further on the same author says: "As co-operation extends its scale this despotism takes forms peculiar to itself. Just as at first the capitalist is relieved from actual labour as soon as his capital has reached that minimum amount with which capitalist production, as such, begins, so now he hands over the work of direct and constant supervision of the individual workman and groups of workmen to a special kind of wage labourer."This author's name is Karl Marx, and the quotations will be found on pages 321 and 322 of "Capital" (Sonnenschein Ed.). It is the wage-labourer who provides exchange value, and, as here seen, the organisers, chemists, physicists, etc., are but "special kinds of wage-labourers."