Page:Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, A - Karl Marx.djvu/9



The present translation has been made from the second edition of the "Zur Kritik der Politischen Oekonomie," published by Karl Kautsky in 1897 with slight changes from the original edition of 1859; changes that had been indicated by Marx on the margins of his own copy of the book.

As will be seen from the author's preface, the work was originally issued as the first instalmentinstallment [sic] of a complete treatise of political economy. As he went on with his work, however, Marx modified his plans and eight years after the appearance of the "Zur Kritik" he published the first volume of his Capital, whose scope was intended to cover the entire field of political economy.

The plan to which Marx alludes in the preface to the present work was thus abandoned in its formal aspects, but not in substance. The subject matter treated here was reproduced or rather "summarized," as Marx himself puts it, in Capital. But that was done in so far as was necessary to secure continuity of treatment. On the other hand, many important matters are treated here more thoroughly than in Capital, especially the part devoted to the discussion of money. This, as well as the chapters on the history of the theories of value and