Marx Early Writings

 

J. Wolff                                                                                                                                                                                 Term 1:    2008-2009

Dept of Philosophy                                                                                                                                             j.wolff@ucl.ac.uk

University College London                                                                                        

 

The point of these lectures is to come to an understanding of the most important texts Marx produced during his intellectual formation, prior to developing his theory of historical materialism and the concept of surplus value. These texts show Marx at his most philosophical. The readings are in some places very hard, and so some of the secondary material can be extremely useful, particularly the starred items.

 

These texts from Marx are collected in a number of edited works, and also at www.marxists.org for free download. I have given the page references for two of the most accessible editions:

Karl Marx: Selected Writings ed. D. McLellan (OUP) (nb  some library copies will be the first edition, in green covers. The second edition has a red cover. Page numbers are given for both: M1 and M2)

Karl Marx: Early Writings ed. Lucio Colletti (Penguin)

 

The most useful introductory works on these writings, are, in my view:

Maguire, John, Marx's Paris Writings

*McLellan, David, Marx Before Marxism

Some other introductory works, and more advanced texts are listed below.

 

Week 1 Introduction

Week 2 "On The Jewish Question"  McLellan 1 49-62, McLellan 2 46-70, Colletti 211-41.

Week 3 "A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right:

                  Introduction. M1 63-73, M2 71-82, C 243-57.

Week 4 Alienated Labour

Week 5 Money

Week 6 Private Property and Communism

Readings for weeks 4-6 "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts" M1 75-112, M2 83-121, C 322-34, 345-58,  377-400.   "On James Mill" M1 114-123, M2 122 -132, C 264-78.

Week 7 "Theses on Feuerbach" M1 156-9 M2 171-4, C 421-3

 

Secondary Texts on Early Writings

Adams, William, 'Aesthetics: Liberating the senses', in The Cambridge Companion to Marx,

                  ed. T. Carver

Althusser, Louis, For Marx, essay "On the Young Marx."

Arneson, Richard J., Commerce and Selfishness  Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supp vol 8, 1982

Arthur, Chris, Dialectics of Labour

*Avineri, Shlomo, The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx

* Cohen, G.A. If YouÕre an Egalitarian How Come YouÕre So Rich? chs 4 and 5.

Colletti, Lucio, Karl Marx: Early Writings, Introduction

Elster, Jon, Making Sense of Marx, pt 1 ch 2

*Hook, Sidney, From Hegel to Marx, chs 1-4, 7, 8.

*Kolakowski, Leszek, Main Currents of Marxism, vol 1, chs 1-7

Maguire, John, Marx's Paris Writings

*McLellan, David, Marx Before Marxism

Plamenatz, John, Karl Marx's Philosophy of Man, parts 1 and 2

Suchting, W.A. Marx: An Introduction, part 1

Wolff, Jonathan, "Playthings of Alien Forces", Cogito 1992

*Wolff, Jonathan, Why Read Marx Today?

Wood, Allen, Karl Marx, part 1.