Thanks to the ongoing work on the second MEGA and after the publication of all volumes of its second section, devoted to the manuscripts and publications pertaining to Marx' "Capital", it is now fo
r the first time possible to follow in all details and based upon written evidence the long road towards "Capital", from the beginnings in 1844 towards the end in 1883 (or 1894). My focus is upon the logic and the vicissitudes of the research process, its many detours, its dead ends and the many problems left unsolved. Based upon the still largely unpublished notebooks by Marx, I am concentrating upon the logic of enquiries and discoveries, not so much upon the logic of presentation. I regard the efforts to present results as one of many experimental stages in Marx' research process. The knowledge of the manuscripts and notebooks allows us to take into account the hitherto ignored facts - for instance Marx' knowledge about progress made by contemporary economists like Jevons and J.St. Mill - and to evaluate the many anticipations of later discoveries that we can find in Marx' work - for instance his anticipations of later macroeconomic devices like Sraffa's 'basic goods' in his manuscripts of the 1870s. The real challenge of course will be to show when, how and why Marx failed to identify and / or solve the problems he ran into. In my view, the unsolved problems left in Marx' work, the true Marxian (not Ricardian or Smithaian) problems of political economy, are what constitutes the real heritage of Marx in this field. ... [more]
