20
Preface to the English Edition (Engels 1886)
them, entirely failing to see that by so doing, it confined itself within the narrow circle of ideas
expressed by those terms. Thus, though perfectly aware that both profits and rent are but sub-
divisions, fragments of that unpaid part of the product which the labourer has to supply to his
employer (its first appropriator, though not its ultimate exclusive owner), yet even classical
Political Economy never went beyond the received notions of profits and rents, never examined
this unpaid part of the product (called by Marx surplus-product) in its integrity as a whole, and
therefore never arrived at a clear comprehension, either of its origin and nature, or of the laws that
regulate the subsequent distribution of its value. Similarly all industry, not agricultural or
handicraft, is indiscriminately comprised in the term of manufacture, and thereby the distinction
is obliterated between two great and essentially different periods of economic history: the period
of manufacture proper, based on the division of manual labour, and the period of modern industry
based on machinery. It is, however, self- evident that a theory which views modern capitalist
production as a mere passing stage in the economic history of mankind, must make use of terms
different from those habitual to writers who look upon that form of production as imperishable
and final.
A word respecting the author's method of quoting may not be out of place. In the majority of
cases, the quotations serve, in the usual way, as documentary evidence in support of assertions
made in the text. But in many instances, passages from economic writers are quoted in order to
indicate when, where, and by whom a certain proposition was for the first time clearly
enunciated. This is done in cases where the proposition quoted is of importance as being a more
or less adequate expression of the conditions of social production and exchange prevalent at the
time, and quite irrespective of Marx's recognition, or otherwise, of its general validity. These
quotations, therefore, supplement the text by a running commentary taken from the history of the
science.
Our translation comprises the first book of the work only. But this first book is in a great measure
a whole in itself, and has for twenty years ranked as an independent work. The second book,
edited in German by me, in 1885, is decidedly incomplete without the third, which cannot be
published before the end of 1887. When Book III. has been brought out in the original German, it
will then be soon enough to think about preparing an English edition of both.
“Das Kapital” is often called, on the Continent, “the Bible of the working class.” That the
conclusions arrived at in this work are daily more and more becoming the fundamental principles
of the great working- class movement, not only in Germany and Switzerland, but in France, in
Holland and Belgium, in America, and even in Italy and Spain, that everywhere the working class
more and more recognises, in these conclusions, the most adequate expression of its condition
and of its aspirations, nobody acquainted with that movement will deny. And in England, too, the
theories of Marx, even at this moment, exercise a powerful influence upon the socialist movement
which is spreading in the ranks of “cultured” people no less than in those of the working class.
But that is not all. The time is rapidly approaching when a thorough examination of England's
economic position will impose itself as an irresistible national necessity. The working of the
industrial system of this country, impossible without a constant and rapid extension of
production, and therefore of markets, is coming to a dead stop.
Free Trade has exhausted its resources; even Manchester doubts this its quondam economic
gospel.
2
Foreign industry, rapidly developing, stares English production in the face everywhere,
not only in protected, but also in neutral markets, and even on this side of the Channel. While the
productive power increases in a geometric, the extension of markets proceeds at best in an
arithmetic ratio. The decennial cycle of stagnation, prosperity, over-production and crisis, ever
recurrent from 1825 to 1867, seems indeed to have run its course; but only to land us in the
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Preface to the English Edition (Engels 1886)
slough of despond of a permanent and chronic depression. The sighed for period of prosperity
will not come; as often as we seem to perceive its heralding symptoms, so often do they again
vanish into air. Meanwhile, each succeeding winter brings up afresh the great question, “what to
do with the unemployed"; but while the number of the unemployed keeps swelling from year to
year, there is nobody to answer that question; and we can almost calculate the moment when the
unemployed losing patience will take their own fate into their own hands. Surely, at such a
moment, the voice ought to be heard of a man whose whole theory is the result of a lifelong study
of the economic history and condition of England, and whom that study led to the conclusion that,
at least in Europe, England is the only country where the inevitable social revolution might be
effected entirely by peaceful and legal means. He certainly never forgot to add that he hardly
expected the English ruling classes to submit, without a “pro-slavery rebellion,” to this peaceful
and legal revolution.
1
“Le Capital,” par Karl Marx. Traduction de M. J. Roy, entierement revisée par l'auteur. Paris.
Lachâtre. This translation, especially in the latter part of the book, contains considerable alterations in
and additions to the text of the second German edition.
2
At the quarterly meeting of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, held this afternoon, a warm
discussion took place on the subject of Free Trade. A resolution was moved to the effect that “having
waited in vain 40 years for other nations to follow the Free Trade example of England, this Chamber
thinks the time has now arrived to reconsider that position.” The resolution was rejected by a majority
of one only, the figures being 21 for, and 22 against. – Evening Standard, Nov. 1, 1886.