Unsolved Problem of Economic Crisis as a Turning Point of Marx’s Critique of Political Economy, 1844―45

Abstract

Abstract: With the continuing publication of the complete works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels （Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe, MEGA）, a bulk of new material concerning Marxʼs studies of economic crises has been made available-with further releases expected to follow. These publications have revealed Marxʼs enormous efforts to examine in detail every economic cri-sis through which he lived. The most prominent examples are the three Books of Crisis （Kris-enhefte）, which he compiled in 1857-58 amidst the first truly global economic crisis. This paper sets out to, first, provide an overview of new MEGA-texts regarding Marxʼs studies of contemporaneous 19th century revulsions. In the main part, a closer look will be taken at the origin of Marxʼs crisis studies in the 1840s. A comparison between his notes on James Millʼs Elements of Political Economy, written in the Paris Notebooks （1844）, and his excerpts from John Stuart Millʼs Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy, taken in his Manchester Notebooks （1845）, reveals Marxʼs changing stance on classical political econo-myʼs ʻgeneral glut controversy,ʼ i.e., the debate over the （im）possibility of overproduction cri-ses in commodity-producing societies. In between his stays in Paris and Manchester, Marx took extensive notes on the works of Simonde de Sismondi in his Brussels Notebooks (1845）, which played a major role in his break from anthropological-essentialist thinking. JEL classification numbers: B 00, B 51, E 32