The third volume has caused heavy controversies concerning Marx s economic theory ever since it was published. The problem of transformation of values into production prices, the decline of the rate of profit, crisis theory, the analysis of the credit system all these questions refer to parts of the third volume of Capital Soon the question was raised as to how strongly Engels intervened into Marx s text during the editing of the manuscript (e.g., Gide and Rist, 1913, 514). The manuscript of 1864-65, which Engels mainly used for the publication, was first published in 1992 in the Marx Engels Gesamtausgabe (MEGA), so that now for the first time in 100 years two questions can be examined: 1) To what extent, and with what implications for content, did Engels intervene into Marx s original manuscript during editing? and 2) how far did Marx actually get with the elaboration of the third volume of Capital. Two years after Marx s death, Engels had already published the second volume of Capital from Marx s estate. In the preface to this volume, he wrote about volume III, which was still to be published: Despite the expectations due to this statement that volume III would be published as fast as volume II, it was to take nine more years until it was finally finished. In the meantime, Engels had repeatedly announced the publication, mainly in letters. In view of the long period until the date of publication (and even considering Engels other obligations), it can be presumed that the publication of the manuscript caused him great effort and the question is, into what task was this effort invested? In the preface to the finally published volume, Engels reported on his editing activity. He characterized Marx s manuscript as an extremely incomplete first draft": The supplement to Capital written by Engels also indicates considerable changes. In the supplement, Engels wrote that he had tried to eliminate difficulties in understanding, and to bring more to the fore important aspects whose significance is not strikingly enough evident in the text (Capital, III, 890). Thus, Engels himself wanted to transmit what was important to the readers by correcting the original. A letter to Danielson on July 4, 1889 also shows the extent of the manipulations undertaken. Engels wrote: Engels also made a detailed segmentation of the text. The original manuscript was divided into only seven chapters with few or no subdivisions. Engels turned the seven chapters into seven parts with 52 chapters and a number of subparagraphs. Many of the structure incisions as well as most of the headings were created by Engels: Marx s text consists of 34 headings (and five construction points which are only numbered), while Engels edition contains 92 headings. The arrangement of a text and the headings used obviously strongly influence the understanding of a text, especially if the text is not finished but in large part sketchy and incomplete. By putting this material together into chapters and inserting headings, this draft character is concealed. But even more important, the readers can no longer tell at what point in the manuscript presentation turns into inquiry. The difference between presentation and inquiry, however, is of central importance for Marx s own methodical understanding. To Marx, presentation does not just mean the more or less skillful assembly of final results. The factual correlation of the conditions presented should be expressed by the correct presentation of the categories, by advancing from the abstract to the concrete. To Marx, the search for an adequate presentation is an essential part of his process of inquiry. But the difference between complete and incomplete presentation is concealed by the structure imposed by Engels. Additionally, Engels tried to strengthen the coherence of the text through omissions and connecting phrases. The readers do not learn that a large part of Marx s manuscript is open and undecided. Engels gives them a possible solution of the problems without letting them know that there is a problem: the solution given by Engels appears as a mostly complete elaboration by Marx. At this stage, a serious error of Engels has to be mentioned. Marx wanted to begin his seventh chapter, Revenues (Income) and their Sources, with 1) The Trinity Formula. Engels believed he had found three independent fragments concerning this point, two smaller ones which he labelled I and II, and a longer one, labelled III. This last fragment also had a gap, which Engels pointed out to the readers. As Larissa Miskewitsch and Witali Wygodski (1985) managed to show after an exact analysis of the manuscript even before the MEGA volume was published, these are not three independent fragments: The fragments labelled I and II by Engels form a continuous text which exactly fills the gap in fragment III. This overview already shows that the 1894 edition was an extensive adaptation of Marx s manuscript, and Engels did not inform the readers about the true extent of his adaptation. The fact that this adaptation affected the meaning of the original text was outlined above. This shall now be shown in more detail. It is not even clear whether the material adapted by Engels was actually to constitute an independent paragraph. Several options were possible for later elaboration: Marx could have tried to turn this material into an independent chapter in direct relation to the presentation of the law of the falling tendency of the rate of profit; he could have tried to formulate an independent paragraph on capitalist crises, integrating further material from the sphere of the credit system, for instance; he could also have distributed the presentation of the various crisis phenomena mentioned into different chapters, avoiding an autonomous crisis theory; or perhaps he would not have wanted to use a large part of what he had written about crisis within the three volumes of Capital. For each of these options, reasons could be given; with each option crisis theory would obtain a different meaning. Engels not only avoided showing that there is a possible range of interpretations; he also directly interfered with Marx s text whenever it contradicted the interpretation he himself favored. For instance, Marx wrote on the overproduction of capital (which Engels calls overaccumulation of capital at this point): die n here Untersuchung dar ber geh rt in die Betrachtung der erscheinenden Bewegung des Capitals, wo Zinscapital etc Credit etc entwickelt [the closer analysis of this issue belongs to the study of the appearing movement of capital, where interest-bearing capital etc credit etc will be presented], and one must agree with the editors of the MEGA volume who argue in the annotations that erscheinende Bewegung des Capitals (appearing movement of capital) does not belong to the matters dealt with in Capital (MEGA II.4.2, 1255). Engels, however, turned Marx s remark into the opposite. He omitted Marx s text and wrote instead: its closer analysis follows later (Capital, III, 251). In fact, some remarks on overproduction, or overaccumulation, of capital actually do follow. The fact that Marx obviously did not attach a systematic relevance to them at this point, because he thought the subject cannot be negotiated on the given level of abstraction,  was turned into the opposite by Engels textual alteration. While the original structure of the third chapter still remained visible after Engels editing, the emphasis in the fifth chapter was completely shifted. As Marx s text shows, the topic of this chapter was to be interest-bearing capital. Marx divided this chapter into six sub-chapters. The first four points correspond to the first four chapters of Part V in the Engels edition (Chapters XXI to XXIV in Capital III). Marx titled point V Credit. Fictitious Capital (MEGA II.4.2, 469). Engels composed his chapters XXV to XXXV from this material. In doing this, he made many textual rearrangements, put footnotes into the text, distributed a whole chapter ( The Confusion ), introduced a fair number of transitional remarks and thus obscured the passages where Marx s text was no longer a mature presentation but a process of inquiry or sometimes even just an excerpt. Thus, Marx s point VI ( Pre-Capitalist Relationships ) corresponds to the last chapter of Part V in Engels edition. The structure, which in Marx s writings also indicates the systematic importance of the topic being treated, lists credit as the last (systematic) subpoint in the presentation of interest-bearing capital. Engels designs 11 chapters from this fifth point. Not just because of its size but also owing to the structuring of the material, the impression arises that the presentation of interest-bearing capital is just an introduction to the discussion of credit. This also prevails in the terminology: Part V is often called the Part on credit, even though credit is not even mentioned in the title. In this chapter, Engels also made textual changes as soon as the original text got in the way of his own interpretation. Marx introduced the point 5) Credit. Fictitious Capital with the following sentence: An analysis of the credit system and of the instruments which it creates for its own use, like credit-money etc., lies beyond our plan. (MEGA II.4.2, 469). Engels introduced the word exhaustive here: An exhaustive analysis of the credit system and of the instruments which it creates for its own use (credit-money, etc.) lies beyond our plan (Capital, III, 400). He had made a similar alteration earlier on. In the first chapter of Marx s manuscript, the following remark follows under the subtitle Appreciation, Depreciation, Release and Tie-Up of Capital": These differentiations are not mere hair-splitting, as can be shown in the case of the credit theory. For Marx s concept of presentation the central question is whether the inherent laws regulating credit can actually be discussed on the highly abstract level of Capital, or whether they are linked to a number of historically specific institutional factors, such as the constitution of the money and banking system, so that there cannot be a general credit theory. In Marx s manuscript this question remains open. Engels chose to present the research material found in Marx s manuscript on the general level, which led to the reproach against Marx that he had unduly generalized specific historic conditions of the credit system in 19th century England. As Marx already explains in the first sentence of Capital, he is not analysing the commodity of a precapitalist, simple commodity production; rather he is analysing the commodity as an elementary form of the wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails (Capital, I, 43). With similar clarity, Marx states in reviewing his argument in the last chapter of his manuscript: In the case of the simplest categories of the capitalist mode of production, in the cases of commodities and money, we have already pointed out the mystifying character . . . (MEGA II.4.1, 848f). Engels, however, underlays this statement with his own understanding of what is presented at the beginning of Capital and turns this sentence into: In the case of the simplest categories of the capitalist mode of production, and even of commodity-production, in the cases of commodities and money, we have already pointed out the mystifying character . (Capital, III, 826). Commodities and money are now no longer the simplest categories of the capitalist mode of production, but of commodity production. The fact that Engels did not undertake a textual editing fulfilling modern demands is quite understandable from the point of view of those times. Editions did not have to fulfill such high demands concerning textual loyalty as is necessary today. An editor was given much larger freedom than today, especially if he was spiritually close to the edited author. Furthermore, it was most important to Engels to publish a book which could serve as an intellectual weapon for the working class in the class struggle, which therefore was understandable and topical. And with all of the criticisms in view, we must not forget that it was an incredible achievement to publish this manuscript, of which Marx had once said in a letter to Engels that nobody at all could publish it in a readable form except for he himself (letter on February 13, 1866). Even still, all understanding for Engels motives and procedure cannot alter the assessment that the text he has presented is by no means the third volume of Capital. Every future discussion of Marx s economic theory will have to refer to Marx s original manuscript. But this manuscript also cannot simply be considered to be the third volume of Capital, judging from the full elaboration of the first volume. Therefore, it is indeed a first, incomplete draft, as Engels says in the Preface. The gaps, however, are not just of a quantitative nature. It is not just that Marx didn t have enough time to fully accomplish an already completely sketched picture. In quite a few places, it is not even clear what the sketches should look like on the given basis. Marx was nowhere near solving all of the conceptual problems. Even the fully developed parts of his work, such as the value and money theory of the first volume, include a number of ambivalences, which make it seem questionable whether it was in any way possible to complete Capital on the given basis.
Engels' Edition of the Third Volume of Capital and Marx's Original Manuscript by Michael Heinrich