is no point looking for that “beyond” in Capital. The “1844 Manuscripts,”^1
The German Ideology,^2 and the Grundrisse^3 have functioned, since their addi-
tion to Marx’s published corpus, as bases for elaborating an “unknown” Marx,
one who challenges “Marxist orthodoxy” (however that orthodoxy may be
conceived). Marx’s journalism and polemics are evidence of a Marx engaged
in concrete and uncertain political and rhetorical struggles, rather than dog-
matic system-building.^4 The unpublished drafts and marginal notes reveal a
Marx whose approach to political economy is at once more nuanced and
more visionary than Marxist economics is supposed to be.^5 But Capitalitself
is ceded as the natural homeland of orthodoxy. It is the old, bad Marx, the
one that everyone knows, and with whom nothing new can be done. As
Terrell Carver summarizes the popular wisdom, “amongst those works thought
to be boringly literal in their scientificity, it would be hard to find one more
widely derided than Marx’s Capital” (1998:9).^6
I think the pigeonholing of Capitalfollows in the train of certain uncritical
notions of Marx’s intellectual career: the “mature” Marx, according to the
common wisdom, set aside philosophy and pamphleteering and became a
social scientist, retreating to the British Museum Reading Room to discover
the truth of capitalism. Capitalis supposed to be the fruit of this essentially
scholarly labor, a monumental (even if monumentally flawed) attempt to out-
line a new science of society and to offer a firm foundation for a rational class
struggle. Whether a particular commentator defends or derides Marx’s sci-
ence matters less than that defender and derider alike conceive of Marx’s
32 • William Clare Roberts
(^1) The 1844 Manuscripts have spawned: David McLellan (1970), Takahisa Oishi
(2001), and the entire range of Marxist Humanism. 2
The more famous first part of The German Ideologysupports the whole sub-genre
on “historical materialism,” and its second part has provided ammunition for those
who develop a picture of Marx the politician, as opposed to the economist and philoso-
pher. See, e.g., Mark Reinhardt (1997). 3
See: Carol C. Gould (1978), Thomas M. Kemple (1995), Richard Marsden (1999),
Antonio Negri (1991), and Moishe Postone (1993) (for starters). 4
5 See, e.g.: Terrell Carver (1998), Martin Harries (2000), and Reinhardt (1997).
See: Michael Heinrich (1996), Leszek Nowak (1980), and, most explicitly, James
D. White (1994). 6
Carver ’s work stands out in this regard, in that he actually begins the process of
reading Capitaldifferently. There is also a growing body of new scholarship on Marx’s
approach to economics in Capital. I would highlight the work of Chris Arthur (1986,
2004), Patrick Murray (1988, 2000a, 2000b), and the volumes of essays edited by
Moseley (1993) and Moseley and Campbell (1997). These are welcome and important
works. To date, however, this research remains the province of a small number of spe-
cialists, and has had very little if any impact on the wider world of social, economic,
and political theory.