Export of 'Capital'

CENTENARY TIBOR SZAMUELY

Not very many people can have actually read Das Kapital in the hundred years (this week) since its first publication: it is one of those books which the studious young man always firmly in- tends to read at some later date, when he can find time for it, until he finally realises that the time for it has passed. Not that Capital is a boring or badly written work—on the contrary, the style is eloquent, pungent and witty, and the arguments much more comprehensible to the layman than Keynes's General Theory. I suppose it is the book's sheer bulk, as well as its formidable reputation, that strike terror into the hearts of many wishing to penetrate its tantalising mysteries. One can, however, do without it: the Marxist theory is by now sufficiently widely known and accessible in a variety of less intimidating expositions; after all, everybody is acquainted with the theory of evolution, but how many have read The Origin of Species?

But then, of course, Capital is much more than just a highly influential economic treatise: Engels called it 'the Bible of the working class,' and in those countries where self- appointed representatives of the working class wield total power over their hapless sub- jects Capital is, in fact, treated with a truly liturgical reverence (along with the Communist Manifesto, invariably referred to by Soviet authors as 'the Song of Songs of Marxism'). What Marx would have made of this canonisa- tion, and of the quasi-religious festivities devoted to the book's centenary, remains a fascinating subject for speculation.

Marx himself, though fully aware of the epoch-making significance of his book (like many of his followers, but with infinitely more reason, he disdained 'petty bourgeois' modesty), had no illusions about the length of time needed for his ideas to sink in, and for his work to acquire any considerable readership. He used to joke that his royalties from Capital would never cover the cost of the cigars con- sumed while writing it—and he was probably right. In order to facilitate sales and to arouse public interest the faithful Engels had a brain- wave: he himself would review the volume in various periodicals, anonymously and under pseudonyms, taking great care to attack it from a bourgeois point of view.' Marx was entranced by the idea : 'Your plan of criticising the book from a bourgeois point of view,' he replied, `is the best possible military tactic.' The plan was put into operation; curiously enough. Engels's main 'criticism' of Capital was that it contained no blueprint of a socialist society —a justified charge that was often to be re- peated by others, in earnest. But, despite all these efforts, it took five years for the first German edition of 1,000 copies to be sold out and for a new edition to appear.

With the successful export of Capital to Russia in 1872 Marx's masterpiece was set fair on its course—a course beset with paradox, in- congruity and contradiction. Towering above the perplexity of paradoxes (if that is the correct collective noun) is the chief anomaly of all: although 'Socialism,' in one form or another —and always at a great remove from the original concept—has, as Marx forecast, con- quered many countries of the globe, this vic- tory has come about, in every ca.se, in the wrong places, for the wrong reasons, by the wrong means, and with the wrong results. In fact, in direct contradiction to everything in the book.

Towards the end of the first volume of Capital we find the magnificent peroration in which Marx summed up 'the historical ten- dency of capitalist accumulation' and boldly forecast the inevitable future development of mankind:

`The monopoly of capitalism becomes a fetter upon the mode of production. Centrali- sation of the means of production and socialisation of labour at least reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated.'

Marvellous writing! However, if one looks at those countries which are officially either `Socialist' or 'building Socialism' or 'moving along the path of Socialist development,' one sees that in none of them had capitalism ever held a monopoly (in many the wretched thing had not even been born) and therefore could not possibly have become a fetter upon the mode of (largely nonexistent) industrial pro- duction. There having been hardly any means of production and practically no labour (in the marxist sense of the 'proletariat), these could have been neither centralised nor socialised, nor reached a point of incompati- bility with their (missing) capitalist integument. The 'knell of private property,' when it finally sounded, was produced entirely artificially : by the rifles of armed insurrectionists, or the cannon of an invading foreign army, or tribal bush-telegraph. Everything else followed from this essential fact. Expropriators being few on the ground, the new masters, after a pause for reflection, proceeded to exproptiate the pro- ducers—and, of course, to wring the neck of that conspicuous capitalist relic, the idea of liberty. Then, the preconditions for socialism still manifestly absent, they decided to build up an industrial base from scratch. In some places it succeeded, in others it didn't. But, whatever the outcome, it certainly had very little to do with Old Marx's Almanack.

The tremendous impact of marxism upon almost every nation in the world—socialist, capitalist, or neuter—and upon 'a hundred schools of thought' (to quote a distinguished contemporary Chinese thinker) has long been recognised. The spoliation of the majestic and richly wrought edifice of Marx's literary heri- tage by roving bands of ideological marauders, all eager to snatch up some well-preserved artefact for use in their own ramshackle theoretical dwellings, is now a world-wide in- dustry. The Anglo-American hippy bemoaning

his 'alienation,' the Russian apparatchik growl-

ing about the 'dictatorship of the proletariat,' the Chinese Red Guard shritking for 'world revolution,' the Italian fascist declaiming about

`proletarian nations,' the French savant pontifi- cating on 'the dialectic,' the African politician

concealing his tawdry tyranny behind grandiose

talk of 'scientific Socialism,' the Labour MP dreaming of storming the 'commanding heights

of the economy,' even the left-wing Tory chattering about the 'classless society'—all brandish their own cherished fragment of marxist theory. Within the massive corpus of Marx's writings justification and evidence could likewise be easily found—and have, indeed, been unearthed--for a host of other fruitful ideas, such as anti-semitism, colonialism, im- perialism or anti-Russianism. The point is that none of these bits and pieces constitute 'Marxism,' even when taken in conjunction, and certainly none of the present slogan-mongers , can in any case be regarded as a marxist. Where all follow marxism—each after his own fashion—nobody is a marxist.

How strange, when one thinks of it, that this country should have played such a prepon- derant part in the creation of marxism. Marx

developed his great theory in Britain, about Britain, . and (hopefully) for Britain. Yet of

all countries Britain—pragmatic, conservative, hard-headed Britain—is the one where it has had the least possible effect. Bulgaria—un- doubtedly, in the highest degree. Bolivia, yes, certainly. Burundi—probably. But Britain—not at all. This is clearer than ever today, when Britain, for the first time in her history, has a Prime Minister who is not only a socialist but also a trained economist—and apparently even less influenced by marxism than any of his predecessors.

But at least no one can say that Marx re- mains a prophet without honour in his adopted country : only the other day a tasteful blue plaque commemorating him was affixed on to a Soho restaurant by the Conservative Greater London Council. A combination of bohemian- ism, cosmopolitanism and conservatism— nothing could be more appropriately symbolic.

Thus, one hundred years after the publication

of Capital and fifty years after his grave became the prime tourist attraction for hordes of East

European ideological trippers, Karl Marx has at last achieved both respectability and the status of a cherished national monument in the

one country where he longed to be taken seriously—and which has consistently refused to do so.