Engels’s Theoretical Contributions to Marx’s Capital

ABSTRACT

Capital is a magnificent masterpiece that Marx spent all his life on, and Engels’s theoretical contributions to Capital make his name inseparably connected with Marx’s. Materialist dialectics is the fundamental method of analyzing the relationship between capital and wage labor in Capital. Engels not only completed the application of materialist dialectics to the field of economics with Marx in the process of Marx’s creation of materialist dialectics, but also made a systematic and perfect research on materialist dialectics after Marx’s death. Capital has enduring academic value, and Engels’s theoretical contributions to Capital are mainly manifested in his three rounds of correspondence with Marx, as well as his writings, annotations and supplements for Capital when revising the new edition of volume 1 and editing and publishing volume 2 and volume 3. Capital is a sharp sword that stabs the heart of the bourgeoisie. Engels not only criticized the attitude of the bourgeoisie towards Capital by writing book reviews and pamphlets, thus prompting the working class to understand Capital, but also criticized the wrong remarks of the bourgeoisie in a direct and open way, thus developing Marx’s theory in defending Capital.

KEYWORDS:

• Engels
• Marx
• Capital
• theoretical contributions

Acknowledgements

This article is translated from Chinese by Dr Dongyun Han at the Academy of Marxism of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on Contributor

Leisheng Zhang is a professor at the School of Marxism Studies, Renmin University of China. Her research mainly focuses on Marxist political economy and history of Marxist economic thoughts. Her main publications include History and Reality of Marxist Labor Theory of Value (in Chinese; co-authored with Hailiang Gu; People’s Publishing House, 2002), Study on the History of Marxist Economic Thoughts in Foreign Countries in the Twentieth Century (in Chinese; co-authored with Hailiang Gu; Economic Science Press, 2006), and Fundamental Tenets of Marxism and Modern China (in Chinese; Economic Science Press, 2017).