Abstract

By translating the extremely difficult text of the Grundrisse, Martin Nicolaus has made an important political contribution. His lengthy introduction to it is an attempt to generate a more thorough immanent analysis of the corpus of Marx's critique of political economy. In this respect, the Grundrisse is of central importance for the reconstruction of Marxian thought. It lacks the tight logical structure of Capital but has a broader explicit scope which adds depth and richness to an understanding of the categorical unfolding of the critique of political economy. While it clearly puts to rest any theory of a rupture between Marx's early and later works, the Grundrisse also presents developments in his thought which render untenable an unmediated identification of the categories of the works of 1844–46 (Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, the “Theses on Feuerbach,” The German Ideology) with those of Capital; that is, an interpretation of the categories of the early works as the “philosophical underpinnings” of the later “economic” categories.