William J. Blake: An American Looks at Karl Marx
Authors of textbooks make a profession of modesty; let me join that multitude. Whoever considers the difficulty and complexity of Marxian political economy may well tremble at his assurance in assigning himself to expound that doctrine.
Yet it must be done. Marxian political economy was for a long time regarded as one of the exploded, ponderous systems of the Nineteenth Century. The critique of the Austrian school, especially, was thought to have done it in. Mr. J. M. Keynes wondered how such a dull, implausible doctrine had ever engaged the attention of intelligent men.
Today that attitude is no longer maintained, nor is it tenable. Whatever may be the appraisal of Marxian economic theory, it is followed by too many serious and competent scholars and it has too great a political impact to suffer further academic neglect. Yet it is regrettable that it is still slighted. A doctrine so challenging is at least good intellectual discipline. Yet textbooks on economics cite it in passing, or fail to mention its specific doctrines, placing it under the rubric of socialism with little detail or, in several cases, I regret to say, it is even described inaccurately. One celebrated text in the history of economic doctrine has given the reverse of its teachings on central points.
Perhaps the reason for this neglect is the comparative want of material in the English language. In German and French, and, of course, Russian, there is no want of manuals and studies with full scholastic apparatus and conforming to the highest academic standards. Marxian doctrine, instead of being a sectarian teaching confined to agitators and presented in a composite style of economic doctrine and social anathemas, has taken on full university citizenship. The influence of Dobb at Cambridge, Laski at London, and Lindsay at Balliol, has extended Marxian studies in England and the large number of scholars come from the Fascist lands have given their talents. The statistical work of Kuczynski is an example. In the United States, the only textbook of which I am aware is a translation from the Russian and a truculent dogmatic affair.
My title to speak of Marxian political economy comes from the world of economic practice. For thirty years a statistician, economist, financial editor, banker, and grain merchant, I have found the stud of political economy in my evenings a running commentary on the employments of the day.
I came to economics from the stock exchange and banking; naturally I concentrated on money and taxation. Marxian economic theory, rooted in production relations, was the antipodes of my profession and my interests. It had the attraction of all opposites. I began with several essays on the theory of rent in 1912 and have been incurable since.
This book sometimes passes out of bounds in discourse. It is hoped that at times it will amuse and stimulate students, for who can deny them a camel’s privilege of an oasis in the arid desert of ideas?
It was hard to impose limits and determine a method for this book. In expounding Marx, the advocate’s is the only tenable attitude; in citing criticism of Marx, the causes of both sides must be argued. But the interpenetration of Marxian political economy and the wider philosophy of socialism made their separation difficult and somewhat artificial, and as for criticism, every alternate economic theory is by implication a critique of the Marxian. The economic theory is the body of the book: there are many appendices.
WILLIAM J. BLAKE
St. Augustine, Florida