KARL MARX

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304 KARL MARX: A BIOGRAPHY
remedy for over-production. Marx regarded Ricardo as the high point of
bourgeois economic theory. Thereafter, as the class struggle sharpened,
'in place of disinterested inquirers, there were hired prize-fighters; in
place of genuine scientific research, the bad conscience and evil intent of
apologetic'. 167 Those who tried to harmonise the principles of capitalism
with the interests of the proletariat merely produced 'a shallow syncretism
of which John Stuart Mill is the best representative'. 168 The English
socialists, Ravenstone, Hodgskin and others, at least had the merit of
drawing from Ricardo's labour theory of value the correct notion of capitalist
exploitation. But they lacked the requisite theoretical insights to
accomplish the necessary total reconstruction of his system.
The Theories of Surplus Value show how firmly Marx's ideas are situated
in the tradition of classical economics. 169 As in other fields, Marx evolved
his own ideas by a critique and elaboration of his predecessors. The
volumes also contain a number of digressions such as one on alienation 170
and another on the growth of the middle class where he reproaches
Ricardo with forgetting to emphasise 'the constantly growing number of
the middle classes, those who stand between the workman on the one
hand and the capitalist and landlord on the other'. 171
From the summer of 1863 to the summer of 1865 there is a virtually
complete silence in Marx's correspondence concerning his economic work.
According to Engels, he spent 1864 and 1865 in drafting out Volume 3
of Capital. At the beginning of 1864 the finances improved but another
obstacle immediately arose: carbuncles. When Marx began sending off
the final manuscript of Capital to the publisher, he wrote to Engels: 'It is
now three years since the first carbuncle was operated on. Since that time
the thing has only let up in short intervals and, of all types of work, the
purely theoretical is the most unsuitable when you have this devilish mess
in your body." 72 The boils started very suddenly in the autumn of 1863
and almost proved fatal. 'On 10 November,' wrote Jenny, 'a terrible
abscess was opened and he was in danger for a fairly long time afterwards.
The disease lasted a good four weeks and caused severe physical sufferings.
These were accompanied by rankling moral tortures of all kinds.' 173 Jenny
was ushered from the room for the operation during which Lenchen held
Marx down and the doctor, Allen, wondered at the stoicism of German
philosophers. The boils, however, continually reappeared; they usually
started in the autumn and came to full bloom (so to speak) in January.
There were times when Marx's body was so covered with them that he
could only stand upright or lie on his side on the sofa. He took lots of
advice, seldom followed it very long, and after some years claimed to
know more about boils than any doctor; certainly he pursued widespread
researches in the British Museum on the subject. At various times he