47 pages • 1 hour read
Karl Marx, Friedrich EngelsThe German Ideology
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1932A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
IntroductionChapter Summaries & Analyses
Introduction: “Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy”
Introduction, Part 1 Summary: “Production in General”
Marx focuses on the material aspects of human life. The “Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy” begins by establishing the problem of material production. By material production, Marx refers to the raw materials, machinery, and facilities used to produce goods. The means of production are distinct from human labor and financial investment, which are the relations of production. Production is the process through which people produce and shape raw natural materials to fulfill human desires and needs. The material survival of human society requires production. It is this ability to produce that separates humans from animals. For instance, through agriculture, man produces not only food but also the means to eat.
Marx introduces a critical definition, clarifying that in his use of the term “production,” we “always have in mind production at a certain stage of social development, or production by social individuals” (2). The material conditions of production require society. Productive activity requires that individuals negotiate with one another, which gives rise to increasingly complex societies. As these larger social groups form, the division of labor becomes more significant.
A distinction is drawn between production in general, specialized branches of production (e.g., agriculture, stock raising, manufacturing) and production as a whole. Production in general recognizes that “the subject, mankind, and the object, nature, remain the same” (3). Marx highlights that production relies on raw natural materials, or nature. Otherwise, Marx dismisses this term as vague and not rooted in historical analysis. Special branches of production include agriculture, stock raising, and manufacturing. These specialized branches connect with other specialized branches to form production as a whole.
Modern capitalistic production is the focus of the text. Bourgeoise society began in the 16th century and significantly matured in the 18th century. The decline of feudal society and new forces of production were key factors in this societal transformation. There was a belief in 18th-century bourgeoise society that the individual is free from the bonds of nature. There was also a lessening of social ties to the collective. Instead, there was an emphasis on the isolated individual acting in self-interest, which allows for free competition between individuals.
Introduction, Part 2 Summary: “The General Relation of Production to Distribution, Exchange, and Consumption”
In section two Marx argues that production, distribution, exchange, and consumption “are all members of one entity, different sides of one unit” (14). Economists describe a neat chain between production, distribution, exchange, and consumption. Production is the starting point for consumption. In between are distribution (a process enacted by society) and exchange (a process enacted by an individual). Marx devotes several paragraphs to demonstrate that the neat distinction between the stages of production, distribution, exchange, and consumption as identified by economists are not that simple.
Instead, Marx describes a dialectical tension between consumption and production. Production consumes raw materials, which makes production an act of consumption. This means that “production is thus at the same time consumption, and consumption is at the same time production. Each is directly its own counterpart” (7). Consumption is when the product is finished and produces production in two ways. First, the product becomes real in consumption. For instance, a dress become clothing once it is worn. Second, consumption creates a demand for further production. By creating desires, consumption thus fuels production. In turn, production provides the raw materials for consumer goods. Production also directs the specific forms the consumer goods take; the “manner of consumption” (8) is produced by production. Finally, it creates consumers for products by creating a public to appreciate the consumer goods.
Marx concludes that the identity of production and consumption is threefold. One, production is consumption, and consumption is production. Two, they create the demand for each other as they are mutually connected while remaining separate. Three, neither consumption nor production is “directly the other” (9), but they are integrally linked. A Hegelian approach treats consumption and production as identical. For instance, the production of a nation is at the same time the consumption of a nation. However, nations are not individuals. Marx cites Henri Storch (1766-1835), who argues that nations do not consume all of their production but they do create means of production and fixed capital. Distribution exists between production and consumption on a societal level.
Next, Marx poses a question: “Does distribution form an independent sphere standing side by side with and outside of production?” (10). He challenges David Ricardo’s (1772-1823) focus on production at the expense of distribution. He concludes that distribution is the reverse side of production. For instance, a wage-laborer participates in production and receives his share of the results in the form of wages, which is distribution. There is a fallacy in economic thought, which counts things twice: “under distribution, there figure rent, wages, interest, and profit; while under production we find land, labor, and capital as agents of production” (11). Instead, Marx argues that distribution is a result of production.
Finally, he considers exchange and circulation. Exchange is an intermediary between production and distribution, on one side, and consumption. Circulation is one aspect of exchange. Exchange is directly influenced by or included in production.
Introduction, Part 3 Summary: “The Method of Political Economy”
To analyze a country through the lens of political economy, Marx argues we must begin with the class divisions of a population. Without classes, population is too abstract of a category.
Bourgeoise society is, historically, the most developed and has the most differentiated organization of production. The division of labor is complex. Some of these processes are inherited from earlier historical periods and share aspects with earlier forms of production. But economists must be more attentive to historical difference. For example, tithes and tributes are similar to rent. One concept can help explain the other, but they are not identical. It is a historical fallacy to link them as a natural progression. Instead, they reflect the historical conditions of each period.
All societies have different industries that dominate. Capital is the dominant economic power of bourgeoise society. An analysis of production often starts with land as the source of all production, making rent and landed property the obvious starting point. But rent cannot be understood without an analysis of capital. Capital is not the dominant economic power of all systems. In antiquity agriculture was more important. Capital as trading is part of the equation, but it is not the most important part.
Introduction Analysis
The Introduction outlines Marx’s materialist conception of history, a key contribution to Marxist thought. Marx argues that economic systems are not governed by natural laws but historical conditions. Marx asks, “how do general historical conditions affect production and what part does it play at all in the course of history?” (12).
To demonstrate the significance of considering things historically, Marx challenges the concreteness of a number of a “simple categories” or concepts (18). For example, while money may have existed before capital, banks, or wage-labor, there are examples of highly developed but “historically unripe” (18) societies that do not use money. It is only within historically developed societies that these concepts reach full development. Likewise, labor, as it is defined by political economists, is a modern system. Adam Smith (1723-1790), the theorist of capitalism, defined labor in general. Smith located the source of wealth in the labor of people rather than distinguishing between different types of labor, such as industrial, commercial, and agricultural. This approach links all production actions in all societies over time as part of labor in general, which enables production in general. Labor becomes a means to produce wealth. Marx argues that categories such as labor and wealth are the result of historical conditions and must be understood within them.
Marx develops an analysis of capitalism by critiquing the theories of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, who were influential theorists of capitalism. One of Marx’s key criticisms is political economists’ tendency to use nature as a justification for contemporary political and economic conditions. For example, he challenges how Smith and Ricardo romanticize the labor of earlier historical periods, such as that of the hunter or the fisher, as a product of nature, not human history. Marx dismisses this “aesthetic fiction” as “insipid illusions of the eighteenth century” (1). The references to nature and the natural are used to justify the existing system as inevitable and logical, “a universal, eternal natural phenomenon” (3). This is only possible if “we disregard the specific properties which turn an ‘instrument of production’ and ‘stored-up labor’ into capital” (3). There is nothing new about the belief that existing economic and political systems could be justified by finding relevant examples in nature. As Marx writes, “this illusion has been characteristic of every new epoch in the past” (1). In this analysis Marx locates a clear break between the labor of hunters and fishers and modern systems of capitalist production. Marx develops a historical analysis of production to disprove the arguments of political economists.
This analysis contributes to his critique of the theories of production by “modern economists who are trying to prove the eternal nature and harmony of existing social conditions” (3). Marx establishes that economists describe production in general “as subject to eternal laws independent of history, and then to substitute bourgeois relations, in an underhand way, as immutable natural laws of society in abstracto” (4). This establishes that there is no society or production without private property. Private property establishes two main categories: (1) slaves, serfs, and wageworkers who work for their pay; and (2) conquerors, officials, landlords, and monks who live on tribute or taxes. Private property and the protection of property by legal systems and the police make this system possible. However, private property is not a prerequisite for production; Marx uses historical examples of societies with communal property. Therefore, there is no general conditions of all production. This is a significant insight in Marx’s argument: Private property is not a necessary precondition for wealth production and development.
Marx uses this insight to develop his analysis of class, arguing that the “very condition of being assigned to wage-labor is the result of the existence of capital and landed property as independent agents of production” (11). The distribution of property, wealth, and production shapes society. By citing historical examples, Marx argues production is organized and determined by distribution, e.g., who owns the means of production and therefore profits from wage-labor. Production cannot be considered apart from distribution. Likewise, “there is no exchange without a division of labor” (13). In linking distribution, exchange, and consumption to production, Marx establishes production as the key category of analysis without ignoring the complex links production has with distribution, exchange, and consumption.
The term “base” refers to these means of production and the relationships of productions. “Superstructure” refers to ideology, art, religion, and other forms of knowledge that are not aspects of production. The contradiction between the means of production and the relations of production produces class conflict. In every society new means of production—for example, changing technologies—are introduced. The ruling class resists change because they own the existing means of production. This produces tensions that lead to changes in power.
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