Karl Marx 
 
                             INTRODUCTION TO  
             A CONTRIBUTION TO A CRITIQUE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY 
 
 
          Written between end of August and middle September 1857. 
 
          Marx intended this to be the Introduction to his  
          _Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy_ (1859), 
          but, as his Preface to that work notes, he decided to  
          omit it. 
 
          The unfinished rough draft, which was found among Marx's 
          papers after his death.  First published 1903, in _Die  
          Neue Zeit_.  Would become the first manuscript in the 
          _Grundrisse_.  
 
 
    I. PRODUCTION, CONSUMPTION, DISTRIBUTION, EXCHANGE (CIRCULATION) 
 
 
                              4. Production 
 
     Means of Production and Conditions of Production.  Conditions of 
     Production and Communication.  Political forms and Forms of 
     Cognition in Relation to the Conditions of Production and 
     Communication.  Legal Relations.  Family Relations.  
 
Notes regarding points which have to be mentioned in this context and 
should not be forgotten.  
 
1. _War_ develops [certain features] earlier than peace; the way in 
   which -- as a result of war, and in the armies, etc.  -- certain 
   economic conditions -- e.g..  wage-labor, machinery, etc.  -- were 
   evolved earlier than within civil society.  the relations between 
   productive power and conditions of communication are likewise 
   particularly obvious in the Army.  
 
2. The relation of the hitherto existing idealistic historiography 
   to realistic historiography.  In particular what is known as 
   history of civilization, the old history of religion and states.  
   (The various kinds of historiography hitherto existing could also be 
   discussed in this context; the so-called objective, subjective (moral 
   and others), philosophical [historiography].) 
 
3. Secondary and tertiary phenomena, in general _derived_ and 
   transmitted_, i.e., non-primary, conditions of production.  The 
   influence of international relations.  
 
4. Reproaches about the materialism of this conception: relation 
   to naturalistic materialism. 
 
5. Dialectics of the concepts productive power (means of 
   production) and relations of production; the limits of this 
   dialectical connection, which does not abolish the real 
   differences, have to be defined.  
 
6. The unequal development of material production and, e.g.., that of 
   art.  The concept of progress is on the whole not to be understood in 
   the usual abstract form.  Modern art, etc.  This disproportion is not 
   as important and difficult to grasp as within concrete social 
   relations -- e.g.., in education.  Relations of the United States to 
   Europe.  However, the really difficult point to be discussed here is 
   how the relations of production as legal relations take part in this 
   uneven development.  For example, the relations of Roman civil law 
   (this applies in smaller measure to criminal and constitutional law) 
   to modern production.  
 
7. This concept appears to be an inevitable development.  But 
   vindication of chance.  How?  (Freedom, etc., as well.)  (Influence 
   of the means of communication.  World history did not always exist; 
   history as world history is a result.) 
 
8. The starting-point is of course the naturally determined factors; 
   both subjective and objective.  Tribes, race, etc. 
 
As regards art, it is well known that some of its peaks by no means 
correspond to the general development of society; nor do they therefore 
to the material substructure, the skeleton as it were of its 
organization.  For example, the Greeks compared with modern [nations], 
or else Shakespeare.  It is even acknowledged that certain branches of 
art -- e.g.., the _epos_ -- can no longer be produced in their 
epoch-making classic form after artistic production as such has begun; 
in other words, that certain important creations within the compass of 
art are only possible at an early stage in the development of art.  If 
this is the case with regard to different branches of art within the 
sphere of art itself, it is not so remarkable that this could also be 
the case with regard to the entire sphere of art and its relation to the 
general development of society.  The difficulty lies only in the general 
formulation of these contradictions.  As soon as they are reduced to 
specific questions they are already explained.  
 
Let us take, for example, the relation of Greek art, and that of 
Shakespeare, to the present time.  We know that Greek mythology is not 
only the arsenal of Greek art, but also its basis.  Is the conception of 
nature and of social relations which underlies Greek imagination and 
therefore Greek [art] possible when there are self-acting mules, 
railways, locomotives and electric telegraphs? What is a Vulcan compared 
with Roberts and Co., Jupiter compared with the lightning conductor, and 
Hermes compared with the _Credit mobilier_? All mythology subdues, 
controls, and fashions the forces of nature in the imagination and 
through imagination; it disappears, therefore, when real control over 
these forces is established.  What becomes of Fama side-by-side with 
Printing House Square? Greek art presupposed Greek mythology, in other 
words that natural and social phenomena are already assimilated in an 
unintentionally artistic manner by the imagination of the people.  This 
is the material of Greek art, not just any mythology -- i.e., not every 
unintentionally artistic manner by the imagination of nature (here the 
term comprises all physical phenomena, including society); Egyptian 
mythology could never become the basis of, or give rise to, Greek art.  
But at any rate [it presupposes] a mythology; on no account, however, a 
social development which precludes a mythological attitude towards 
nature -- i.e., any attitude to nature which might give rise to myth; a 
society therefore demanding from the artist an imagination independent 
of mythology.  
 
Regarded from another aspect: is Achilles possible when powder and shot 
have been invented? And is the Iliad possible at all when the printing 
press and even printing machine exist? Is it not inevitable that with 
the emergence of the press, the singing and the telling and the muse 
cease -- that is the conditions necessary for epic poetry disappear? 
 
The difficulty we are confronted with is not, however, that of 
understanding how Greek art and epic poetry are associated with certain 
forms of social development.  The difficulty is that they still give us 
aesthetic pleasure and are in certain respects regarded as a standard 
and unattainable ideal.  
 
An adult cannot become a child again, or he becomes childish.  But does 
the naivete of the child not give him pleasure, and does not he himself 
endeavor to reproduce the child's veracity on a higher level? Does not 
in every epoch the child represent the character of the period in its 
natural veracity? Why should not the historical childhood of humanity, 
where it attained its most beautiful form, exert an eternal charm 
because it is a stage that will never recur? There are rude children and 
precocious children.  Many of the ancient peoples belong to this 
category.  The Greeks were normal children.  The charm their art has for 
us does not conflict with the immature stage of the society in which it 
originated.  On the contrary, its charm is a consequence of this and is 
inseparably linked with the fact that the immature social conditions 
which gave rise, and which alone could give rise, to this art cannot 
recur.  
 
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
                                            transcribed by zodiac@io.org 
                                           report errors to that address