The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production,which can be determined with the precision of natural science,and the legal,political,religious,artistic or philosophic --in short,ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out.Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself,so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness,but,on the contrary,this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life,from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production.No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed,and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society.Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve,since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation.In broad outline,the Asiatic,ancient,feudal and modern bourgeois modes of production may be designated as epochs marking progress in the economic development of society.The bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social process of production --antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism but of an antagonism that emanates from the individuals'social conditions of existence --but the productive forces developing within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a solution of this antagonism.The prehistory of human society accordingly closes with this social formation.
Frederick Engels,with whom I maintained a constant exchange of ideas by correspondence since the publication of his brilliant essay on the critique of economic categories (printed in the Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher,arrived by another road (compare his Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England )at the same result as I,and when in the spring of 1845he too came to live in Brussels,we decided to set forth together our conception as opposed to the ideological one of German philosophy,in fact to settle accounts with our former philosophical conscience.The intention was carried out in the form of a critique of post-Hegelian philosophy.The manuscript [The German Ideology],two large octavo volumes,had long ago reached the publishers in Westphalia when we were informed that owing to changed circumstances it could not be printed.We abandoned the manuscript to the gnawing criticism of the mice all the more willingly since we had achieved our main purpose --self-clarification.Of the scattered works in which at that time we presented one or another aspect of our views to the public,I shall mention only the Manifesto of the Communist Party,jointly written by Engels and myself,and a Discours sur le libre echange,which I myself published.The salient points of our conception were first outlined in an academic,although polemical,form in my Misere de la philosophie ...,this book which was aimed at Proudhon appeared in 1847.The publication of an essay on Wage-Labour [Wage-Labor and Capital]written in German in which I combined the lectures I had held on this subject at the German Workers'Association in Brussels,was interrupted by the February Revolution and my forcible removal from Belgium in consequence.
The publication of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in 1848and 1849and subsequent events cut short my economic studies,which I could only resume in London in 1850.The enormous amount of material relating to the history of political economy assembled in the British Museum,the fact that London is a convenient vantage point for the observation of bourgeois society,and finally the new stage of development which this society seemed to have entered with the discovery of gold in California and Australia,induced me to start again from the very beginning and to work carefully through the new material.These studies led partly of their own accord to apparently quite remote subjects on which I had to spend a certain amount of time.But it was in particular the imperative necessity of earning my living which reduced the time at my disposal.My collaboration,continued now for eight years,with the New York Tribune,the leading Anglo-American newspaper,necessitated an excessive fragmentation of my studies,for Iwrote only exceptionally newspaper correspondence in the strict sense.
Since a considerable part of my contributions consisted of articles dealing with important economic events in Britain and on the continent,I was compelled to become conversant with practical detail which,strictly speaking,lie outside the sphere of political economy.
This sketch of the course of my studies in the domain of political economy is intended merely to show that my views --no matter how they may be judged and how little they conform to the interested prejudices of the ruling classes --are the outcome of conscientious research carried on over many years.At the entrance to science,as at the entrance to hell,the demand must be made:Qui si convien lasciare ogni sospetto Ogni vilta convien che qui sia morta.[From Dante,Divina Commedia:Here must all distrust be left;All cowardice must here be dead.]
Karl Marx London,January 1859
