Kapital und Arbeit

by Johann Joseph Most

Johann Most: Kapital und Arbeit. Das Kapital von Karl Marx in einer handlichen Zusammenfassung Entstanden wahrend eines achtmonatigen Gefangnisaufenthalts wegen Majestatsbeleidigung in Zwickau. Erstdruck: Chemnitz, Selbstverlag, 1873. Hier nach der zweiten, von Karl Marx redigierten Auflage. Neuausgabe. Herausgegeben von Karl-Maria Guth. Berlin 2017. Umschlaggestaltung von Thomas Schultz-Overhage unter Verwendung des Bildes: Johann Most, 1895. Gesetzt aus der Minion Pro, 11 pt.

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1876

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was written by Johann Most as a Reader's-Digest-style condensation of Marx's Das Kapital, intended to be more accessible for the working class. Most was serving a prison sentence at the time for his radical activities, and had a lot of time on his hands - I believe he first wrote this book as more of a memory-guide to himself as he worked his way through the bulk of Marx's writing. Most is not much remembered today, but he was a fairly outspoken radical of the time. After writing this book, he swung from socialism to anarchism, and, to the degree he is remembered at all, it is usually as one of Emma Goldman's early lovers. But, at the time he composed this book, it's fairly clear that he was a dedicated Marxist.

Although the book claims to be "revised and re-worked" by Marx and Engels themselves, the afterword makes it fairly clear that neither of them really approved it. Marx felt it was an oversimplification, while Engels (years after Marx's death) conceded to make some corrections due to the obvious popularity of the book among the workers. So far as I can tell, this edition was released by a leftist press in Germany during the Cold War, and seems to have caught on enough that I was still running across it in left-leaning libraries in the 2000's.

As a German book for the English-speaking reader, this rates as a decent teaching-tool for advanced students. It's certainly easier to follow (and a lot shorter) than "Kapital" itself would be, although I admit that even I found the final chapters very abstract and hard to grasp. It will be of especial interest to those who study the nineteenth century in Germany, or those interested in radical literature. It makes a pretty good follow-up to reading The Communist Manifesto in German.