James Doughney (2002)
An observant reader has noticed an error in extant English language versions of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital volume 1, chapter XVII subsection IV part (1), which is titled ‘Diminishing productiveness of labour with a simultaneous lengthening of the working-day’. The reader asked whether this had been noticed but ignored by convention in faith with the original or whether it had hitherto been undetected. Is it indeed an error? How did the error arise? Who is responsible for it? Does it exist in all editions and translations of the great work?
The road to truth is arduous, and none is capable of travelling it successfully alone. Try as I might I cannot get to an ultimate bedrock explanation. However, I am convinced of two things. First there is such an explanation. Second that the explanation matters. This then is a contribution to the task, and it is also a plea for social production of new knowledge. We need the combined efforts of many minds. The truth of what happened is no mere interpretive language game, though its form is language and its mediation is interpretation. Something happened in and out of translation. Someone, singly or working in concert with others, gave the bourgeoisie and extra three shillings (3/-)? Why and how? Who, in the late 1920s got it back again (and why and how?), and who was subsequently responsible for snatching it again on behalf of a gluttonous bourgeoisie already stuffed, pate goose overfull, on surplus value? These facts are clear.
By the end of the first war, if not earlier, the 3/- had gone. The Charles H. Kerr Chicago edition of Capital I, published in 1918, contains the following sentences in Chapter XVII section IV part (1):
Take the working-day at 12 hours and the value created by it at six shillings, of which one half replaces the value of the labour-power, the other forms the surplus value [i.e. v = 3 and s = 3]. Suppose, in consequence of the increased dearness of the products of the soil, that the value of labour-power rises from 3 shillings to 4, and therefore the necessary labour from 6 hours to 8. If there be no change in the length of the working day, the surplus-labour would fall from 6 hours to 4, the surplus-value from 3 shillings to 2. If the day be lengthened by 2 hours, i.e., from 12 hours to 14, the surplus-labour remains at 6 hours, the surplus-value at 6 shillings, but the surplus-value decreases compared with the value of labour-power, as measured by the necessary labour-time. (Capital I (Kerr), pp. 578-79)
The offending passage is ‘...the surplus-labour remains at 6 hours, the surplus-value at 6 shillings ...’ The reader is right. There is an error. The passage should clearly read ‘...the surplus-labour remains at 6 hours, the surplus-value at 3 shillings ...’ The capitalists, ex gratia, have pocketed an additional three shillings. Swine that they are they have kept it to themselves all these years.
Who is responsible for the error? Prima facie the following are possibilities: (1) Marx himself, who may have written 6 when he meant 3 in the original German manuscript(s); (2) the translators, namely Samuel Moore, Marx’s friend, and Edward Aveling, Marx’s son in law, who used the third German edition as their source; (3) Frederick Engels, who edited the Moore-Aveling translation and attended to the proofs of the fourth German edition; and or (4) Ernest Untermann, of Orlando Florida, who ‘revised and amplified’ the translation in 1906 according to the fourth German edition. I must confess that, in the current context, the word ‘amplified’ worries me. However, to his credit, Untermann does provide a paper trail:
The first English translation of the first volume of Capital was edited by Engels and published in 1886. Marx had in the meantime made some changes in the text of the second German edition and of the French translation, both of which appeared in 1873, and he had intended to superintend personally the edition of an English version. But the state of his health interfered with this plan. Engels utilised his notes and the text of the French edition of 1873 in the preparation of a third German edition, and this served as a basis for the first edition of the English translation.
Owing to the fact that the title page of this English translation (published by Swan Sonnenschein & Co.) did not distinctly specify that this was but volume I, it has often been mistaken for the complete work, in spite of the fact that the prefaces of Marx and Engels clearly pointed to the actual condition of the matter [i.e. that subsequent volumes were intended].
In 1980, four years after the publication of the first English edition, Engels edited the proofs for a fourth German edition of volume I and enlarged it still more after a repeated comparison with the French edition and with manuscript notes of Marx. But the Swan Sonnenschein edition did not adopt this new version in its subsequent English issues...
This first American edition of volume I is based on the revised fourth German edition. The text of the English version of the Swan Sonnenschein edition has been compared page for page with this improved German edition, and about ten pages of new text hitherto not rendered in English are thus presented to American readers ... (American editor’s note, Capital I (Kerr), pp. 8-10)
Untermann then refers readers to Marx’s and Engels’s prefaces for ‘all further information concerning the technical particulars of the work’ (p. 10). This is where we now head, with particular reference to Engels’s editorial commentaries.
First Engels identifies which of the Moore-Aveling duo translated the passages with which we are concerned. It was Moore. Second it transpires from checking Untermann’s and Engels’s prefaces that Engels’s editorial work on the third German edition did not affect the offending section of the text. The list of possible miscreants is thereby narrowed by one, Dr Aveling, but it is still possible that the following are responsible (assuming that compositors are free of burden because such burden rests with the readers of proofs): Marx (original German editions); Marx (French edition of 1873); Moore (translation of third German edition); Engels (fourth German edition only); and Untermann ('revised and amplified’ edition of the Moore-Aveling translation in the light of the fourth German edition). There, of course, may be multiple responsibilities. For example, Engels may have erred in proof reading the fourth German edition, which may have occurred due to compositors or Marx, which might make he alone or he and Marx jointly culpable. Untermann’s claim that the ‘Swan Sonnenschein edition has been compared page for page with this improved German edition’ may in turn make he and Engels jointly culpable, in the case of a compositor’s error on the German edition, or himself alone regarding a compositor’s error on the English translation in the US from the fourth German edition. I am assuming, too, that a translator bears no culpability unless she or he translates incorrectly.
At this point we are none the wiser. Subsequent translations might, however, offer some insight. There are more than these, and I would welcome the collective zeal of fellow bibliophiles deployed to the task, but I will offer five only here. The first is the International Publishers, New York, 1967 100th anniversary edition, based on the Moore-Aveling translation of the third German edition edited by Engels. However, the publisher’s note states:
The present edition of Volume 1 of Capital is published on the occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the first German edition. Reproduced here is the text of the English edition of 1887, edited by Frederick Engels (published by Swan Sonnenschein, Lowry & Co., London), and as corrected by Progress Publishers, Moscow, in their edition of 1965.
The changes made by Engels in the fourth (1890) German edition have been incorporated into the 1887 English text. These changes are indicated wherever they occur ...
Three points can be made arising from this note: (1) no indication is given that a change occurred from the third to the fourth German edition; (2) the Progress Publishers corrections failed to detect the error; because (3) the passage is identical to that in the Kerr edition:
Take the working-day at 12 hours and the value created by it at six shillings, of which one half replaces the value of the labour-power, the other forms the surplus value. Suppose, in consequence of the increased dearness of the products of the soil, that the value of labour-power rises from 3 shillings to 4, and therefore the necessary labour from 6 hours to 8. If there be no change in the length of the working day, the surplus-labour would fall from 6 hours to 4, the surplus-value from 3 shillings to 2. If the day be lengthened by 2 hours, i.e., from 12 hours to 14, the surplus-labour remains at 6 hours, the surplus-value at 6 shillings, but the surplus-value decreases compared with the value of labour-power, as measured by the necessary labour-time. (Capital I (International), p. 528)
The second is the Marx Engels Internet Archive version ((marxists.org) 1995, 1999). This, too, is based on the first English edition of 1887, with the fourth German edition changes included as indicated. Progress Publishers, Moscow, is cited as the publisher, Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling as translators and Frederick Engels as the editor. The translation used is identical to that in the Kerr and the International Publishers/ Progress Publishers versions. The third version is different. This is the 1976 Penguin, Harmondsworth UK, and New Left Review version, translated by Ben Fowkes. Fowkes renders the relevant sentences thus:
Assume a working day of 12 hours and a value-product of 6 shillings, half of which replaces the value of the labour-power, the other half forming the surplus value. Then let a rise in the prices of the products of the soil occur, so that the value of labour-power goes up from 3 shillings to 4, and the necessary labour-time therefore rises from 6 hours to 8. If the length of the working day remains unaltered, the surplus labour will fall from 6 hours to 4, and the surplus-value from 3 shillings to 2. If the day is lengthened by 2 hours, i.e., from 12 hours to 14 hours, the surplus labour will remain at 6 hours, the surplus-value will remain at 6 shillings, but the relative magnitude of the surplus value will decrease in comparison with the magnitude of the value of labour-power, as measured by the necessary labour-time. (Capital I (Penguin), p. 665)
This is clearly different from the preceding translations. I assume Fowkes used the fourth German edition. Note, significantly, the numerical error is repeated though the words are different: ‘... the surplus labour will remain at 6 hours, the surplus-value will remain at 6 shillings ...’ Now it is possible that Fowkes had the Moore-Aveling translation as edited by Engels (Progress Publishers) next to him as he translated, and I incline to the view that this would be likely. However, were there a difference between the two versions, the fourth German edition and the existing English translation based on it, then it might be expected to stand out. Why? The answer is because Fowkes is using different words. The burden begins to shift, I think, towards the fourth German edition and away from Moore and Untermann. That is, the scales tip towards Marx and Engels themselves.
The fourth edition and translation is different in a number of respects. This is the 1930 Everyman’s (sic) Library edition (number 849) of ‘Volume 2’ of Capital ‘in two volumes’, published by J.M. Dent, London. This is not the second volume of Capital, as we know it, but the second of two volumes formed by splitting the first volume in two. It contains no notes on translation nor ancestry. I assume such remarks are in the first of the two parts of the divided Capital I, which I do not have. However, the singular reference to Capital, as if there were no other volumes, raises suspicions that it derives from the original Swan-Sonnenschein translation. Recall what Untermann told us:
Owing to the fact that the title page of this English translation (published by Swan Sonnenschein & Co.) did not distinctly specify that this was but volume I, it has often been mistaken for the complete work, in spite of the fact that the prefaces of Marx and Engels clearly pointed to the actual condition of the matter [i.e. that subsequent volumes were intended].
In 1980, four years after the publication of the first English edition, Engels edited the proofs for a fourth German edition of volume I and enlarged it still more after a repeated comparison with the French edition and with manuscript notes of Marx. But the Swan Sonnenschein edition did not adopt this new version in its subsequent English issues. (American editor’s note, Capital I (Kerr), pp. 8-9)
However, the possibility that this version used the original Swan-Sonnenschein Moore-Aveling translation turns out to be a false lead. Though I do not have the first of the Everyman volumes, and the second does not recognise translators, it has been possible to trace publication details. These are ‘Capital. Translated from the 4th German ed. [1890] by Eden and Cedar Paul. Introduction by G.D.H. Cole. Two volumes paged continuously [848 & 849]. 1930. J.M. Dent & Sons, London.’ Clearly enough the 1890 fourth German edition had been used.
The most fascinating thing about this odd version is not its pedigree but its translation. Eden and Cedar Paul’s translation is correct on the expropriation of the three shillings. In 1930 they gave it back! In fact I suspect they gave it back in 1928, because a fifth version was also translated by the Pauls. It is the 1928 Allen and Unwin version. At any rate Eden and Cedar Paul rendered the key sentences in 1930 thus:
Let us suppose that the working day is one of 12 hours, that the amount of value created in one such day is 6s., that half of this replaces the value of the labour power, whilst the other half forms surplus value. Then the labour day is divided into 6 hours’ necessary labour and 6 hours’ surplus value. Owing to the rise in the prices of the products of the soil, let us suppose that the value of the labour power now rises from 3s. to 4s., so that the necessary labour time, which was 6 hours, has become 8 hours. The working day remaining unchanged in length, the surplus labour falls from 6 hours to 4 hours, and the surplus value from 3s. to 2s. If, now, the length of the working day be increased by 2 hours, that is from 12 hours to 14 hours, the surplus labour will then be 6 hours, just as it was under the conditions considered at the outset of the paragraph, and the surplus value will still be 3s., but there will be a decline in its proportional value as compared with the value of the labour power measured by the necessary labour time. (Capital I (Penguin), p. 665)
Eden and Cedar Paul pronounce themselves excellent translators by this rendition, if we are to judge by clear meaning. Also pronounced is that the translation is significantly different from that of the translations issuing from the fourth German edition of 1990. Moreover the rendition is true to intention: ‘... the surplus labour will then be 6 hours, just as it was under the conditions considered at the outset of the paragraph, and the surplus value will still be 3s.’ Super-exploitation (unequal exchange!) had been eliminated, at least for a brief time in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
Taken together with the evidence of the error manifesting itself again like Banquo’s ghost in the Fowkes Penguin translation of 1976, the Paul translation’s extensive reformulation and rendering in plainer English leads me to tilt towards this conclusion: the Pauls found an error in the fourth German edition and corrected it. Perhaps, on the balance of probabilities but not beyond reasonable doubt, this is what occurred. I could be wrong. It would mean that Marx and Engels were the real culprits, either singly or in concert. I incline to think, again on the balance of probabilities, that Marx himself was responsible in the original German versions. Why? Well Engels’s editorial work did not focus on this section of the text. His responsibility would remain, however, to the extent that he did not correct the error as editor and reader of the proofs of the fourth German and both original English editions.
Of course, I was prepared to be proved wrong. The truth was out there, somewhere, pirouetting on the German translations. Thus I sent out a plea for someone to check the German originals, in the hope that a prompt reply would ensue. Sure enough, it did. I have to admit that I was indeed wrong, again. Of course, I could still have pretended that my tilting and leaning in the last paragraph - the sort overbalancing of which Marx might have been guilty after a night on the beer with his old mate Wilhelm Liebknecht - did not occur. That is, I could have edited the text, made it appear that I had not tilted and leaned at all and headed triumphantly to the conclusion that the German editions did not contain the error and that Marx was off the hook! I could have done that, but there were too many people in the loop by this time. The truth is, as provided by Andy Blunden:
... Wird der Arbeitstag um 2 Stunden verlängert, also von 12 auf 14 Stunden, so bleibt die Mehrarbeit 6 Stunden, der Mehrwert 3 sh. ...
All you need to do is to look at the numbers: die Mehrarbeit 6 Stunden, der Mehrwert 3 sh.... This quotation is from the German section of the Marx internet archive. What is more, as the intrepid Andy Blunden has also detected, the 1932 German version published by Karl Korsch, which uses the 1872 German text, is also error free.
So the German bourgeoisie did not steal the three shillings after all. It was the British ruling class all along. They always have been cunning and ruthless bastards, concealing super exploitation under a treacle topping of civility. Samuel bloody Moore, what have you done? Engels was clearly too trusting. At any rate he, too, missed the error, it seems. As for Fowkes, well all I have to say is this: Ben, you should have looked at the German numbers and averted your eyes from the English editions on the desk next to you! As for the Pauls? Well perhaps they were merely good translators and not more.
This then is my interpretation of the three shilling mystery. Of course, I could be wrong ...
James Dougney, Senior Researcher Workplace Studies Centre
Victoria University, Melbourne