The importance of the English language for the early Engels–a comparison between Engels’ and Marx’s research on English political economic literature before their collaboration

ABSTRACTThe current research on Engels' and Marx's early economic studies often neglects the language and geographical differences between Engels and Marx which directly lead to the disparity between them in political economy. This study, based on MEGA2, finds that before the collaboration with Marx, Engels, with his proficiency in English, studied plenty of first-hand English literature on political economy while having in-person experience and doing field investigation in Britain which most German intellectuals of the same period such as Marx lacked. With access to the newly published English literature, Engels transformed his literature advantage into a theoretical edge and formulated his original ideas. Yet Marx in German states and Austrian Empire mainly studied French translations of limited English literature on political economy, although presenting critical insights. Engels' advantage is that he proposed many ideas that would become the basis of Marxian political economy, some of which had not yet been explored by Marx but were later affirmed by Marx.KEYWORDS: English literaturethe early Engelspolitical economythe early MarxMarxian political economy Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Hollander does not mention Engels' references to Bentham, Porter and Marcus.2 As shown in MEGA2 (IV/2), Engels also made excerpts and notes of Alison's book (Citation1840).3 Marx's notebooks of McCulloch's and Lauderdale's English works as well as French translations of John Law's works in MEGA2 (IV/3), which are classified into Paris Notebooks in MEGA2 (IV/2), are assumed to be made after the collaboration.4 Hollander does not touch upon how Marx referred to Cantillon and Bentham or mentioned Mun, Cooper and Buchanan.5 Hollander holds that Marx's interpretation simplified Ricardo's theory of income distribution because this theory was concerned about the production cost of commodity wages and 'proportion' wages reflected in monetary wages (See Hollander Citation2001).6 Also see Smith, A. in The Wealth of Nations: 'The final payment of this rise of wages, therefore, together with the additional profit of the master manufacturer would fall upon the consumer.'7 Their criticism of abstract principles was not unproblematic. Engels had probably not started a serious examination of Richardo's works or realised the necessity of abstraction in theories.8 Marx held that Proudhon showed correctly that the price of a thing was higher than its value where private property existed: 'Proudhon schließt draus mit Recht, daß da, wo das Privateigenthum existirt, eine Sache mehr kostet, als sie werth ist,eben den Tribut an den Privateigenthumer.'Additional informationFundingThis study was funded by the National Social Science Foundation of China [grant number 20AZD004].Notes on contributorsFeixia LingDr. Feixia Ling is Research Fellow at the Institute of Marxist Philosophy and Chinese Modernization, Sun Yat-sen University. Her main research interests are Marxism, Marxian political economy, histories of Marx's and Engels' biographies, and political philosophy.