Marx after Gotha

[RedMaterialist]

Anyone have any ideas on why Marx didn't write much after the Gotha Programme?

[Kill all the fetuses!]

The right-wing has a theory! I remember watching Hoppe's lecture once, where he said: "I think the reason why Marx hasn't written other volumes of Capital is that later in his life he realized that value is subjective"...

But yeah, apart from that I have little else to add, sorry.

EDIT: Doesn't it have to do with him being ill?

[Brutus]

Marx was afflicted with various illnesses. Also he was notoriously lazy- Engels found piles of unfinished manuscripts and notes when he became Marx's literary executor.

[John Nada]

The right-wing has a theory! I remember watching Hoppe's lecture once, where he said: "I think the reason why Marx hasn't written other volumes of Capital is that later in his life he realized that value is subjective"...Apparently Bartley, pretending to be Austrian "economist" Hayek, claimed Marx was stumped by such "Intellectual Giants":rolleyes: as Carl Menger, et al.:laugh: Yeah, right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginalism#The_Marginal_Revolution_and_Marxism
Marx was afflicted with various illnesses. Also he was notoriously lazy- Engels found piles of unfinished manuscripts and notes when he became Marx's literary executor.Could Marx have had what would be called ADD? Maybe if the treatment had been discovered 20 years earlier there would've been 10 volumes of Capital!

[BIXX]

Super glad treatment wasn't found 20 years earlier then.

[Hit The North]

In Capital, Marx wrote the most penetrating analysis of capitalism, drawing on an extensive and wide-ranging literature. I wish I was that lazy! ADD? The man wrote more in a year than most people will write in a lifetime and he studied constantly. Unfinished manuscripts are, after all, still work. If Marx appears to lack concentration it is only in the context of the massive tasks he set himself.

Having said that, the last decade of his life could be said to be something of a waste. This was a combination of illness, family bereavements and poverty which took a toll on the old man and he fell into depression. But to call this intellectual titan "notoriously lazy" sounds like cappie propaganda to me.

[Sinister Intents]

What's wrong with lazy and ADD? Sounds like me.

[Hit The North]

Nothing wrong with it. Just an inaccurate diagnosis of Marx's "problem".

[Sinister Intents]

Nothing wrong with it. Just an inaccurate diagnosis of Marx's "problem".

What was his "problem"? What was up with him outside of what you've stated?

[Hit The North]

I'm not saying he had a problem outside what I've already written.

[Sinister Intents]

I'm not saying he had a problem outside what I've already written.

But what if he did! What if he was a serial killer!

[RedMaterialist]

I think that Engels in his remarks at Marx's graveside gave the impression that Marx was actively working until he died. There is that last photo of Marx standing with a book in his hand. I always had thought Marx was writing and researching through the time after Gotha. Of course everyone knows how ill he was and how his wife's death affected him.

I guess it's hard to accept that a giant intellect like Marx could have spent the last eight yrs of his life not writing. Then again his production, as it were, will outlive capitalism.

Shakespeare retired in his 50s, and Aristotle, I think, also was inactive in the last ten yrs or so of his life. Adam Smith published Wealth of Nations at 53 and died at 67 without writing anything after that.

I think there ought to be a web page set up to have a big, red birthday party for Marx in 2018.