Michael Heinrich

Dans cet entretien réalisé à l’occasion de la parution de l’édition française du premier volume de sa monumentale biographie de Marx encore en cours de rédaction, Michael Heinrich revient à la fois sur son propre parcours théorique et politique, et sur les enjeux spécifiques du projet auquel il se consacre depuis plusieurs années. Au cours de la discussion, il se positionne par rapport aux autres biographies de Marx existantes et met en avant les nouveaux apports de son travail, non seulement en ce qui concerne la période couverte par le premier volume (1818-1841), mais aussi en faisant des incursions dans les années qui suivent. Il souligne également l’importance qu’ont pu avoir ses échanges avec des chercheurs originaires du monde entier dans la transformation de son regard sur la vie et l’œuvre de Marx.

Der vorliegende Aufsatz untersucht die Rolle, die für den jungen Marx die Begegnung mit Kants Philosophie spielt. Anhand von Briefen, Exzerpten und biographische Details wird dokumentiert, dass Marx schon sehr früh in seiner Studienzeit sich mit Kants Philosophie auseinandergesetzt hat, die berühmte Diskussion des Gottesbeweises in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft eingeschlossen. Schon da erscheint Marx' Interesse an der Analyse der Gesellschaft, die sich später als Kritik der politischen Ökonomie kristallisieren wird.

In 1993, Marx's manuscript of 1864-65, used by Engels as the basis for Volume III of Capital, became available as part of the Marx-Engels Gesamtausaabe (MEGA). It is therefore now possible to compare the original ms. with the version published by Engels. This comparison reveals that Engels made significant modifications, despite his own claim to have restricted his role to one of faithfully presenting Marx's own work. Changes to Marx's text include design of headings, insertion of sub-headings, and textual transpositions, omissions and insertions. The changes have real impacts on the text, especially in the area of crisis theory, the theory of credit, and the relation between capitalism and commodity production. Marx's thinking was far more ambivalent and much less developed that it appears to be on the basis of Engels' editing, and it is doubtful whether the materials were available to complete Capital. In any case, future study of Marx's thought must turn to the MEGA mss. rather than to Engels' Volume III.

With the deep economic crisis we face since 2008 also the interest in Marxian theories increased worldwide. This was not really surprising: while in Marx’s economic theory crises play an important role, they are nearly neglected in mainstream economics. They appear there as mere accidents, which could be prohibited by flexible markets (this is the belief of neoclassical economists) or by an appropriate economic policy (the belief of the Keynesians). But talking about Marxian economic theory, we should always have in mind, that there is a certain development in Marx’s thinking as well as there are certain ambivalences in basic theoretical concepts. In traditional Marxism, which mostly tried to present Marxian theory as a complete and perfect building, especially such ambivalences were often negIected or even denied. In the following I will give a short overview about the main stages of Marx’s theoretical development, and then I will focus on the ambivalences of Marx’s mature theoretical work