The ‘Economics’

Abstract

In 1857 the economic crisis that Marx had so often predicted did in fact occur and moved him to a frantic attempt to bring his economic studies to some sort of conclusion. The first mention of this in his correspondence is in a letter to Engels of December 1857 where he says: ‘I am working madly through the nights on a synthesis of my economic studies so that, before the deluge, I shall at least have the outlines clear.’¹ A month later he was driven to taking a long course of medicine and admitted that ‘I had overdone my night-time labours, which were accompanied on the one side only by a glass of lemonade but on the other by an immense amount of tobacco.’²

You can believe me that seldom has a book been written under more difficult circumstances, and I could write a secret history that would uncover an infinite amount of worry, trouble and anxiety.

Jenny Marx to Kugelmann, Andreas, Briefe, p. 193