The German Ideology

A new abridgement of Marx and Engels's 1846 reckoning with the philosophical tradition, edited and with an introduction by philosopher Tom Whyman. Edited and with an introduction by philosopher Tom Whyman, this new abridged version The German Ideology sheds new light on one of the most difficult, disputed texts in Marx's oeuvre. Written in 1846 and subsequently abandoned by Marx and Engels, only to be rescued in the 1930s by researchers in the USSR, The German Ideology is the high point of Marx's philosophical thought: a brilliantly insightful, still thrillingly radical work of materialist philosophical therapy. Yet there remains no wholly satisfactory stand-alone version in English, with only a heavily abridged 1970 edition edited by C.J. Arthur, or a facsimile edition taken from Vol. 5 of the Marx-Engels Collected Works, which does not include satisfactory scholarly notes, currently available. In this new Repeater Classics edition, Tom Whyman seeks to remedy this. By expanding on generally-available abridgements to include the bulk of the section on Max Stirner, as well as amending the translation, adding notes and providing a new critical introduction, this new edition of The German Ideology will allow non-specialists to engage with this critical work for the first time. At a time when interest in Marx's work is increasing, as people look for an alternative to our currently failing political system, this new edition of The German Ideology will bring Marx's most substantial vision of what communism might actually be like to a whole new audience.

"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e., the class, which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore the ideas of its dominance." - Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels

A new abridgement of Marx and Engels's 1846 reckoning with the philosophical tradition, edited and with an introduction by philosopher Tom Whyman. Edited and with an introduction by philosopher Tom Whyman, this new abridged version The German Ideology sheds new light on one of the most difficult, disputed texts in Marx's oeuvre. Written in 1846 and subsequently abandoned by Marx and Engels, only to be rescued in the 1930s by researchers in the USSR, The German Ideology is the high point of Marx's philosophical thought: a brilliantly insightful, still thrillingly radical work of materialist philosophical therapy. Yet there remains no wholly satisfactory stand-alone version in English, with only a heavily abridged 1970 edition edited by C.J. Arthur, or a facsimile edition taken from Vol. 5 of the Marx-Engels Collected Works, which does not include satisfactory scholarly notes, currently available. In this new Repeater Classics edition, Tom Whyman seeks to remedy this. By expanding on generally-available abridgements to include the bulk of the section on Max Stirner, as well as amending the translation, adding notes and providing a new critical introduction, this new edition of The German Ideology will allow non-specialists to engage with this critical work for the first time. At a time when interest in Marx's work is increasing, as people look for an alternative to our currently failing political system, this new edition of The German Ideology will bring Marx's most substantial vision of what communism might actually be like to a whole new audience.

Nearly two years before his powerful Communist Manifesto, Marx (1818-1883) co-wrote The German Ideology in 1845 with friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels expounding a new political worldview, including positions on materialism, labor, production, alienation, the expansion of capitalism, class conflict, revolution, and eventually communism. They chart the course of "true" socialism based on Hegel's dialectic, while criticizing the ideas of Bruno Bauer, Max Stirner, and Ludwig Feuerbach. Marx expanded his criticism of the latter in his now famous Theses on Feuerbach, found after Marx's death and published by Engels in 1888. Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy, also found among the posthumous papers of Marx, is a fragment of an introduction to his main works. Combining these three works, this volume is essential for an understanding of Marxism.

Nearly two years before his powerful Communist Manifesto, Marx (1818-1883) co-wrote The German Ideology in 1845 with friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels expounding a new political worldview, including positions on materialism, labor, production, alienation, the expansion of capitalism, class conflict, revolution, and eventually communism. They chart the course of "true" socialism based on Hegel's dialectic, while criticizing the ideas of Bruno Bauer, Max Stirner, and Ludwig Feuerbach. Marx expanded his criticism of the latter in his now famous Theses on Feuerbach, found after Marx's death and published by Engels in 1888. Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy, also found among the posthumous papers of Marx, is a fragment of an introduction to his main works. Combining these three works, this volume is essential for an understanding of Marxism.

"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e., the class, which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore the ideas of its dominance." - Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels