How to Read Karl Marx

Contents: Introduction/John Bellamy Foster. Biographical data. Authors foreword. 1. The dream of the whole man. 2. Creative labor. 3. Division of labor and alienation. 4. The Fetish character of the commodity. 5. Classes and the class struggle. 6. Historical materialism. 7. Value and surplus value. 8. Profit and capital. 9. The problem of increasing misery. 10. The theory of revolution. 11. Dictatorship of the proletariat, socialism, communism. 12. Labor movement and international. 13. The philosophy of practice. 14. Marxism today. Appendix: 1. Marx\'s method/Paul M. Sweezy. 2. Marx\'s starting point: these on Feuerbach. 3. The base-superstructure metaphor: from preface to A contribution to the critique of political economy. 4. The philosophy of history: from the eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Notes. Index.

"Has any major thinker been more poorly understood than Karl Marx? Over the last 150 years, his name has been invoked in connection with everything from unemployment insurance to Hollywood to Guerilla Wars. Any number of international movements have claimed his teachings as their inspiration. Time after time, authorities have proclaimed the death of Marx\'s Theories while new and old audiences continue to draw vital insight from the works of the most important philosopher and economist of the industrial era.

Ernst Fischer has crafted a brief, clear, and faithful exposition of Marx\'s main premises, with particular emphasis on historical context. This new edition of the English translation of Was Marx Wirklich Sagte (1968) includes new contributions by John Bellamy Foster that sharpen Fischer\'s focus for today\'s readers. Also included are a biographical chronology, extracts from major works of Marx, and "Marx\'s Method", a valuable essay by the political economist Paul M. Sweezy."