A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

Written at the same time as the ‘Economic Manuscript of 1857-58’, first published in 1859, Marx’s Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy contains the first elaboration both of the materialist theory of history and of the distinctive features of capitalism. The book’s ‘Preface’ contains the classic formulation of historical materialism on which includes the idea that it is on the economic base that determines the superstructure, but their social existence determines their consciousness.

This volume includes Marx’s unpublished ‘Introduction’ to the Grundrisse, and Engels’s contemporary review of the Critique.