Mata, T;
Van Horn, R;
(2017)
Capitalist Threads: Engels the Businessman and Marx's Capital.
History of Political Economy
, 49
(2)
pp. 207-232.
10.1215/00182702-3876457.
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Abstract
This essay illuminates a neglected aspect of Friedrich Engels's life: his work at his family's textile firm, Ermen & Engels, in Manchester, the hub of the cotton industry in the mid-nineteenth century. We argue that Engels was a merchant and an intelligencer with a detailed, comprehensive understanding of products and the movements of goods, orders, and prices in the global cotton trade. The statistical insights Engels gleaned on matters such as machinery depreciation and reinvestment, his contextualization of capitalism within a unified world market, and his recognition of the tendencies toward overproduction that threatened economic crisis, all contributed to shaping key ideas and themes of Karl Marx's Capital Volumes I and II, leaving a lasting imprint on Marxist political economy.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Capitalist Threads: Engels the Businessman and Marx's Capital |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1215/00182702-3876457 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00182702-3876457 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | Social Sciences, Economics, History Of Social Sciences, Business & Economics, Social Sciences - Other Topics |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Science and Technology Studies |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1562620 |
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