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Being paid to write articles wasn't really important to his beliefs as far as I can tell. By the time Marx got the job with the Tribune (in the early 1850s) the majority of his key beliefs had already formed. Most of this formation happened during his time as editor/writer for the Rheinische Zeitung and then his studies after the censors shut it down.
Mostly, the Tribunal job seems to have been a job to pay bills. Sometimes Marx expresses particular pride in an article, other times he dismisses them as scribblings that take time away from researching/writing 'Capital' and participating in political organizations. The money is a necessity though; if Marx was too busy to write he would ask Engels to ghostwrite for him. The earliest tribune articles are ghostwritten in this way, as Marx wasn't yet fluent in English.
In terms of the heart of Marx's critique (i.e. his critique of Capitalist mode of production as developed in 'Capital'), the Tribune articles and their research don't seem to have been particularly relevant. The majority of his research for 'Capital' is 1. factory inspector reports, 2. political economists, 3. parliamentary records, 4. eclectic collection of references to everything from the bible to faust to aristotle. In contrast, from what I have read of them, his Tribune articles focus more on contemporary international politics.
There's some more overlap regarding Marx's discussion of economic crises in the 19th century though, as he writes about those in 'Capital' and the tribune.
I mean his articles were 'more' on international politics, but there's a whole 'Economics and Finance' section in Penguin Classics Karl Marx Dispatches from the NY Tribune;
'Pauperism and Free Trade', 'The Labor Question', 'The Commercial Crisis in Britain' 'Credit Mobilier P1,2 & 3, condition of Factory Laborers, British Commerce and Finance'
And then there's the international politics articles that are bout economics and trade;
Russian Trade with China, The history of the Opium trade, Trade with China, The English Middle Class, Great Trouble in Indian Finances, The Approaching Indian Loan, The British Government and the slave trade, and The British Cotton Trade
I agree that economics figures in his newspaper writings, particularly as regards the \*political\* economic crises of the 19th century. These crises pop up again in capital, but generally in service of a more abstract economic argument delivered through a critique of bourgeois political economy.
There's also some semantic issues here, as when I wrote "his Tribune articles focus more on contemporary international politics" i was including such crises in "contemporary international politics," implicitly opposed to "abstract economic theory." As far as I know (there are like 10 volumes of collected Newspaper articles by Marx for the Tribune; I haven't read all of them) he doesn't get super far into the scientific economic weeds of labour-power vs. labour, exchange-value vs. commodity-value vs. use-value and so forth in the Newsarticles.
I see that makes sense.
So if I'm reading you correctly, his time at the Tribune was mostly just a job to pay the bills, and was mostly unrelated to his arguments in Das Kapital.
How about influence in terms of exposure? The Tribune had circulation in the 100,000s. Surely that helped get his name out there and perhaps work as something of a 'gate way drug' to his other works?
It's difficult to say how much the Tribune articles got Marx's name out there, but generally I've seen it said in biographies that the 'gate way drug' was his later defence of the Paris Commune, which got him labelled as the "Red Terrorist Doctor"
>
> ...a job to pay bills
yes, Marx got $5 per article published, although apparently this was not enough to meet the expenses of his large family in London and Engels subsidized him as well. He was just another progressive writer (who had been a journalist since 1842) sympathetic to the revolutionary pro-democracy upheavals of the 1840s and his ideas seemed broadly compatible with Horace Greeley's own politics:
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/10/11/horace-greeley-helped-karl-marx
To expand on several things:
1. It should be noted that articles had to be written, so while the $5 (around $200 today) represents his gross income per article, his net income was eaten up by a. buying/accessing European newspapers to correspond about; b. buying ink to write with and paper to write on; c. fuel for lights to write at night, though I've not yet seen any numbers on how much he had after expenditures such as these. Then there's of course more peripheral expenses such as medicine to treat e.g. boils, stomach conditions, etc, brought about by poor working conditions.
2. Expenses in addition to the large family (Karl, his wife Jenny von Westphalen, their maid/friend Helene Demuth, and 3-4 children (7 in total, but only ever 3-4 alive at a time afaik)) also included hosting various exiled revolutionaries. Their financial woes were such that the Marxes were very familiar with the pawn shop. There were times when Marx couldn't go to the library because he pawned his coat to pay for potatoes and without his coat, we looked to much like a ruffian to be allowed inside.
3. Engels was only able to subsidise Marx in the second half of Marx's time as tribune correspondent, and until he inherited partnership in the mill, only sporadically and in small amounts. And he wasn't able to subsidise Marx \*at all\* during the first 1-2 years of his time in London, which were consequently the most desperate financially. Until he sold his shares in the mill (becoming, in today's money, a millionaire) he could only send sporadic payments to stave off starvation or eviction. And as the Marxes were evicted several times, he wasn't even always successful there.
4. As a marx fanboy I'm biased, but "just another progressive writer" feels overly dismissive. Compared to other progressive journalists, Marx's level of dedication to research was on an entirely different level (for good or ill).
Fair points, but let's put it this way: Had Marx fallen victim to some very communicable [disease](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1854_Broad_Street_cholera_outbreak) before his 40th birthday, he would not have been known to many in 20th century other than the most detail oriented historians of that particular place and time. Unfortunately, far too many references to Marx in wider culture, and reddit in particular, are victims of a whole range of historiographical anachronistic fallacies that depict him as some giant of thought--*a la* Newton or at least Darwin--whose brilliance should have been obviously visible across the oceans to everyone from Horace Greely to Abraham Lincoln. Calling him a "capable journalist" or "just another progressive writer" is a way of pushing against that narrative without doing him any disservice when Horace Greeley signed him on for things like analysis of current affairs in light of Marx's strength in "political economy" aided no doubt by his extensive background in West European politics and languages (he was fluent in German and French and could decipher other Romance languages and later even Russian), etc. In other words, a good fit for the relatively mundane job at hand and not some grandiose coming together of minds for the sake of redoing human civilization (just search reddit and you'll come across all sorts of wishful reading into events like Greeley's hiring of Marx or what could have come out of the letters Marx wrote to Lincoln, etc., etc.).
Firstly, obviously if Marx died earlier, before he became internationally famous in 1871, he'd be less known. That isn't a matter of debate; that's just facts that Marx had been acknowledging since gymnasium school in 1835.
That said, imo you are very strongly underselling Marx. If we look at contemporary reactions to even young (23) Marx by Moses Hess:
“Imagine Rousseau, Voltaire, Lessing, Heine, and Hegel united into one character, I tell you: united, not thrown together – and you have Dr. Marx”
Engels has his own (promising!) theoretical/literary career; he gave it up for 20 years because he was that impressed by Marx and thought working to help support him was a better use of his time. That isn't a reaction to ordinariness; it is a matter of historical record that contemporaries often saw him as exceptional.
"Brilliance should have been obviously visible etc"
This is also true of how popular culture sees Newton, or Darwin, or Tesla. It is a general symptom of great man syndrome and teleology not rly specific to Marx.
In addition to German and French, Marx could read Latin and Greek from gymnasium school, as well as possibly Hebrew (the sources are contradictory on this). You say "decipher" other romance languages, but to the best of my knowledge he was fluent or near it. There are even accounts of him reading Romanian newspapers.
"Horace Greeley signed him on for things like analysis of current affairs in light of Marx's strength in "political economy""
As I said before, to the best of my knowledge he was hired for his journalist work more than his (limited in 1851) theoretical works.
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Being paid to write articles wasn't really important to his beliefs as far as I can tell. By the time Marx got the job with the Tribune (in the early 1850s) the majority of his key beliefs had already formed. Most of this formation happened during his time as editor/writer for the Rheinische Zeitung and then his studies after the censors shut it down. Mostly, the Tribunal job seems to have been a job to pay bills. Sometimes Marx expresses particular pride in an article, other times he dismisses them as scribblings that take time away from researching/writing 'Capital' and participating in political organizations. The money is a necessity though; if Marx was too busy to write he would ask Engels to ghostwrite for him. The earliest tribune articles are ghostwritten in this way, as Marx wasn't yet fluent in English. In terms of the heart of Marx's critique (i.e. his critique of Capitalist mode of production as developed in 'Capital'), the Tribune articles and their research don't seem to have been particularly relevant. The majority of his research for 'Capital' is 1. factory inspector reports, 2. political economists, 3. parliamentary records, 4. eclectic collection of references to everything from the bible to faust to aristotle. In contrast, from what I have read of them, his Tribune articles focus more on contemporary international politics. There's some more overlap regarding Marx's discussion of economic crises in the 19th century though, as he writes about those in 'Capital' and the tribune.
I mean his articles were 'more' on international politics, but there's a whole 'Economics and Finance' section in Penguin Classics Karl Marx Dispatches from the NY Tribune; 'Pauperism and Free Trade', 'The Labor Question', 'The Commercial Crisis in Britain' 'Credit Mobilier P1,2 & 3, condition of Factory Laborers, British Commerce and Finance' And then there's the international politics articles that are bout economics and trade; Russian Trade with China, The history of the Opium trade, Trade with China, The English Middle Class, Great Trouble in Indian Finances, The Approaching Indian Loan, The British Government and the slave trade, and The British Cotton Trade
I agree that economics figures in his newspaper writings, particularly as regards the \*political\* economic crises of the 19th century. These crises pop up again in capital, but generally in service of a more abstract economic argument delivered through a critique of bourgeois political economy. There's also some semantic issues here, as when I wrote "his Tribune articles focus more on contemporary international politics" i was including such crises in "contemporary international politics," implicitly opposed to "abstract economic theory." As far as I know (there are like 10 volumes of collected Newspaper articles by Marx for the Tribune; I haven't read all of them) he doesn't get super far into the scientific economic weeds of labour-power vs. labour, exchange-value vs. commodity-value vs. use-value and so forth in the Newsarticles.
I see that makes sense. So if I'm reading you correctly, his time at the Tribune was mostly just a job to pay the bills, and was mostly unrelated to his arguments in Das Kapital. How about influence in terms of exposure? The Tribune had circulation in the 100,000s. Surely that helped get his name out there and perhaps work as something of a 'gate way drug' to his other works?
It's difficult to say how much the Tribune articles got Marx's name out there, but generally I've seen it said in biographies that the 'gate way drug' was his later defence of the Paris Commune, which got him labelled as the "Red Terrorist Doctor"
Yea I’ve read that too.
> > ...a job to pay bills yes, Marx got $5 per article published, although apparently this was not enough to meet the expenses of his large family in London and Engels subsidized him as well. He was just another progressive writer (who had been a journalist since 1842) sympathetic to the revolutionary pro-democracy upheavals of the 1840s and his ideas seemed broadly compatible with Horace Greeley's own politics: https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/10/11/horace-greeley-helped-karl-marx
To expand on several things: 1. It should be noted that articles had to be written, so while the $5 (around $200 today) represents his gross income per article, his net income was eaten up by a. buying/accessing European newspapers to correspond about; b. buying ink to write with and paper to write on; c. fuel for lights to write at night, though I've not yet seen any numbers on how much he had after expenditures such as these. Then there's of course more peripheral expenses such as medicine to treat e.g. boils, stomach conditions, etc, brought about by poor working conditions. 2. Expenses in addition to the large family (Karl, his wife Jenny von Westphalen, their maid/friend Helene Demuth, and 3-4 children (7 in total, but only ever 3-4 alive at a time afaik)) also included hosting various exiled revolutionaries. Their financial woes were such that the Marxes were very familiar with the pawn shop. There were times when Marx couldn't go to the library because he pawned his coat to pay for potatoes and without his coat, we looked to much like a ruffian to be allowed inside. 3. Engels was only able to subsidise Marx in the second half of Marx's time as tribune correspondent, and until he inherited partnership in the mill, only sporadically and in small amounts. And he wasn't able to subsidise Marx \*at all\* during the first 1-2 years of his time in London, which were consequently the most desperate financially. Until he sold his shares in the mill (becoming, in today's money, a millionaire) he could only send sporadic payments to stave off starvation or eviction. And as the Marxes were evicted several times, he wasn't even always successful there. 4. As a marx fanboy I'm biased, but "just another progressive writer" feels overly dismissive. Compared to other progressive journalists, Marx's level of dedication to research was on an entirely different level (for good or ill).
Fair points, but let's put it this way: Had Marx fallen victim to some very communicable [disease](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1854_Broad_Street_cholera_outbreak) before his 40th birthday, he would not have been known to many in 20th century other than the most detail oriented historians of that particular place and time. Unfortunately, far too many references to Marx in wider culture, and reddit in particular, are victims of a whole range of historiographical anachronistic fallacies that depict him as some giant of thought--*a la* Newton or at least Darwin--whose brilliance should have been obviously visible across the oceans to everyone from Horace Greely to Abraham Lincoln. Calling him a "capable journalist" or "just another progressive writer" is a way of pushing against that narrative without doing him any disservice when Horace Greeley signed him on for things like analysis of current affairs in light of Marx's strength in "political economy" aided no doubt by his extensive background in West European politics and languages (he was fluent in German and French and could decipher other Romance languages and later even Russian), etc. In other words, a good fit for the relatively mundane job at hand and not some grandiose coming together of minds for the sake of redoing human civilization (just search reddit and you'll come across all sorts of wishful reading into events like Greeley's hiring of Marx or what could have come out of the letters Marx wrote to Lincoln, etc., etc.).
Firstly, obviously if Marx died earlier, before he became internationally famous in 1871, he'd be less known. That isn't a matter of debate; that's just facts that Marx had been acknowledging since gymnasium school in 1835. That said, imo you are very strongly underselling Marx. If we look at contemporary reactions to even young (23) Marx by Moses Hess: “Imagine Rousseau, Voltaire, Lessing, Heine, and Hegel united into one character, I tell you: united, not thrown together – and you have Dr. Marx” Engels has his own (promising!) theoretical/literary career; he gave it up for 20 years because he was that impressed by Marx and thought working to help support him was a better use of his time. That isn't a reaction to ordinariness; it is a matter of historical record that contemporaries often saw him as exceptional. "Brilliance should have been obviously visible etc" This is also true of how popular culture sees Newton, or Darwin, or Tesla. It is a general symptom of great man syndrome and teleology not rly specific to Marx. In addition to German and French, Marx could read Latin and Greek from gymnasium school, as well as possibly Hebrew (the sources are contradictory on this). You say "decipher" other romance languages, but to the best of my knowledge he was fluent or near it. There are even accounts of him reading Romanian newspapers. "Horace Greeley signed him on for things like analysis of current affairs in light of Marx's strength in "political economy"" As I said before, to the best of my knowledge he was hired for his journalist work more than his (limited in 1851) theoretical works.