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Courses Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Draft of Marxian Economics Course Outline. Leontief, ca 1935

 

Edward S. Mason and Wassily Leontief co-taught a semester course “Karl Marx” in the economics department of Harvard in the 1935-36 and 1936-37 academic years. There were few students enrolled in the course and it was not offered in 1937-38, but due to student demand for the course it was offered (it turns out for the last time) by Leontief and Paul Sweezy in 1938-39. The material was incorporated into the course Economics of Socialism.

From Leontief’s papers I have transcribed the undated handwritten outline that was apparently drafted for this course. 

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Outline of Marxian course.

Meetings 1 & 2 to be devoted to bibliography on Marx and the historical and intellectual setting of Marx’s works.—(Perhaps only the 1st meeting)

 

Subjects of discussion.

  1. Dialectical materialism.—

Theses on Feuerbach
Deutsche Idealogie
Engels’ Anti-Dühring
Engels on Feuerbach. —

Hook’s version (Towards an Understanding of Karl Marx)
Eastman—The last stand of dialectical materialism.

(Misère de la Philosophie)

  1. Economic interpretation of history.

(a) Mode of production—productive relations—forces [of] production

(b) Concept of class—proletariat—

How class consciousness is acquired—{Relation of class to productive relations
Role of economic interests—
The class view of history—Marxian interpretation of particular events

(c) Marxian theory of the state and law.

Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie—
Texts from Marx’s writing. —

 

  1. Equilibrium economics vs. Marxian economics

—Lange’s article.          —methodology

 

  1. Marx’s economic analysis—

(a) Theory of value and surplus value.

(b) Laws of capitalist development. —

(c) Capital accumulation, population, theory of crises—wage tendencies, etc.

 

  1. Dictatorship of the proletariat and democracy. —

  2. Marxian theory of revolution—

 

[second page]

Communist Manifesto

  1. Capital 1st vol. Entire. 800
  2. Theses on Feuerbach. — 20
  3. Comments Gotha Program 20
  4. Anti-Dühring—Same parts— 150
  5. Rev. & Counterrev. 150

or Civil War in France. {Letters—[unclear word] Publishers 300 pp.

  1. Intro. to Critique.

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            Hook— 100 p.

Eastman— 60

 

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Links to Leontief’s Reading Assignments.

Marx, Karl. Critique of the Gotha programme, in Marx/Engels Seleccted Works Vol Three, pp. 13-30. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970.

Frederick Engels. Landmarks of Scientific Socialism “Anti-Duehring”. Austin Lewis, trans. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Company. 1907.

Marx/Engels: Karl Marx and Frederic Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Company, ca. 1910.

Marx: Karl Marx. Capital.

Engels, Friedrich. Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of classical German philosophy, by Frederick Engels (1886).

Marx, Karl. Revolution and counter-revolution. Or Germany in 1848. Ed. by Eleanor Marx Aveling. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Company, 1919.

Marx, Karl. The Paris Commune […including “The Civil War in France”], New York: New York Labor News Company, 1920.

Selected correspondence, 1846-1895 [of] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; [translated with commentary and notes by Dona Torr]. Published 1934 by Martin Lawrence Ltd. in London .     New edition published in 1936. (The Marxist-Leninist Library, vol. 9)

Marx, Karl. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy with an Appendix Containing Marx’s Introduction to the Critique. Chicago, Charles H. Kerr & Company, 1904.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. HUG 4517.30, Wassily Leontief Papers. Manuscripts and Research Notes 1930-1970, Box 5, Folder “Marx and Theory”.