1. Marx, The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844(New York: International Publishers, 1964). back

2. Engels, Selected Writings, pp.217-218: "The modern State ...is...the ideal personification of the total national capital." back

3. Mattick's Marx and Keynes(Porter Sargent, 1969) gives an excellent analysis of capitalist crises, although it fails to grasp the dynamics of communism (See below, "Leninism and the Ultra-Left").back

4. F. Perlman, The Reproduction of Daily Life, Black & Red, 1969. back

5. The concept of those who have "no reserves" was formulated by the Italian communist, Amadeo Bordiga, in the years following World War II. Bordiga's purpose was not to create a new definition of the proletariat, but to go back to the general definition. What Capital describes can and must be understood together with earlier analyses of the proletariat, for instance, the Contribution to the Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy of Law: Introduction(1843). back

6. See Marx's manuscripts of 1857-1858, often referred to by their German title: The Grundrisse, Pelican, 1973. back

7. Engels, "Progress of Social Reform on the Continent," The New Moral World, 4-11-1843. back

8. Engels, Conditions and Prospects of a War of the Holy Alliance against a Revolutionary France in 1852.back

9. See The Rise and Fall of the Spectacular Commodity Economy(1965). back

10. Marx (notably in the 1844 article The King of Prussia and social reform, and other early works) developed a critique of politics, and opposed "political" to "social" revolution: the former rearranged links between individuals and groups without much change in what they actually do, the latter acted upon how people reproduce their means of existence, their way of life, their real condition, thus at the same time transforming how they relate to each other.

One of the very first rebellious gestures is to revolt against control over our lives from above, by a teacher, a boss, a policeman, a social worker, a union leader, a statesman... Then politics walks in and reduces aspirations and desires to a problem of power- be it handed to a party, or shared by everyone. But what we lack is the power to produce our life. A world where all electricity comes to us from mammoth (coal, fuel-oil or nuclear) power stations, will always remain out of our reach. Only the political mind thinks revolution is primarily a question of power seizure and/or redistribution. back