MARX'S use of the term science clearly encompassed the social as well as the natural sciences, obvious from his use of terms such as the “science of political economy.” Marx nowhere spells out explicitly the differences between the meanings of the term science in the two domains, but his constant criticism of the classical political economists before him and his contemporaries, provide many pointers to what these are. Foremost among these is the class standpoint that is inherent in any study of society and therefore the content of the social sciences.

CAPITAL ON AGRICULTURE AND ECOLOGY

CAPITAL is Marx’s most important work. It is also a work that brings out with the greatest clarity and concreteness the method and standpoint of historical materialism, applying the method systematically to understand the laws of motion of capitalism as a mode of production. There is a great deal that one can learn from reading Capital. First, it teaches us that, to understand a society and its dynamics, one needs to look at it in historical perspective.

THROUGH Bismarck’s Emergency Laws against, the Socialist German Workers, movement, the route to the Karlsbad water cure, which had done Marx so much good, was barred to him. From 1878 on his physical suffering grew worse again and hindered him increasingly in his work. But he was not the man to give in to illness and pain. In this sense also he fought to the end.