Of the full-dress introductions to economics or political economy that I have yet seen, this one is by all odds the most peculiar and idiosyncratic. For such sheer idiosyncracy (in its own day) one should return to von Thiinen's The Isolated State (1826) or Cournot's Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth (1838). (I doubt that Mr. Marcus's product will have the staying power of the two works cited for comparison.) In each of the three examples listed immediately above, an author is addressing at an allegedly "principles" level a select audience not normally or professionally interested in economic issues. Von Thfinen was writing for estate managers, agricultural accountants, and agricultural statisticians of reflective and analytical bent. Cournot was writing for professionals in the mathematical sciences, including physics, astronomy, and engineering along with mathematics proper. Marcus is writing for dialectical philosophers and social scientists of Marxian persuasion, whose knowledge of Marxian economics has lagged behind their knowledge of general Marxism, and is, moreover, integrated only incompletely with the remainder of Marxian thought.