of 39
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Lawrence Wilde (1998)
Source:Ethical Marxism and its Radical Critics, MacMillan Press, 1998;
Introduction, Chapter 1 and half of Chapter 2 reproduced here.
Least of all must a philosophy be accepted as a philosophy by virtue of an
authority or of good faith, be the authority even that of a people and the faith
that of centuries. The proof can be provided only by expounding its essence
(Karl Marx,Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy, 1841).
Marx disdained ethical discourse and consistently opposed moralistic
interventions in the social and political issues of his day, once proclaiming that
communists do not preachmorality at all.[The German Ideology, MECW 5,
p247] He showed no interest in abstract discussions about how and why
individuals ought to act towards each other in a morally defensible way, and he
argued that capitalism had either destroyed morality or turned it into a palpable
lie. [The German Ideology, MECW 5, p73] Attempts to build support for socialist
ideas on moral precepts were viewed as distractions from the priority of
confronting the underlying causes of social misery in the processes of material
production.[Communist Manifesto, Chapter 3] For the most part the followers of
Marx refused to take the question of ethics seriously, and even when Kari
Kautsky wrote a book on the subject he concluded that progress flowed from
historical necessity rather than moral ideals such as freedom, equality, fraternity,justice and humanity. [Kautsky,Ethics and the Materialist Conception of
History] In the early part of the twentieth century the German theorists of the
Marburg School and the Austrians Max Adler and Otto Bauer attempted to
supplement Marxs work with neo-Kantian moral theory, but such a move stands
in flat contradiction to Marxs stated position. It has been claimed that the legacy
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of Marxian and Marxist incoherence on morality has encouraged a crude
consequentialism which may justify any means of action by reference to their
necessity for the achievement of an end which is only vaguely stated. The horrors
perpetrated by regimes claiming allegiance to Marxism, such as those of Stalin
and Pol Pot, demand that we take this criticism seriously.
How, then, is it possible to talk about the connection between Marxs thought
and ethics? Let us assume that ethics and morality are interchangeable terms
referring to the consideration of human values, of how we ought to behave
towards one another, and of how we ought to live. The emphasis in moral
philosophy since Kant has been on duty, of how and why autonomous individuals
ought to conduct themselves, but prior to that the question of how we ought to
live involved consideration of social and political life. Inhis Ethics Aristotle
considered that securing the good of the community was something finer and
more sublime than securing what is good for the individual. Hegel, reaching
back to Ancient Greek philosophy, emphasised the irreducible sociality of
freedom and the ideal of the ethical community. Marx showed no interest in
discussing individual moral duty, but I would argue that a commitment to some
form of ethical community is immanent in his analysis of the laws of capitalist
production, which is replete with indignant condemnations of the suffering it
inflicted on the working class. As Richard Norman has argued, Marxs
philosophy challenges the conventional ethical focus on the responsible actions ofindividuals. The question then arises as to whether Marxs analysis of capitalism
implies that its definitive social practices are morally flawed, or unjust, and this
will be discussed in Chapter 3.
The totality of the harrowing descriptions of working-class life contained in the
text and footnotes ofCapital may provide the arsenal for a moral attack on
capitalism, but Marx did not make such an attack, at least not directly. However, I
will argue that his political economy, and indeed his entire social theory, is
imbued with an ethic developed in the period from his espousal of communism in
1843 to the first formulation of his theory of historical development in 1846.
Marx operated from a conception of human essence as creative social activity,
analysed the way in which it was alienated in the capitalist mode of production,
and strove for the realisation of this essence in communist society. Much of the
evidence to support this interpretation was not available to students of Marx for
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the half-century following his death in 1883. The Comments onJames Mill and
theEconomic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, in which the alienation
thesis is central, were first published in 1932; English translations were not
published until 1967 and 1959 respectively. The German Ideology (1845-6) was
published for the first time in 1932 and in English translation in 1964.
The Grundrisse was published in a limited edition in German in the Soviet Union
in 1939-41 and in available form in East Germany in 1953; the first complete
English edition was published only in 1973. Even published works such as On the
Jewish Question and The Holy Family were not readily available, so that the
Marxist movement developed with no knowledge of Marxs significant
philosophical texts. The body of thought known as Marxism was largely
disseminated through the glosses of Engels, who outlived him by 13 years, and
Kautsky, leading theoretician of the Second International, neither of whom sharedMarxs philosophical subtlety.
Under these circumstances it is not surprising that the philosophy of human
essence and its alienation, with its ethical connotations, remained hidden. It is to
Lenins credit that he began to understand the philosophical significance of the
passages on commodity fetishism in Capital by studying
HegelsLogic. [LeninsPhilosophical Notebooks, p. 180] Georgy Lukcs,
inHistory and Class Consciousness (1923), delivered a superb Hegelian reading
of Marxs thought, drawing out the centrality of the alienation thesis, withoutseeing the unpublished early writings. In the same year Karl Korsch
publishedMarxism and Philosophy, which also highlighted the Hegelian
influence on Marxs work, and, like Lukcss book, opened up the argument that
Engels had failed to grasp Marxs dialectical method. These works caused quite a
stir, and the reaction of the Soviet leadership provided an early taste of how
ideological heresy was to be quelled in the world communist movement.
Zinoviev, President of the Communist International, warned delegates to the 1924
World Congress that if we get a few more of these professors spinning out their
theories, we shall be lost, concluding with chilling finality that we cannot
tolerate such theoretical revisionism of this kind in our Communist
International. It was the Papacy against Galileo 300 years on. Lukcs was
forced to retract his position and submit to party discipline, and Korsch was
expelled from the German Communist Party in 1926.
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The insights of Lukcs and Korsch were developed by the writers of the
Frankfurt School, initially by Herbert Marcuse, who, in 1930, defended History
and Class Consciousness for its essential and inestimable meaning for the
development of Marxism and also praised its polemic with Engels. As we shall
see later, Marcuse was one of the first to recognise the significance of Marxs
early writings when they became available, and from this period it is possible to
discern a tradition within Marxism which is variously known as humanist
Marxism or Marxist humanism. Perry Anderson and J. G. Merquior have
subsumed this humanist strain under the broader term Western Marxism, but
this taxonomy is unsatisfactory, encompassing as it does both the structuralism of
Louis Althusser and the humanism he set out to combat. Marxist humanism
maintains the centrality of the alienation thesis in Marxs social theory, and its
overriding concern is to develop an understanding of the changing nature ofideological domination and the prospects for its contestation. This is still a very
broad category, including theorists who resolutely avoided party political
affiliation, such as the Frankfurt School and Jean-Paul Sartre, as well as those
who managed to work with great difficulties within communist parties, such as
Antonio Gramsci, Ernst Bloch and Henri Lefebvre. The process of de-
Stalinisation triggered by Khrushchev in 1956 provided an opening in some of the
East European communist states for the development of humanist Marxism.
These included notable contributions from Adam Schaff and Leszek Kolakowski
in Poland, Karel Kosik in Czechoslovakia, and the students of Lukcs in Hungary
collectively known as the Budapest School. In Yugoslavia, independent of
Soviet domination, the theorists of the Praxis Group developed ideas concerning
the overcoming of alienation and statism, and their annual conference on the
island of Korcula (1963-75) provided an international focus for humanist
Marxism. In 1965 Erich Fromm brought together 35 contributions from all over
the world, both Marxist and non-Marxist, in Socialist Humanism, which reflected
the strength of the appeal of the humanist interpretation of Marx.
In the 1960s a flood of commentaries stressing the continuity of the alienation
thesis in Marxs work made a significant impact on social science in Western
universities. However, there was a reaction against this interpretation in the
following decade, led in the West by Althusser and his followers, who recast
Marx as a positive scientist and relegated the humanist and Hegelian elements in
his work to the inferior status of ideology. In the East the shock of the
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Czechoslovak attempt to establish socialism with a human face in 1968
reverberated through the Soviet system. The authorities clamped down on the
humanist theorists, expelling them from universities and banning their works;
socialists advocating democracy could not be tolerated in actually existing
socialism. In Yugoslavia, the relative tolerance extended towards the Praxis
Group was curtailed as their advocacy of wider democracy was seen as a threat
by the League of Communists.
A renewal of academic interest in the specifically ethical dimension of Marxs
thought came about in the 1980s, inspired in many cases by a concern to rescue
Marx from the Althusserian interpretation. Writers such as George Brenkert,
Allen Buchantin, Norman Geras, Steven Lukes, Kai Nielsen, Rodney Peffer and
Philip Kain began to probe the normative elements of his work. A feature of this
literature has been the consideration of Marxs philosophical conception of what
it is to be human, and its implications for how we ought to live. It had been
widely accepted in orthodox Marxism that human nature altered as material
conditions changed, but now it was argued that Marx, as well as appreciating the
historical modification of human nature, also conceived of human nature in
general, i.e. that which made us essentially human. Geras comments that even
those writers who had been anxious to endorse the enduring importance of the
alienation thesis in Marxs social theory were reluctant to grasp the nettle and
acknowledge that Marx had a conception of human nature in general (or humanessence) from which we were alienated. It is this idea of human essence which I
take to be central to what I term ethical Marxism. There are strong links here
with Aristotles philosophy, in which essenceoughtto be fully realised in
existence. For Aristotle, man is essentially rational, and happiness,
oreudaemonia, is the goal of rational individuals acting virtuously. It is the duty
of the statesman to create the conditions in which eudaemonia can be realised.
For Marx, our essence is our capacity for social creativity, and this can be realised
only by overcoming the alienation inherent in private property, replacing it with a
communist society in which all are free and equal. The emancipation of humanity
was to be brought about through the agency of the revolutionary working class.
Ethical Marxism, then, sees capitalism as the final obstacle to human freedom,
draws out those normative elements in Marxs thought which he left implicit, and
extends them to widen our understanding of exploitation and oppression in late
capitalism. As a tradition it counts only a few fully paid-up membersI would
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specify Ernst Bloch, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Henri Lefebvre, and
Mihailo Markovic but I will argue that it holds a rich potential for the
development of emancipatory theory in the coming century.
In his Introduction toNegative Dialectics Theodor Adorno comments thatdespite Marxs judgement that the philosophers had merely interpreted the world,
philosophy lives on because the moment to realise it was missed. Similarly the
question of ethics lives on because the class struggle has not produced the good
society. The revolutionary class consciousness which Marx anticipated failed to
emerge with the further development of capitalism. Exploitation and oppression
persist, but few can see an available resolution. Under these circumstances,
Marxs objections to criticising capitalist society in moral terms and his reticence
on the conditions in which true human freedom could flourish may be called into
question.
What sort of ethics is implied by ethical Marxism? As mentioned above, ethics
in this context has more to do with the Ancient Greek conception of justice as the
virtue of society as a whole than the liberal focus on the actions of autonomous
individuals without reference to the structures within which they operate. It
directs us to look beyond the approaches to moral philosophy personified by
Hume and Kant which MacIntyre has criticised as the failed Enlightenment
project of justifying morality. Ethical Marxism takes seriously the question ofhow alienation can be overcome so that the human essence of creative social
activity can be enjoyed by all citizens. Only when the immense majority gain
control over social processes which hitherto confronted them as irresistible and
inevitable powers will the prehistory of human society give way to truly human
history. Brenkert argues that Marxs work has an ethic of freedom and Lukes
concludes that he adopts a morality of emancipation, and while I am sympathetic
to these broad characterisations it is as well to keep in mind Marxs warning not
to be deluded by the abstract word Freedom. [Speech on the Question of Free
Trade] There is a need to examine carefully why Marx considered that human
freedom could not be achieved under capitalism, and how he conceived that it
could be realised in communist society.
However, at this early stage a preliminary comment on the implications of
Marxs view of human freedom needs to be made. His vision is meaningful only
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if we assume an advanced form of radical democracy capable of respecting
differences and producing agreements through transparent and popular
procedures. Radical democratic practices are the conditio sine qua non for human
emancipation as envisaged by Marx. As such, ethical Marxism necessarily
involves an unambiguous rejection of the anti-democratic practices carried out by
the world communist movement since the Russian Revolution. There is, of
course, nothing new in absolving Marx from responsibility for the practices of
Soviet Marxism, but as some commentators regard this as a dubious tactic I feel it
necessary to insist that democracy was not some sort of added extra for Marx.
In theManifesto of the Communist Party Marx and Engels envisaged a socialist
revolution conducted by the immense majority in the interest of the immense
majority, and they enjoined the working class to win the battle for democracy.
Marxist movements everywhere were at the forefront of struggles to win fullpolitical democracy before the Russian Revolution, and the most popular title of
their parties, Social Democracy, gave a clear indication that they aspired to
extend democracy to the economic and social spheres. It was on this
understanding that Kautsky castigated Lenin after the Revolution, and in view of
the extirpation of democracy in the communist world it is essential to reiterate the
magnitude of Bolshevisms departure from the Marxian principle of the necessity
of the self-emancipation of the working people. Consider two statements about
Marxs endeavour from two non-Marxist scholars, Eugene Kamenka and Steven
Lukes. Kamenka concludes that Marxs belief in the rational, free and
completely cooperative society of the human spirit ... was the foundation and
driving force of his intellectual and political development. Lukes argues that
what is clear is that the ideal society to which Marx expectantly looked forward
would be one in which, under conditions of abundance, human beings can
achieve self-realisation in a new, transparent form of social unity, in which
nature, both physical and social, comes under their control. If these conclusions
are correct, as I take them to be, then Marxs project has to be considered on its
merits rather than as the necessary source of the totalitarianism practised in hisname.
The next three chapters deal with the Ethical Marxism referred to in the title.
The focus of Chapter 2 is Marxs conception of human essence and its alienation
in the capitalist mode of production. The argument as to whether his humanist
philosophy was discarded by 1846 or remained an implicit part of his theory of
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history and later his theory of exploitation is by now a very old one. However, it
is worth revisiting with a sharper focus on the question of whether Marxs early
conception of human essence was retained, at least implicitly, in his later work.
Chapter 3 examines the issues raised by Marxs disdain for moral argument, and
in particular his refusal to countenance a socialist conception of justice. I will
argue that the key to understanding Marxs ethical position is to be found in his
persistent attachment to the philosophy and culture of Ancient Greece, and that
this helps to throw light on his ideas of justice and freedom and his vision of
communist society.
Chapter 4 concentrates on the contributions of Marcuse and Fromm, whose
work was derided by orthodox Marxist-Leninists on the grounds that they
disregarded the idea of class struggle. I will argue that they extended Marxian
concepts in an original and searching way and helped to provide theoretical
support for new forms of appositional consciousness. Although their
contributions to political theory may be regarded as either tentative or utopian,
they have the merit of reaching out to emerging emancipatory movements while
retaining the Marxian commitment to a classless society free from alienation.
The second part of the book deals mainly with the Radical Critics aspect of
the title, covering some recent criticisms which, while acknowledging that Marx
was committed to a normative conception of human essence, deem it deficient asa basis for contemporary emancipatory politics. Chapter 5 deals with two recent
philosophical criticisms of Marxs production-oriented view of human nature,
from Jurgen Habermas and Andr Gorz. For Habermas, Marxs concentration on
the paradigm of production blinds him to the importance of other factors which
contribute to the development of human rationality, factors which can be analysed
properly only within a discrete paradigm of communication. Habermas recognises
the ethical thrust of Mar-xs humanism, but considers it inadequate for explaining
how and why the cause of human freedom can be advanced. Gorz also recognises
that Marxs work is infused with a normative conception of human nature, but for
him it carries authoritarian implications. Both Habermas and Gorz consider that
the system or megamachine of contemporary capitalist society is an
anonymous power which is beyond the sort of control which Marx envisaged in
his ethic of reappropriating the human essence. I will argue that their
abandonment of the Marxian dialectic is done on very shaky grounds, and
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although their political conclusions are quite different, in neither case do we find
a more insightful understanding of the potential for emancipation than that
available in the ethical Marxist perspective.
Chapter 6 examines important feminist criticisms of Marxs humanism. AlisonJaguar and Elizabeth Mise have both identified the importance of production for
Marx in his normative conception of human essence, but they argue that this
systematically downgrades women, whose own production of human beings is
implicitly consigned to the sphere of the natural rather than the distinctively
human. In failing to look at the reproduction of people while analysing the
reproduction of capital, Marx overlooks the specific place of women in the
capitalist mode of production and inadvertently smuggles in a male-centred view
of human emancipation. I will argue that it is possible to answer these criticisms
without disowning Marxs theoretical framework, provided that the idea of
human emancipation is elucidated in such a way as to recognise the importance of
difference. Chapter 7 explores objections from political ecology to Marxs
alleged anthropocentric treatment of non-human nature in general and other
animals in particular. Particular attention will be paid to the arguments of British
philosopher Teed Renton, who has sought to transcend the apparently
unbridgeable divide between the anthropocentricism imputed to Marx and the
ecocentrist standpoint of political ecology. I am sympathetic towards Bentons
conclusions, but I think that his attempt to reconstruct Marxs humanism to makeit more sensitive to the concerns of political ecology accepts too readily the
ecological criticisms of Marxs work. In particular I will defend Marxs view of
the human-animal distinction and argue that the Dialectic of Enlightenment
thesis at the heart of political ecology was present in nuce in Marxs work.
The conclusion will attempt three things. First, to summarise the ethical
content of Marxs thought, to question the reasons for his own rejection of,
ethical discourse, and to consider how and why his ethic has been developed in
ethical Marxism. Second, to locate ethical Marxism in the history of ethical
theory; here I will use Alasdair MacIntyresAfter Virtue as a point of reference.
Finally, in keeping with the spirit of Marxs project, I will proceed to link theory
with practice. What implications does the ethical Marxist standpoint carry for
emancipatory politics? In an era of capitalist triumphalism, does it make any
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sense to keep alive the vision of a global society free from exploitation and
oppression?
Walking upright, this distinguishes men from animals, and it cannot yet be
done. It exists only as a wish, the wish to live without exploitation and masters
(Ernst Bloch).
Alienation was the dominant motif of Marxs first foray into the political
economy of capitalism in 1844, and he specifies three aspects. Workers are
alienated from the product of their labour, from the process of production, from
their species being or essential nature, and, as a consequence of these three
aspects, humans are alienated from one another. Alienation from species beingcarries ethical connotations, for it assumes some notion of human essence, asserts
a rupture from it, and suggests that we oughtto be at one with our essence. What
flows from this is a rhetoric denouncing the dehumanisation of the worker, and a
commitment to communism as the struggle for the reconciliation of existence
with essence. I take this to be the ethical foundation for his entire social theory.
Despite the fact that he eschewed moral argument, his work is infused with a
normative strain, and his goal of communist society envisions the realisation of
human freedom as the flowering of human cooperative potential. This chapter
will examine the origins and early development of this conception of human
essence and will attempt to show how it became embedded in his theories of
historical development and exploitation.
THE YOUNG MARX AND HUMAN ESSENCE
Filling in confessional questionnaires about personal likes and dislikes was a
popular pastime in middle-class Victorian England, and Marxs answers give us
an amusing insight into his character. For instance, he cites as his favourite
maxim Nihil humani a me alienumputo(I believe that nothing human is alien to
me), as his favourite motto De omnibus dubitandum(doubt everything), as his
favourite poets Aeschylus, Dante, Shakespeare and Goethe, and as his favourite
prose writers Diderot, Lessing, Hegel and Balzac. He rated ,servility his most
hated vice. These responses present almost an ideal-type of a nineteenth-century
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classically-educated humanist, and in this section I will look at how this
humanism was developed in his writings in the period 1843-45.
Marx gave a succinct account of his intellectual development in the famous
1859 Preface toA Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, in which headmits that his university studies in philosophy and history left him at a
disadvantage when it came to tackling social issues in his first paid employment
as editor of theRheinischeZeitung in 1842-43. Using the collapse of the
newspaper as an opportunity to try to remedy the deficiencies in his knowledge,
he returned to the study of Hegel, whose philosophy he had first got to grips with
some six years earlier.[Letter to his Father, 1937] This time he was concerned
with the justification of the Prussian political system which had been causing him
so many problems. He wroteA Contribution to theCritique of Hegels
Philosophy of Right, of which only the Introduction was published in his lifetime.
This critical re-examination caused him to conclude that legal relations or
political forms could be properly understood neither within their own terms nor in
terms of the general development of ideas. The origins of law and politics had to
be sought in civil society, the totality of the material conditions of life, and the
anatomy of this civil society was to be uncovered by political economy.[A
Contribution o the Critique of Political Economy, Part 1] This signalled the
beginning of his lifetime study of capitalism, the first fruits of which were the
unpublished Paris manuscripts of 1844, including the Comments onJamesMill and theEconomic and Philosophic Manuscripts. Within two years, with the
help of Engels, Marx had arrived at the overall theory of historical development
which later became known as historical materialism. The two friends wrote up
their attempt to settle accounts with our former philosophic conscience during
1845-46, but the manuscript ofThe German Ideology was rejected by a publisher
and they were obliged to settle for the rewards of its chief purpose, self-
clarification.[ibid.]
It is evident from Marxs own account that profound changes in his outlook
occurred around 1845, and arguments have raged as to whether the Marx of 1846
retained or rejected some or all of the humanist positions adopted in the preceding
years. This issue will be addressed later in the chapter, but for now let us examine
how Marx developed his philosophical conception of human essence and its
alienation in the early works. By the end of, 1843 he had expressed his
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commitment to communism and even nominated the social class which would
lead the way to human emancipation. In the Introduction to his critique of
HegelsPhilosophy of Right he identified the proletariat as the class with the
unique capacity to liberate the whole of society through the act of liberating itself.
In modern society it represented the complete loss of man, and it could liberate
itself only through the complete re-winning of man.[ibid.]What was this man
who had been lost and needed to be re-won? At this moment, Marxs humanism
was heavily in the debt of Ludwig Feuerbach, who had gained renown on the
strength of his critique of religion and Hegels idealism and whose work had such
an impact in radical circles in Germany in the early 1840s that Engels later
commented that we were all Feuerbachians for a moment.[Ludwig Feuerbach
& the End of Classical German Philosophy]We have on record Marxs own
appreciation of Feuerbach in two letters, written in October 1843 and August1844. The 1844 letter is effusive in its praise, but it also reveals that Marx, in
describing Feuerbachs work as a philosophical basis for socialism, was running
far ahead of the hero of the hour. it took Feuerbach a further 27 years before he
declared for socialism.
Feuerbach argued that the subject-object relationship in Hegels idealism
needed to be inverted; real human beings were the authors of the world, not, as
Hegel argued, the self-movement of Reason. In The Essence of
Christianity Feuerbach presented the personality of God as the projectedpersonality of man, an ideological construction by humanity which arose from a
deep sense of what we yearned to be. This was an inversion of Hegelian
speculative philosophy in which human beings were portrayed as acting out the
historical progress of Spirit. The appeal to take responsibility for human
authorship of the social world met with Marxs enthusiastic approval, and he
shared the fashion for focusing on religion as the prime example of alienated
existence. Marx wrote that religion was the fantastic realisation of the human
essence because the human essence has no true reality, and as long as freedom
was denied, religion would persist as the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart
of a heartless world . . . the opium of the people. [Introduction to Critique of
Hegels Philosophy of Right] Marx wanted to discover the material basis on
which human emancipation could be achieved. Feuerbachs humanism appeared
to offer an exciting breakthrough, and indeed Marxs favourite maxim seems to
have been lifted from FeuerbachsPrinciples of the Philosophy of the Future
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Homo sum, humani nihil ame alienum puto.Feuerbachs humanism was social,
at least rhetorically, for he argued that the essence of man is contained only in
the community and unity of man with man.[ibid.] Marx agreed that human
nature was the true community of men, but he commented that workers lived in
disastrous isolation from this essential nature.[Marginal Notes on th article by
a Prussian]Marxs enthusiasm for Feuerbach waned when he realised that the
latter was unwilling to advance beyond the abstract restoration of humanity to its
status as subject. Feuerbach left it to time to mediate the contradictions of a
deeply alienated world, rather than tackling the practical question ofhow the
world could be changed so that humanity could express its essential freedom. The
end of Marxs Feuerbachian phase is signalled in 1845 by the Theses on
Feuerbach, in which he parodies the closing aphorisms of the Philosophy of
theFuture.
Feuerbachs final aphorism complains that attempts to reformphilosophy have changed its form but not its substance, and he calls for a new
philosophy to serve the needs of mankind which is different in essence. Marx
famously complains that the philosophers have only interpreted the world in
various ways, and calls for us to change it. [Theses on Feuerbach]
At this point we need to clarify what Marx meant by the discourse of alienation
which permeates his texts of the 1843-45 period. The terms alienation
(Entusserung) and estrangement(Entfremdung) may be used interchangeably
as both have descriptive and normative meanings. That is to say they involvedescription of a process of objectification or separation and also carry the
implication that the loss of control experienced by workers wrongly deprives
them of something. In its most emotive expression, used sparingly, Marx refers to
the dehumanisation of the worker, with the implication that this system of
production denies them something which is their due as human beings. Although
the boldness of Feuerbachs criticism of Hegel excited Marx, the richer
philosophy of Hegel played a more significant role in the development of his own
theory of alienation. In theEconomic and PhilosophicManuscripts he is full of
appreciation for Hegels achievement inthe Phenomenology of grasping the self-
creation of man as a process, involving alienation and its transcendence through
labour, with labour being the essence of man. However, Marx objects that the
only labour which Hegel knew was abstractly mental labour leading to a purely
philosophical self-confirmation. For Marx, the result was a resolution of
alienation in thought only, so that its supersession was, in reality, a confirmation
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of the alienation. Marxs criticism turns on the formal and abstract manner of
Hegels philosophy, but if it is possible to set that to one side what we have is a
ringing endorsement of the old master. He enthused that in its depiction of
alienation the Hegelian dialectic contained, albeit in a concealed and mystifying
way, all the elements of criticism, already prepared and elaborated in a manner
rising far above the Hegelian standpoint.
The task Marx now set himself was to demonstrate the origins of the
antagonistic nature of modern society in the alienation inherent in the process of
production. He had little first-hand experience of the life of workers, although we
know that he attended meetings of French and German workers during his stay in
Paris in 1844. It is at this juncture that Engels enters the picture. Although he had
first met Marx in 1842, their friendship did not begin until their second meeting
in Paris in the summer of 1844. Marx coedited the Deutsch-Franzsische
jahrbcher, a journal which appeared only once, in February 1844, and he was
strongly impressed by two contributions of Engels, Outlines of a Critique of
Political Economy and a review ofCarlyles Past and Present. The work on
political economy comprised a critique of the concepts used by the leading
bourgeois theorists of the day in order to expose the extremes of wealth and
poverty and the instability endemic in a system of production which he
condemned as inhuman and immoral. The review of Carlyle was significant
because it revealed some of the appalling social conditions which accompaniedthe development of factory production in Britain. Engels extended this empirical
work in his masterpiece, The Condition of the Working-Class inEngland, written
in 1844-45, which introduced Marx to many of the official sources that he used
later inCapital. Engels gave Marx a glimpse of the grim reality of the emerging
system, and Marx theorised its destructive consequences for the working class.
Marx had already rejected Hegels vindication of the Prussian state as a model
for an ethical community. He agreed that human freedom could be realised only
in a harmonious society, but he ruled out the idea that a society which preserved
distinctions of social class could be made compatible with the pursuit of human
freedom. In order to argue this point, and highlight the special role of the working
class as the ultimate oppressed class, Marx used the concepts and forms of
argument familiar to him and to the German intellectual milieu of which he was a
part. In Chapter 3 I shall argue that Marx was heavily influenced by the culture of
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Greek antiquity, but for now let us note its significance for German humanism as
a whole, as Horst Mewes has done:
in the uniquely German humanist conception of the universal education of
mankind, Greek antiquity serves as more than an inspiration for serenity. The
Greeks particularly the Athenians were instead the discoverers of the
universal human essence, without having the practical means to realise that
essence on a truly universal basis.
Two important aspects of this Greek heritage were the idea of the ethical
community and the definition of what it was that distinguished us from other
animals and therefore constituted our essence.
The Greeks held that humans were essentially social beings, and that only in
the process of living together in harmony could their human essence beexpressed. Marx expresses this at length in theEconomic and Philosophical
Manuscripts, reiterating it in the Grundrisse and the first volume ofCapital by
reference to Aristotles idea of man as azoon politikon (political or social
animal). The commitment to the creation of a harmonious community was an
ethical one because only through this could the human essence be fulfilled, and
this was the only way in which people could achieve goodness. In Greek
thought, this idea of goodness carried both functional and ethical meanings,
involving practical accomplishment as well as a good disposition.
The second aspect of Greek thought which was accepted by both Feuerbach
and Marx was establishing the human essence by asking what it was that
distinguished us from other animals. Aristotle did -this, asserting that it was
peculiar to man to be able to perceive good and evil, and although perfected man
was the best of animals, when isolated from law and justice he is the worst of
all. Feuerbach suggested that the difference lay not simply in man being a
thinker, but rather that he is not a particular being, like the animals, but a
universal being, not limited and restricted but unlimited and free. The sensesof animals are often more developed, he argued, but the senses of humans are not
in bondage to needs, and indeed humans even possessed the ability to make the
senses the subject of scientific inquiry. In theManuscripts Marx agrees with
Feuerbach that we are universal beings in comparison with other animals, but he
goes further in focusing on production, the ability which people have to create
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products for each other in a consciously planned way, not necessarily dictated by
immediate physical need:
In creating a world of objects by his practical activity, in his work upon
inorganic nature, man proves himself a conscious species being ... animals also
produce ... but an animal only produces what it immediately needs for itself or
its young. It produces one-sidedly, whilst man produces universally. [Estranged
Labour]
Truly human production involves creating with others and for others, in the
process demonstrating our volition. Indeed, according to Marx we produce freely
only when the production is not demanded by our survival needs, as when
creating objects in accordance with the laws of beauty.[Estranged Labour] For
Marx, then, we would be truly free only if we undertook social production which
was not necessitated by physical want brought on by hunger, cold, fear and such
like. Other animals do not have this capacity and their needs are therefore
different, but humans, if denied their quintessential capacity by the system of
production, are deprived of their freedom.
We shall return to the problems raised by Marxs distinction between humans
and other animals in Chapter 7, but for now let us simply note what he is
attempting to say about what makes us specifically human. Conscious- social life
activity is what defines our species, but alienated labour transforms our human
essence into a mere means to our existence. Work is experienced as deadening
compulsion, with the worker feeling free only in functions such as eating,
drinking and making love, which, taken abstractly, are animal
functions. [Estranged Labour] The fact that these functions are shared with
animals does not mean that they are not also human needs which are being met,
but Marx is appalled by the fact that our quintessential capacity of social
creativity offers no sense of freedom to the worker. Marx talks about the workers
losing their freedom in the service of greed and of being depressed spiritually
and physically to the condition of a machine.[Wages of Labour] He uses thesimile of mans reduction to a machine three times in as many pages in
theManuscripts, and it recurs in theManifesto of the Communist Party and the
first volume ofCapital. [p. 799] This perversion of human potential is achieved
through the medium of money, which, raised to omnipotence, accomplishes the
confounding and confusing of all natural human qualities and turns the world
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upside-down. It is not simply the workers who are alienated in the despotism of
the money economy, it is the entire society.
The irony is that the same system of production which denies human freedom
to all those dependent on it simultaneously exhibits the immense capacity ofhuman creativity. Marx conceives the development of industry in dialectical
terms, as presenting both the open book of mans essential powers and the
simultaneous perversion of that essence through alienation. The development of
technology opens the way for human emancipation by offering the prospect of
material abundance, but its immediate effect is the furthering of the
dehumanisation of man. The achievements of modern production were testament
to human creative capability and provided the material possibility for a life
without scarcity, but for those who lived by the sale of their labour power there
was little or no experience of creativity or freedom.
Marx always remained cautious about specifying precisely how human
freedom would be expressed if capitalism were replaced by communist society.
He had written to Ruge that they had no business in constructing the future and
settling everything for all times.[Marx to Ruge, September 1843] However, he
gives some pointers in his early writings. In the passages concluding
the Comments on James Mill, after lamenting that under capitalism human
communication was conducted through the estranged language of materialvalues, he goes on to consider what it would look like if we carried out
production as human beings, that is, if we produced things for use rather than for
profit. The products would be so many mirrors in which we saw reflected our
essential nature, a reciprocal relationship in which work would be a free
manifestation of life. In theManuscripts he described the abolition of private
property as the complete emancipation of all human senses and qualities. This
somewhat romantic view of how production might be experienced may have been
influenced by Charles Fourier and his utopian vision oftravail attractif(attractive
work). Marx was familiar with his work and followed Fourier in deeming the
relationship between men and women to be the supreme test of humanitys whole
level of development. in modern society, wrote Marx, the position of women as
the spoil and handmaid of communal lust reflected the infinite degradation of
human existence. Only when this relationship became natural and human
could man claim to be a social being. Marx then portrays communism as the real
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appropriation of the human essence by and for man ... the complete return of man
to himself as a social being.[Private Property and Communism] Later in
theManuscripts he introduces a stages idea of emancipatory development, with
communism being the first act the negation of the negation leading to
socialism, the ultimate goal of human development. [Private Property and
Communism]
Many of the themes established in theManuscripts saw the light of day with
the publication in 1845 ofThe Holy Family, the first product of the Marx-Engels
collaboration. Its main purpose was to criticise the and abstractions of their
former associates in the Young Hegelians, now denounced as the most dangerous
enemy of real humanism in Germany.[Foreword to The Holy Family] The
alienation theme is restated, and here it is acknowledged that the propertied class
as well as the proletariat suffer from the same alienation. However, whereas the
former feel strengthened and at ease with this alienation, the inhuman condition
of the workers is presented as a contradiction between its human nature and its
condition of life, which is the outright, resolute and comprehensive negation of
that nature.[The Holy Family, Chapter IV] Once again the plight of the
proletariat is described as the loss of humanity, recoverable only by revolution
which will resolve the inhuman conditions of life of the entire society. Marx goes
further and claims that a large part of the French and German working class has
already developed a consciousness of its historic emancipatory task. Marx alsorestates his view that the general position of women in society was inhuman,
this time explicitly endorsing Fouriers position.[The Holy Family, Chapter
VIII]In The Holy Family Marx also develops his criticism of the illusory nature
of freedom in civil society. It appears to offer the greatest freedom and
independence to the individual, no longer curbed by common bonds, but actually
this uncontrolled surrender to the market produced a new form of fully
developed slavery and inhumanity.[The Holy Family, Chapter VI] This process
of unmasking was to become central to his critique of political economy, in which
he strove to penetrate the surface appearance of the exchange of equivalents in
capitalism in order to expose its inexorable and socially destructive logic.
HUMANISM IN MARXs CONCEPTION OF HISTORY
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I will now argue that Marxs conception of human essence and its alienation
becomes implicit in his social theory. By his social theory I refer to his theory of
historical development (historical materialism) and his theory of exploitation (the
theory of surplus value). Two issues are of special interest when considering the
fate of the concept of human essence. The first is the interrelation of Marxs sixth
thesis of the Theses on Feuerbach (1845), the statement most frequently cited by
those who argue that Marx dropped the concept, an interpretation which has been
meticulously rebutted by Geras inMarx and Human Nature. The second issue is
raised by Philip Kain, who argues for a strong ethical content to Marxs work,
one which was developed early in his work and rediscovered later. According to
Kain, Marx specifically rejected the concept of essence and the idea of alienation
from species-being in The GermanIdeology. This interpretation contrasts starkly
with those of Rodney Peffer and Gary Browning, both of whom argue that thework is rich with Marxs moral views.
The sixth of MarxsTheses on Feuerbach asserts that the essence of man is no
abstraction inherent in each single individual, but that in its reality it is the
ensemble of the social relations. It goes on to chide Feuerbach for abstracting his
view of human essence from the historical process, thereby presupposing an
abstract, isolated individual. Finally, he suggests that Feuerbachs view of
essence reduces it to an abstract notion of species as some sort of inner, mute,
general character which unites the many individuals in a natural way. In Marxsjudgement, Feuerbachs conception of man is ahistorical and, as a consequence
and despite his own claims, asocial. As such Marx regarded it as inadequate to the
task of constructing a theoretical framework for understanding the development
of human existence and the possibility of its emancipation. in fact the sixth thesis
supports the interpretation that Marx maintained his view of the human essence of
creative social activity, for it ismanifested in actually existing society (the
ensemble of social relations'), albeit in an upside-down way. The fact that this
essence is in practice denied to the mass of individuals in modern society -
prompts Marx to call for the establishment of human society, or associates
humanity in the tenth thesis, and the injunction to change the world in the
eleventh. With Feuerbach, the human essence is reduced to the ideal of a shared
common consciousness, whereas for Marx it has to be expressed in common
practice which can transform itself into cooperative control of the world. The idea
of the universal being means that we alone have a knowledge of our history, and
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although it is evident that Feuerbach wanted humans to claim control over that
history, his theory is lacking when it comes to understanding historical
development. The Theses constitute a protest against the limitations of
Feuerbachs contemplative materialism, but there are no grounds to infer from
this that Marx rejected the idea of human essenceper se.
The Theses on Feuerbach represent a decisive move away from the
philosophical discourse which Marx had been steeped in since his schooldays.
The criticisms which he had levelled against Hegels idealist method were now to
be extended to the whole practice of philosophy as an independent branch of
knowledge. Marxs statement inThe German Ideology that philosophy and the
study of the actual world have the same relation to one another as onanism and
sexual love[The German Ideology, Ch. 3.6.C] typified his impatience with his
erstwhile intellectual milieu. From now on he was to display irritation with modes
of thought which did not confront the material causes of social reality. His tone is
now resolutely empirical, but not empiricist the facts do not talk for
themselves.
Part one ofThe German Ideology sets out a theory of historical development
which was to become the theoretical framework of Marxs studies. When setting
out the premises for this theory he reverts to the question of what distinguishes
humans from other animals:
Men can be distinguished from animals by consciousness, by religion or
anything else you like. They themselves begin to distinguish themselves from
animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence, a step
which is conditioned by their physical organisation. [The German Ideology]
Historical development is then posited as the progression of different ways of
reproducing material life; at this stage he identified tribal, ancient-communal, and
feudal epochs of production. In each epoch ideas of all sorts, including ideas
about politics and morality, were conditioned by the development of theirproductive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these.[The German
Ideology] In this view, Morality, religion, metaphysics, and all the rest of
ideology as well as forms of consciousness corresponding to these, thus no longer
retain the semblance of independence. They have no history, no development; but
men, developing their material production and their material intercourse, alter,
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along with this their actual world, also their thinking and the products of their
thinking. It is not consciousness that determines life, but life that determines
consciousness. [The German Ideology]
Decisive historical change occurs not because men have great inspirations, butbecause the forces of production come into contradiction with the forms of
intercourse (in the 1859 Preface this is changed to relations of production').[The
German Ideology]
In capitalism the particular interest is cleaved from the common interest, the
socialisation which takes place in production is not undertaken voluntarily, and
alienation prevails. Marx reiterates his conviction that only under communism
can alienation be overcome, but when using the word (Entfremdung) he displays
his recently acquired aversion to philosophical discourse by noting ironically that
he is using a term which will be comprehensible to the philosophers. Marx
argued that labour in capitalism was devoid of all self activity, but that in
communist society self activity coincides with material life, leading to the
development of individuals into complete individuals and the casting-off of all
natural limitations. The linguistic shift sees human essence relegated and self
activity preferred, which is similar to the conscious life activity which appeared
in theManuscripts. The idea of its appropriation is replaced by the commitment
to communism as a practical political project. The language is altered, but thecore concepts of alienation and its supersession remain; the philosophical
premises have been subsumed into his social theory.
Let us turn to Kains claim that inThe German Ideology Marx rejected the
concept of essence as well as the idea of species being and our alienation from it.
Although he provides many citations in support of this position, they all come
down to instances of Marx criticising what he considered to be the sloppy
thinking of Feuerbach, Stirner and Karl Grun, without involving a retraction of
the conception of human essence set down in 1844. For example, whendiscussing Feuerbach, Marx was clearly annoyed by his statement that the being
of a thing or man is at the same time its or his essence. For Marx, this implied
that if millions of workers are angry with their living conditions and, therefore,
their being does not in the least correspond to their essence, then they are
obliged to quietly accept their misfortune. In Marxs view, the workers or
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communists think quite differently and will prove this in time, when they bring
their being into harmony with their essence in a practical way, by means of
revolution. The substance of Marxs point is that merely recognising that the
social world is a human creation offered little hope for those who were forced to
lead inhuman lives. It pointed to the deficiency of Feuerbachs view of human
essence as universal being with its emphasis on the consciousness of humans
rather than their practice. The phrasing and use of inverted commas in Marxs
retort reveal his conviction that the whole language of being and essence was
inappropriate for exposing the causes of distress and the possibility of its
resolution.
But it also affirms his adherence to his earlier position in which communism
was conceived as a struggle for the appropriation of the human essence. The
philosophical position becomes immanent to the theory of revolutionary practice,
or praxis.
Part three ofThe German Ideology comprises the bulk of the entire manuscript
and is devoted to a detailed criticism of Max StirnersThe Ego and His
Own, which was destined to have an enduring appeal to individualistic anarchists
throughout the world. Once again Marx is scornful of the essence discourse in
his critique of Stirner, but this is expressed in the form of detailed criticisms of
Stirners faulty logic rather than a rejection of the philosophical categoryperse. Marx makes it clear that he prefers communism as a practical movement to
an intellectual debate over the concept of essence, but it is Stirners
misunderstanding of communism which is the real point at issue. Later, when
lambasting Stirners argument that inhumanity could be overcome by the
individual rethinking his attitude, Marx complains that by doing this the
inhuman being is made to disappear and there is no longer any measure for
individuals. In this way the crippling and enslavement which afflict individuals
in modern society were rendered by Stirner as expressions of that persons
individuality. Marx was denouncing a wholly subjective view of human essence,
but he was also defending the view that some notion of humanity was needed to
measure the development of human freedom.
In the discussion of the work of the German True Socialists he returns to the
attack against their attachment to the concept of the essence of man, on the basis
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individual achieve the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions, and only
within the community does authentic personal freedom become possible .76 This
is, in effect, the promise of the ethical community. In the Manifesto of the
Communist Party, Marx and Engels describe the goal of communists to be an
association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free
development of all, while in the 1859Preface the abolition of capitalism is
conceived as marking the end of the prehistory of human society. Human
history proper can begin only when that which defines our humanity, our social
creativity, is brought under voluntary cooperative control.
ETHICS AND EXPLOITATION
Although Marx began work in political economy in 1844 he did not publish his
first book in the field until 1859, and the fully developed theory of exploitation
did not see the light of day until the publication of the first volume of Capital in
1867. However, despite the years of immersion in the texts of political economy
and mountains of official reports, there is strong evidence that the idea of
alienation remains central to his analysis of what is going on in the exchange of
commodities and the creation of surplus value. A key text for understanding the
philosophical underpinnings of his analysis of exploitation is the Grundrisse, the
notebooks containing draft material written in 1857-8. However, it is interesting
to note a passage from Wage Labour and Capital (1849) in which the alienationthesis is re-stated in a presentation which saw Marx writing for the first time like
a confident political economist rather than a philosopher in foreign territory.
Labour is described as the workers own life-activity, the manifestation of his
own life, but after selling his life-activity to the capitalist it becomes only a
means to enable him to exist. For the worker labour has become a sacrifice of
his life, a mere commodity, and life begins for him where this activity ceases, at
table, in the public house, in bed.[Wage Labour and Capital, Chapter 1] If the
characterisation of labour as the manifestation of the workers life is to be more
than a vacuous tautology, then Marx must mean that labour in some sense is what
defines us as human beings. As we have seen, he means conscious, social labour,
but in capitalist production the conscious and social aspects have been alienated.
Capitalism is presented as simultaneously unfolding the creative power of
humanity while denying all creative control to the direct producers.
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In the 1857 Introduction to the Grundrisse Marx reaffirmed the irreducible
sociality of individuals, in contrast to the liberal fixation with the atomised
individual. He dismissed the individualist premises of Smith and Ricardo as the
unimaginative fancies of the eighteenth century, and argued that they were not
simply attempting to offer a view of natural man but were pushing a view of the
abstract individual as an anticipation of bourgeois society.[Grundrisse,
Introduction] Relationships between abstract free individuals were taken to be the
ideal form, and so were projected into the past as something ,natural. Marx
argued that in fact it was only in the eighteenth century that society as such came
to be regarded by individuals as a means towards private ends. He regarded the
idea of production by isolated individuals outside society as being as
preposterous as the idea that language could develop without individuals living
together. In this respect he was following Aristotle, who had written inthe Politics that the man who is isolated ... is no part of thepolis, and must
therefore be either a beast or a god. Marx was not opposed to the development of
individuality, although this position has often been attributed to him. Rather he
was convinced that the vast majority of people would be able to express their
individuality only when we organise our production in a cooperative way, a view
endorsed eloquently by Oscar Wilde later in the century.
Marx sometimes referred to the civil society of market competition as
the bellum omnium contra omnes, the condition of the war of each against allimputed to the state of nature by Thomas Hobbes. As we have noted, the
perspective adopted by Marx stood firmly against this form of individualism, as it
did for Hegel and also for Rousseau. It is important to note the significance of
their view of the individual as a social being even at the risk of labouring the
obvious, because the individualistic premises of classical liberal theory are deeply
ingrained in Western science. For example, in a recent criticism of Darwinism in
social anthropology, Tim Ingold pleads for a mode of human understanding that
starts from the premises of our engagement with the world, rather than our
detachment from it. He argues that social relations, far from being the mere
resultant of the association of discrete individuals, each independently wired up
for cooperative or altruistic behaviour, constitute the very ground from which
human existence unfolds. Ingold describes the implications of this view for the
structure of evolutionary theory as 1 profound, evidently unaware that the
individualistic perspective is a relatively recent one in the history of world
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philosophy. It was rejected by Rousseau, Hegel and Marx, and does not figure in
non-Western conceptions of our place in the world.
Returning to the question of the continuity between the texts of 1844 and 1857,
in a number of cases the same illustrations were used in support of identicalarguments. The first chapter of the Grundrisse deals with money, and Marx
repeats a quotation from ShakespearesTimon of Athens used in 1844 to support
the argument that money equates the incommensurate: Thou visible God, that
solderst close impossibilities. The analogy with God as a human creation which
ends up controlling the creators is found in both the Grundrisse and
the Comments on James Mill, and money is described as an alien social power
standing above them in both texts. This idea of the alien power confronting the
worker is developed further in the chapter on capital, in which Marx argues that
when the worker exchanges his labour capacity with the capitalist he surrenders
its creative power, like Esau who gave up his birthright for a mess of pottage, a
process through which his own creative power establishes itself as the power of
capital, an alien power. Although there is only a single instance of Marx
returning to the concept of species being, it is clear that he sees the development
of exchange as both historically destructive of natural voluntary cooperation and
obstructive of-a higher stage of cooperation. Later in the text he talks about
labours realisation being at the same time its de-realisation, because all the
potentialities resting in living labours own womb come to exist as realitiesoutside it and alien to it.
Marx links alienation with the historical development of capitalism as a
necessary stage before human freedom can be achieved. In the chapter on money
he argues that universally developed individuals exerting communal control over
their social relationships were not products of nature but of history. Freedom can
be achieved only by developing the conditions produced by capitalism, only after
going through the universality of the estrangement of individuals from
themselves and from others. For Marx it was as ridiculous to yearn for a notion
of a return to natural fullness as to believe that the present complete emptiness
must persist forever. In the chapter on capital he argues that the wealth and
knowledge of society advance only in such a way that the working individual
alienates himself, but capitalisms universal development of the productive
forces also created the basis for the emergence of the universal development of
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the individuals. The barrier of alienation thrown up by the system is not a sacred
limit because the producers can achieve comprehension of the historical
process and the conviction that it can be controlled, but only at a stage when
existing conditions of production are evidently dysfunctional. Perhaps our present
concerns about environmental degradation provide the clearest indication that this
stage has been reached, more than a century after Marxs death. He conceives real
freedom, presupposing social control over the production process, as self-
realisation.The Grundrisse presents a picture of Marx struggling to weave his
philosophic conception of human development into the concepts to be used in the
analysis of how capitalism works. So, for example, alienation is explicitly linked
with the creation of value. Although the analysis of the process of exploitation
and its systemic reproduction is far advanced from the writings of 1844, the
philosophic underpinnings are intact.
Further confirmation of the philosophic commitment to the conception of what
constitutes our distinctive humanity is found in Theories of Surplus Value, written
in 1862, in which Marx decries the sentimental opponents of Ricardo for
opposing production as the objective of life, thereby forgetting that production
for its own sake means nothing but the development of human productive forces,
in other words the development of the richness of human nature as an end in
itself. Marx adds immediately that under capitalism this development of the
capacities of the human species takes place at the cost of the majority of humanindividuals and whole human classes until in the end it breaks through this
contradiction and coincides with the development of the individual. He was
impatient with those who moralised about Ricardos ruthlessness while failing
to appreciate his scientific honesty. Without the latter it was impossible to
understand the dynamics of capitalist production and identify its inner
contradictions. For Marx, knowledge was power.
For those who approach volume one ofCapital in order to extract a purely
technical economic argument, the first part poses considerable problems. Even
though some of the philosophic content was excised from the second edition,
which is now the one almost exclusively referred to, there is still a distinctive
humanist philosophy at work in the discussion of the commodity. It prompted
Louis Althusser to recommend starting the book at part two (chapter four), but
such an approach not only rides roughshod over Marxs intentions but promotes a
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division of labour within knowledge which is, I would argue, part of the problem
of the world which Marx wanted to change. Marxs work begins with the
contradiction between use value and exchange value, resolved by money, but
resolved only in such a way that the basic contradiction was carried forward in
the logic of the system. InA Contribution to theCritique of Political
Economy Marx had argued that a commodity was based on a complex of
contradictory premises which centred on its dual aspects of use value and
exchange value." InCapital he argues that the contradictions inherent in the
exchange of commodities were not abolished by the further development of the
system, but merely given room to move.
The section of the first chapter on The Fetishism of the Commodity and its
Secret argues that in commodity production social relations were reflected as
objective characteristics of the products of labour and the definite social relation
between men themselves assumes the fantastic form of a relation between
things. He likens the process to religion, where the products of the human brain
appear as autonomous figures endowed with a life of their own, which enter into
relations both with each other and with the human race. As in the writings of
1844, Marx describes the systematic separation of the producer from the plan,
process and outcome of production, that is to say the transformation of the social
process of production into an alien power. Money plays a key role in facilitating
this alienated society, in which men are henceforth related to each other in theirsocial process of production in a purely atomistic way." In substance this is a re-
presentation of the alienation thesis, despite Marxs reluctance to use the term,
and later in Capital he talks about the alienation of the worker from his labour
and his product and describes capital as an alien power that dominates and
exploits.
In an emotive passage in chapter 25 Marx recapitulates the alienation theme
and expresses the fate of the worker as a dialectical negation of creativity. Under
capitalism all methods for raising the social productivity of labour result in the
increased insecurity of the worker, and the means for the development of
production ,undergo a dialectical inversion so that they become means of
domination and exploitation. The worker is distorted into a fragment of a man,
degraded to an appendage of the machine and tormented by the content of his
labour. All intellectual stimulation which might otherwise have been found in the
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labour process is removed as technology is incorporated in it as a seemingly
independent power. The worker is condemned to a lifetime of toil and misery and
whole families are dragged beneath the wheels of the juggernaut of capital.
Capitalism presents the extremes of wealth at one pole and the accumulation of
misery, the torment of labour, slavery, ignorance, brutalisation and moral
degradation at the opposite pole. From this rhetoric of fragmented or crippled
humanity we are entitled to assume, as Fromm has argued, that Marx has a notion
of a whole man, a self-realised being whose essence is no longer alienated.
In a footnote in Capital criticising Benthams theory of utility Marx
distinguishes between human nature in general and human nature as modified
in each epoch. Marxs theory of historical development presents a framework for
examining how human nature is modified in the course of the production and
reproduction of material life. It helps to counter conservative conceptions such as
those of Hobbes, for whom men were naturally self-serving power maximisers
motivated by mistrust and fear. Marxists have been unwilling to countenance a
conception of human nature in general, or human essence, because to do so
might be seen to be offering an equally arbitrary view of what we are really like.
However, Marx does have a conception of human essence, materially grounded in
our productive achievements and illustrated through the comparison with non-
human animals, first set down in 1844 and repeated in the first volume
ofCapital. He introduces his discussion of the labour process by arguing thatalthough humans initially laboured instinctively at the animal level, through their
social interaction with their environment they develop the exclusively human
characteristic ofconscious life activity whereby they are able to plan their work.
Distinctively human activity can be viewed as collective endeavour, or creative
social activity. In a famous passage he argued that although spiders produced
rather like weavers, and bees built cells with greater skill than many architects,
what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is that the architect
builds the cell in his mind before he constructs it in wax. Marxs purpose in the
chapter on the labour process was to show how money was transformed into
capital through the extraction of surplus value in the process of exploitation. The
controlling power in the labour process shifts from the producer to capital, which
he depicts as an animated monster." The formally free individuals enter a
contract which deprives the producers of the freedom to exercise the creative
powers which define their humanity. Marx reverts to the humanist discourse
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when he conjures the image of a cooperative, planned society, in which the
worker strips off the fetters of his individuality, and develops the capabilities of
his species. Here Marx comes close to his 1844 expression of communism as the
real appropriation of the human essence by and for humanity.
AN ETHICAL FOUNDATION
The ethical question which runs beneath the surface of Marxs work concerns
how we oughtto live. Marxs work shows that capitalist society cannot produce
an ethical community because it perverts the human essence of social creativity
and prevents the development of human freedom. The pre-history of humanity
has taken us to the point at which the structures which thwart human freedom can
be challenged and replaced. However, to rely on moral argument would not, in
his opinion, move us closer to understanding how and why successive modes of
production have kept the mass of humanity in various forms of enslavement. Nor,
Marx thought, would moral entreaties assist in removing the principal
impediments to achieving human freedom: private property and the protective
political power of the bourgeoisie. Indeed his consistent opposition to explicitly
moral discourse indicates that he considered the moralistic approach might well
deflect from a full understanding of the revolutionary nature of the tasks ahead.
When Marx wrote the Provisional Rules of the First International they contained
a demand that members be committed to truth, justice, and morality, as the basisof their conduct towards each other, and towards all men, without regard to
colour, creed, or nationality. However, in a letter to Engels he reveals that he was
obliged by the sub-committee to insert this sentence, as well as another referring
to right and duty, adding that these are so placed that they can dono harm.
His rejection of moralising should not deter us from identifying the ethical
dimension which is immanent in his social theory. Alienation is not simply a
descriptive term in his political economy, but a philosophical term indicating a
rupture from our human essence. Its usage is a denunciation of the way we live.
Its projected overcoming, in a society of free associated producers, is an ethical
commitment to the creation of the good life. The commitment to communist
society is an appeal to how we oughtto live. The next chapter will attempt to
shed further light on the nature and origins of Marxs ethic, and what implications
it holds for his conception of communist society.
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To call cosmopolitan exploitation universal brotherhood is an idea that could
only be engendered in the brain of the bourgeoisie (Marx).[Speech on the
Question of Free Trade]
The idea that there is a strong ethical foundation built into Marxs social theory
raises a number of questions which will be confronted in this chapter. Marxs
own determination to shun ethical discourse has obscured this dimension of his
thought, but this should not rule out its re-examination, especially in view of the
fact that the revolutionary class consciousness which he confidently anticipated
has largely failed to materialise. The ethic revolves around his conception of
human essence as creative social activity, its alienation in capitalist society, andthe commitment to its full realisation as human freedom in communist society. ...
THE JUSTICE DEBATE
Marx eschewed moral argument, yet there is undoubtedly moral force in his
description of the process of exploitation. In recent years this tension has
generated a number of debates in North America and Britain, and the major
arguments have been discussed with great clarity by Norman Geras in the
journalNew LeftReview. Geras argues that there is a real and deep-seatedinconsistency in Marxs work between his ethical commitment and his hostility
to moral argument. On the one hand, Marx argues that the process through which
surplus value is produced is just, as each mode of production has norms of justice
appropriate to it. For example, in the third volume ofCapital he states that the
content of capitalist contracts is just so long as it corresponds to the mode of
production and is adequate to it,[Capital Volume III] and he makes the same
point in the Critique of the Gotha Programme. In the first volume ofCapital he
specifically denies that an injustice has been done to the seller of labour power
when the capitalist makes a profit, [Capital Volume I] or that the seller has been
defrauded. [Capital Volume I] On the other hand, Marx condemns capitalism in
moral terms which amount, in Gerass view, to deeming it unjust. In various parts
of the first volume ofCapital he describes the extraction of surplus value as
robbing, stealing, ,pumping booty out of the workers, and
embezzling,[CapitalVolume I]and elsewhere he refers to it in plain language
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as loot and the theft of alien labour time. [Theories of Surplus
Value,Grundrisse]
I am sympathetic with attempts to draw out the ethical content of Marxs social
theory, but I feel that Geras is wrong to designate the tension outlined above as apervasive contradiction. Furthermore, I think it is possible to explicate Marxs
position without resorting to Gerass conclusion that Marx did think capitalism
was unjust but did not think he thought so. Nor do I accept Gerass more
substantial conclusion that Marx implicitly condemns capitalism as unjust by
reference to a generalised moral entitlement to control over the means of
production, which, is, in effect, a natural right.
Geras argues that Marx makes trans-historical moral judgements while
simultaneously holding the view that all principles of justice are specific to each
mode of production and cannot be used to judge practices in other modes. A
number of writers have argued that this does not necessarily involve a
contradiction. George Brenkert, Steven Lukes, and Allen Wood have separately
argued that Marxs condemnation of capitalism rested on values such as freedom
and self-actualisation, but not on a conception of justice based on eternal
principles. Joe McCarney has argued that the moral language employed by Marx
in describing exploitation need not necessarily be treated at the same theoretical
level as the concept of justice. He suggests that in Marxs work we can separatejustice, as relativised to a particular social order, from evaluations which have
some element of trans-historical meaning, for, after all, it is common enough to
regard justice as contextually bound and specifically juridical. I think that
McCarney is fundamentally correct here, but Gerass demand to see some
evidence to support the alleged distinction between what is just and what is
ethical is a reasonable request.
Geras, in his original article, outlines one way in which the alleged confusion
on justice might be resolved. The buying and selling of labour power might beregarded as fair, but the extraction of surplus value which occurs on that basis
renders the contract, in Marxs words, a mere semblance or mere pretence.
Geras accuses Marx of resorting to dialectical wizardry in arguing that equal
exchange is transformed into unequal exchange. In the Grundrisse he proposes
that by a peculiar logic the right of property on the side of capital is dialectically
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transformed into the right to an alien product ... the right to appropriate alien
labour without equivalent. In the first volume ofCapital he writes that to the
extent that commodity production, in accordance with its own immanent laws,
undergoes a further development into capitalist production, the property laws of
commodity production must undergo a dialectical inversion so that they become
laws of capitalist appropriation. Geras objects that the dialectic here only
muddies the water, as the wage relation is either an exchange of equivalents and
therefore just, or it is not, and a thing cannot be its opposite. He concludes that
the confusion among commentators on this point is therefore a fruit of Marxs
own prevarication. This represents a major criticism of the coherence of Marxs
dialectical method. It is possible to defend Marxs dialectic by referring to the
essentialism which was discussed above. Philip Kain, in his consideration of the
debate between Wood and Husami, focuses on the categories of essence andappearance and argues that Marxs position is that capitalism is just (Wood) at
the level of appearance but at the level of essence it is unjust (Husami). I think it
wiser to go along with Marxs refusal to accept that capitalism is unjust, but I am
sure that he felt that in essence capitalism obstructed the development of full
human freedom. What does this mean? Capitalism operates on the basis of a
formally free contract involving the purchase and sale of labour power. Behind
the appearance of the exchange of equivalents is the essence of exploitation. In
unmasking the extraction of surplus value hidden behind the rhetoric of the free
exchange of equivalents, Marx shows how power is wrested from the producers
and re-presented to them in the forms of money or capital as alien powers
standing above them. The worker, when exchanging his labour capacity with the
capitalist, surrenders its creative power, like Esau who gave up his birthright for
a mess of pottage. The loss of freedom is inscribed in capitalisms defining
process, the extraction of surplus value arising from the purchase and sale of
labour power. The further development of the system cannot resolve this
contradiction but merely brings it to the point where the system itself becomes
dysfunctional and a social revolution becomes a real historical possibility.
Marx is quite clear that capitalism is just, in the sense that legal justice or
right (Recht) can never be higher than the economic structure and its cultural
development which this determines. How then, is it possible for Marx to inveigh
against exploitation, which is clearly not, for him, a value-free term? One way in
which he does this is effectively to expose the discrepancy between the claims
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made by liberals that the system is fair and just and the grim reality of class
despotism. The point of describing the labour contract as both just and theft is
to point up the gap between appearance and essence in the system and inspire its
concrete resolution. This form of moral realism is shown in the quotation at the
head of this chapter, and also in remarks made in that part of the Critique of the
Gotha Programme dealing with equal right in socialist society. Marx argues that
capitalist distribution is the only fair distribution on the basis of the present -
day mode of production, just as he had written in the first draft ofThe Civil War
inFrance that every social form of property has morals of its own. In both
instances the inverted commas imply the presence of a more adequate standard of
fairness or morality. In the Critique Marx argues that under socialism, when
private property has been abolished, equal right would involve distribution to
individuals according to an equal standard, labour, but as individuals are differentin strength and ability, equal right would give unequal rewards. An important
point here is that equal right in socialist society is considered an advance on
bourgeois society because principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads.
In Marxs view, under socialism equal right would cease to be a mere semblance
and the standard by whic