INTRODUCTION7 predicate. Thought arises from being-being does not arise from thought. 'In convoluted and often obscure language, Marx attempted to apply this view to hegel's discussion of such topics as democracy, bureaucracy, and the extension of the suffrage. Marx can be seen here as groping towards a description of how radical democratic change might reform society by bringing back to it the social essence of humans as communal beings -an essence that had been stolen from them and transferred to the sphere of political constitutions that had no effect on their real life In October 1843 Marx moved to Paris which was then a magnet for all politically minded intellectuals. He quickly published two lengthy articles which were as incisively brilliant as his unpublished commentary on Hegel had been obscure In the first, entitled On the Jewish Question, he took issue with his former mentor Bruno Bauer. For Marx Jewish emancipa- tion, and indeed emancipation in general, would not be achieved simply by the extension of political rights as proclaimed in the French and American revolutionary constitutions. The limitations of political emancipation were shown by the fact that the state could free itself from religion without its citizens being freed. Indeed, the existence of religion was thereby presupposed, as was the existence of private property by its abolition as a qualification for voting. This kind of problem arose because human beings were forced into a dual personality the communal, social aspect of their nature only existed, in an unreal form, at the level of constitutions and talk of 'citizenship, whereas in their real everyday life they were isolated individuals involved in the economic war of all against all. Talk of rights simply led people to see in others not the realization but the limitation of their own freedom Marx's second article was intended as a lengthy preface to his meditation on Hegels political philosophy. In it he identified the agent of the process of human emancipation that he had described in his first article. Marx began with his famous epigrams on religion as the opium of the people, fowers on the chain, etc. He then proclaimed Germany s backwardness as an opportunity to leap over those countries which had merely had a bourgeois revolution-France and Britain -to head the revolutionary league. This would be possible by uniting German radical philosophy with the emerging class which had a universal destiny in that it represented the interests of the whole of society rather than simply a section of it. This class was the proletariat, with whose spokesmen and organizations Marx had begun to become acquainted in Paris. Of the proletariat he wrote that it was a class with radical chains, a class in civil society that is not a class of civil society, a social group that is the dissolution of all social groups, a sphere that has a universal character because of its universa sufferings and lays claim to no particular right, because it is the object of no particular injustice but of injustice in general. This class can no longer lay claim to a historical status, but only to a human one. It is, finally, a sphere that cannot emancipate itself without emancipating these other spheres themselves. In a word, it is the complete loss of humanity and thus can only recover itself by a complete redemption of humanity. This dissolution of society, as a particular class, is the proletariat This class, therefore, would the agent capable of bringing in an era of universal human emancipation But the proletariat was produced by the economic organization of society and, in the
introduction | 7 predicate. Thought arises from being—being does not arise from thought.’ In convoluted and often obscure language, Marx attempted to apply this view to Hegel’s discussion of such topics as democracy, bureaucracy, and the extension of the suffrage. Marx can be seen here as groping towards a description of how radical democratic change might reform society by bringing back to it the social essence of humans as communal beings—an essence that had been stolen from them and transferred to the sphere of political constitutions that had no effect on their real life. In October 1843 Marx moved to Paris which was then a magnet for all politically minded intellectuals. He quickly published two lengthy articles which were as incisively brilliant as his unpublished commentary on Hegel had been obscure. In the first, entitled On the Jewish Question, he took issue with his former mentor Bruno Bauer. For Marx, Jewish emancipation, and indeed emancipation in general, would not be achieved simply by the extension of political rights as proclaimed in the French and American revolutionary constitutions. The limitations of political emancipation were shown by the fact that the state could free itself from religion without its citizens being freed. Indeed, the existence of religion was thereby presupposed, as was the existence of private property by its abolition as a qualification for voting. This kind of problem arose because human beings were forced into a dual personality: the communal, social aspect of their nature only existed, in an unreal form, at the level of constitutions and talk of ‘citizenship’, whereas in their real everyday life they were isolated individuals involved in the economic war of all against all. Talk of rights simply led people to see in others not the realization but the limitation of their own freedom. Marx’s second article was intended as a lengthy preface to his meditation on Hegel’s political philosophy. In it he identified the agent of the process of human emancipation that he had described in his first article. Marx began with his famous epigrams on religion as the opium of the people, flowers on the chain, etc. He then proclaimed Germany’s backwardness as an opportunity to leap over those countries which had merely had a bourgeois revolution—France and Britain—to head the revolutionary league. This would be possible by uniting German radical philosophy with the emerging class which had a universal destiny in that it represented the interests of the whole of society rather than simply a section of it. This class was the proletariat, with whose spokesmen and organizations Marx had begun to become acquainted in Paris. Of the proletariat he wrote that it was a class with radical chains, a class in civil society that is not a class of civil society, a social group that is the dissolution of all social groups, a sphere that has a universal character because of its universal sufferings and lays claim to no particular right, because it is the object of no particular injustice but of injustice in general. This class can no longer lay claim to a historical status, but only to a human one. It is, finally, a sphere that cannot emancipate itself without emancipating these other spheres themselves. In a word, it is the complete loss of humanity and thus can only recover itself by a complete redemption of humanity. This dissolution of society, as a particular class, is the proletariat . . . This class, therefore, would the agent capable of bringing in an era of universal human emancipation. But the proletariat was produced by the economic organization of society and, in the
INTRODUCTION summer of 1844, Marx devoted himself to a serious study of what was to be his fundamental interest-political economy. The manuscripts which resulted-known alternatively as the Paris Manuscripts, the 1844 Manuscripts, or the Economic and philosophica Manuscripts-are the most important of Marx's early writings. They contain a radical critique of capitalism based partly on Engels's pioneering articles on political economy, partly on the anti-industrial ideas of such German Romantics as Schiller, and partly on Feuerbach's humanism The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts contain three main sections. In the first Marx analysed the phenomenon that he considered to be at the root of the capitalist system and that he called alienated labour Alienated labour had four aspects to it. First, the workers were related to the product of their labour as to an alien object; it stood over and above them opposed to them with a power independent of the producers. Second the workers became alienated from themselves in the very act of production; for workers did not view their work as part of their real life and did not feel at home in it. Third peoples''species-life their social essence, was taken away from them in their work which did not represent the harmonious efforts of people as'species-beings'. Fourth individuals found themselves alien- ated from other individuals. The positive potential of labour was sketched out in Marx's contemporaneous notes on James Mill and elaborated in the second section of the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts on communism Here Marx criticized his French predeces sors and various 'crude versions of communism(sometimes strikingly like the later Stalin- ism), and described his own -sometimes almost mystical-vision of a communist society. In the third and final section, Marx mediated on his ambivalence towards hegel. On the one hand, hegel had rightly seen human beings as their own creation labour as their central activity,and the necessity for human beings to reclaim as their own the products of this activity. But, on the other hand, hegel remained an idealist and wrote as though transcend ence of alienation could all happen in the mind. Marx, by contrast, defined his position as a consistent naturalism or humanism which avoided both idealism and crude materialism ut however insightful (and influential when published and widely translated more than 100 years later)Marx's critique of capitalism proved to be, it still remained rather in the air. The next few years would be devoted to uncovering the historical and economic conditions hich would he claimed allow communism to become a reality
8 | introduction summer of 1844, Marx devoted himself to a serious study of what was to be his fundamental interest—political economy. The manuscripts which resulted—known alternatively as the Paris Manuscripts, the 1844 Manuscripts, or the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts—are the most important of Marx’s early writings. They contain a radical critique of capitalism based partly on Engels’s pioneering articles on political economy, partly on the anti-industrial ideas of such German Romantics as Schiller, and partly on Feuerbach’s humanism. The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts contain three main sections. In the first, Marx analysed the phenomenon that he considered to be at the root of the capitalist system and that he called alienated labour. Alienated labour had four aspects to it. First, the workers were related to the product of their labour as to an alien object; it stood over and above them, opposed to them with a power independent of the producers. Second, the workers became alienated from themselves in the very act of production; for workers did not view their work as part of their real life and did not feel at home in it. Third, peoples’ ‘species-life’, their social essence, was taken away from them in their work which did not represent the harmonious efforts of people as ‘species-beings’. Fourth, individuals found themselves alienated from other individuals. The positive potential of labour was sketched out in Marx’s contemporaneous notes on James Mill and elaborated in the second section of the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts on communism. Here Marx criticized his French predecessors and various ‘crude’ versions of communism (sometimes strikingly like the later Stalinism), and described his own—sometimes almost mystical—vision of a communist society. In the third and final section, Marx mediated on his ambivalence towards Hegel. On the one hand, Hegel had rightly seen human beings as their own creation, labour as their central activity, and the necessity for human beings to reclaim as their own the products of this activity. But, on the other hand, Hegel remained an idealist and wrote as though transcendence of alienation could all happen in the mind. Marx, by contrast, defined his position as a consistent naturalism or humanism which avoided both idealism and crude materialism. But however insightful (and influential when published and widely translated more than 100 years later) Marx’s critique of capitalism proved to be, it still remained rather in the air. The next few years would be devoted to uncovering the historical and economic conditions which would, he claimed, allow communism to become a reality
Letter to his father On leaving school Marx spent a year at the provincial University of Bonn, where he thor- oughly absorbed the prevalent Romantic mood before moving to the University of Berlin Seventeen letters from his father to marx have been preserved but this is the only one from Marx in reply. It was written on 10 November 1837, when Marx was nineteen years old after he had spent just over a year in the Law Faculty at Berlin. Usually Marx's letters to his father were short, so the length of this one indicates its importance. The letter recounts the evolution of his ideas during the previous year and criticizes them from his newly won egelian standpoint, the Hegelian philosophy being the one then dominant in Berlin. What attracted Marx to Hegel, after the romanticism of his year at Bonn and his brief enthusiasm for the idealism of Kant and Fichte, was the bridge he conceived Hegel to have built between hat is and what ought to be. In this letter he touches on many of the themes that were to run right through his work: historical consciousness for example, an attempt to situate himself within an evolving process, and the desire, following Hegel to find the identity of the real and the rational Dear Father There are moments in one's life that represent the limit of a period and at the same time point clearly in a new direction In such a period of transition we feel ourselves compelled to consider the past nd present with the eagle eye of thought in order to come to a realization of our actual position. Yes, History itself likes this sort of stock-taking and intro- spection which often make it look as though it were going backwards or stand- ing still, whereas it is merely throwing itself into an armchair to understand itself and comprehend intellectually its own mental processes An individual, however, becomes lyrical at such moments, for every change is partly a swansong, partly an overture, to a new epic that is trying to find a form in brilliant colours that are not yet distinct. Yet we want to erect a memorial to our past experiences so that they may find again in our emotions the place that they have lost in our actions; and there could be no more sacred home for this memorial than the heart of parents, the mildest of judges, the most intimate sympathizers, a sun of love whose fire warms the inmost centre of our endeavours. How better could much that is disgraceful and blameworthy find forgiveness and excuse than when it appears as the result of an essentially
1 Letter to his Father On leaving school Marx spent a year at the provincial University of Bonn, where he thoroughly absorbed the prevalent Romantic mood before moving to the University of Berlin. Seventeen letters from his father to Marx have been preserved, but this is the only one from Marx in reply. It was written on 10 November 1837, when Marx was nineteen years old, after he had spent just over a year in the Law Faculty at Berlin. Usually Marx’s letters to his father were short, so the length of this one indicates its importance. The letter recounts the evolution of his ideas during the previous year and criticizes them from his newly won Hegelian standpoint, the Hegelian philosophy being the one then dominant in Berlin. What attracted Marx to Hegel, after the romanticism of his year at Bonn and his brief enthusiasm for the idealism of Kant and Fichte, was the bridge he conceived Hegel to have built between what is and what ought to be. In this letter he touches on many of the themes that were to run right through his work: historical consciousness, for example, an attempt to situate himself within an evolving process, and the desire, following Hegel, to find the identity of the real and the rational. Dear Father, There are moments in one’s life that represent the limit of a period and at the same time point clearly in a new direction. In such a period of transition we feel ourselves compelled to consider the past and present with the eagle eye of thought in order to come to a realization of our actual position. Yes, History itself likes this sort of stock-taking and introspection which often make it look as though it were going backwards or standing still, whereas it is merely throwing itself into an armchair to understand itself and comprehend intellectually its own mental processes. An individual, however, becomes lyrical at such moments, for every change is partly a swansong, partly an overture, to a new epic that is trying to find a form in brilliant colours that are not yet distinct. Yet we want to erect a memorial to our past experiences so that they may find again in our emotions the place that they have lost in our actions; and there could be no more sacred home for this memorial than the heart of parents, the mildest of judges, the most intimate sympathizers, a sun of love whose fire warms the inmost centre of our endeavours. How better could much that is disgraceful and blameworthy find forgiveness and excuse than when it appears as the result of an essentially
KARL MARX: SELECTED WRITINGS necessary state of affairs, how else could the often untoward fall of chance and the mind's errors escape being thought the products of a deformed spirit So now that I am casting an eye back over the events of the year that I have lived here and thus answering, my dear father, your most precious letter from Ems, allow me to consider my situation(as i do life in general)as the result of an intellectual activity that finds expression on all sides--in science, art, and personal matters When I left you, a new world had just begun to exist for me, the world of love that was at first drunk with its own desire and hopeless. Even the journey to Berlin, which would otherwise have charmed me completely, excited me to n admiration of nature and inflamed me with a zest for life. left me cold and even, surprisingly, depressed me; for the rocks that i saw were no rougher, no harsher than the emotions of my soul, the broad cities no more full of life than my blood the tables of the inns no more overladen and indigestible than the stocks of fantasies that I carried with me, nor, finally, was any work of art as beautiful as Jenny. When i arrived in berlin i broke off all the connections that i had hitherto contracted, made rare and reluctant visits, and tried to steep myself in science and art Considering my state of mind then it was inevitable that lyric poetry should be my first project and certainly the pleasantest and readiest to hand. But my attitude and all my previous development made it purely idealistic. My heaven and art became a Beyond as distant as my love. Everything real began to dis- solve and thus lose its finiteness, I attacked the present, feeling was expressed without moderation or form, nothing was natural, everything built of moon shine; i believed in a complete opposition between what is and what ought to be, and rhetorical reflections occupied the place of poetic thoughts, though there was perhaps also a certain warmth of emotion and desire for exuberance ese are the characteristics of all the poems of the first three volumes that Jenny received from me. The whole scope of a longing that sees no limits is expressed in many forms and broadens poetry out But poetry was to be, and had to be, only a sideline; i had to study juris prudence and felt above all impelled to struggle with philosophy. Both were so interconnected that I examined Heineccius. Thibaut, and the sources com letely uncritically like a schoolboy, and thus translated the first two books of Pandects into German and at the same time tried to elaborate a philosophy that would cover the whole field of law. As introduction I prefixed a few meta- physical propositions and continued this unhappy opus as far as public law, a work of almost three hundred pages Here the same opposition of is'and which is the hallmark of ideal ism was the dominating and very destructive feature and engendered the fol- lowing hopelessly mistaken division of the subject-matter: firstly came what I
10 | karl marx: selected writings necessary state of affairs, how else could the often untoward fall of chance and the mind’s errors escape being thought the products of a deformed spirit? So now that I am casting an eye back over the events of the year that I have lived here and thus answering, my dear father, your most precious letter from Ems, allow me to consider my situation (as I do life in general) as the result of an intellectual activity that finds expression on all sides—in science, art, and personal matters. When I left you, a new world had just begun to exist for me, the world of love that was at first drunk with its own desire and hopeless. Even the journey to Berlin, which would otherwise have charmed me completely, excited me to an admiration of nature, and inflamed me with a zest for life, left me cold and even, surprisingly, depressed me; for the rocks that I saw were no rougher, no harsher than the emotions of my soul, the broad cities no more full of life than my blood, the tables of the inns no more overladen and indigestible than the stocks of fantasies that I carried with me, nor, finally, was any work of art as beautiful as Jenny. When I arrived in Berlin I broke off all the connections that I had hitherto contracted, made rare and reluctant visits, and tried to steep myself in science and art. Considering my state of mind then it was inevitable that lyric poetry should be my first project and certainly the pleasantest and readiest to hand. But my attitude and all my previous development made it purely idealistic. My heaven and art became a Beyond as distant as my love. Everything real began to dissolve and thus lose its finiteness, I attacked the present, feeling was expressed without moderation or form, nothing was natural, everything built of moonshine; I believed in a complete opposition between what is and what ought to be, and rhetorical reflections occupied the place of poetic thoughts, though there was perhaps also a certain warmth of emotion and desire for exuberance. These are the characteristics of all the poems of the first three volumes that Jenny received from me. The whole scope of a longing that sees no limits is expressed in many forms and broadens poetry out. But poetry was to be, and had to be, only a sideline; I had to study jurisprudence and felt above all impelled to struggle with philosophy. Both were so interconnected that I examined Heineccius, Thibaut, and the sources completely uncritically like a schoolboy, and thus translated the first two books of Pandects into German and at the same time tried to elaborate a philosophy that would cover the whole field of law. As introduction I prefixed a few metaphysical propositions and continued this unhappy opus as far as public law, a work of almost three hundred pages. Here the same opposition of ‘is’ and ‘ought’ which is the hallmark of idealism was the dominating and very destructive feature and engendered the following hopelessly mistaken division of the subject-matter: firstly came what I
THE EARLY WRITINGS I837-I844 had so graciously christened the metaphysics of law, i. e first principles, reflec tions, definitions distinct from all actual law and every actual form of law-just as you find in Fichte only here more modern and with less substance. This meant that from the outset the unscientific form of mathematical dogmatism where one circles round a subject, reasoning back and forth, without letting it unfold its own rich and living content, prevented any grasp of the truth. The mathematician constructs and proves the triangle, but it remains a pure abstraction in space and does not develop any further; you have to put it beside something else and then it takes up other positions and it is the juxtaposition of these different things that gives it different relationships and truths. Whereas in the practical expression of the living world of ideas in which law, the state, nature, and the whole of philosophy consist, the object itself must be studied in its own development, arbitrary divisions must not be introduced, and it is the ratio of the object itself which must develop out of its inner contradictions and find unity within itself The second part consisted of the philosophy of law, i. e in accordance with the opinion i held at that time, a discussion of the development of ideas in positive Roman law, as though the development of the ideas of positive law (I dont mean in its purely finite terms)could ever be anything different from the formation of the concept of law which the first part should already have dealt with! Moreover, I had further divided this section into formal and material legal doctrine, the first of which was to describe the pure form of the system in its consistent development, its divisions and range, while the second was to describe the self-incarnation of the form in its content This was an error that i held in common with Herr v Savigny, as I found out later in his learned work on property, only with the difference that he calls the formal definition of the idea 'the finding of the place that such and such a doctrine occupies in the fictional)Roman system, and material the doctrine of the positive content that the romans included in a concept thus defined, whereas I meant by form the necessary structure of the expressions of an idea and by matter the neces- sary quality of these expressions. The fault here was that i believed that the one could and must develop itself independently of the other and thus I did not obtain a true form but merely a desk into whose drawers I proceeded to pour At the same time i translated Tacitus's Germania and Ovid's Tristia and began to learn English and Italian on my own, i.e. out of grammars, though I have not yet got anywhere with them. I also read Kelin's Criminal Law and his Annals and all the latest literature, though this latter only as a sideline. at the end of the term I again sought the dances of the muses and the music of the Satyrs and in the last volume that I sent you the forced humour of Scorpion and
the early writings 1837–1844 | 11 had so graciously christened the metaphysics of law, i.e. first principles, reflections, definitions distinct from all actual law and every actual form of law—just as you find in Fichte only here more modern and with less substance. This meant that from the outset the unscientific form of mathematical dogmatism where one circles round a subject, reasoning back and forth, without letting it unfold its own rich and living content, prevented any grasp of the truth. The mathematician constructs and proves the triangle, but it remains a pure abstraction in space and does not develop any further; you have to put it beside something else and then it takes up other positions and it is the juxtaposition of these different things that gives it different relationships and truths. Whereas in the practical expression of the living world of ideas in which law, the state, nature, and the whole of philosophy consist, the object itself must be studied in its own development, arbitrary divisions must not be introduced, and it is the ratio of the object itself which must develop out of its inner contradictions and find unity within itself. The second part consisted of the philosophy of law, i.e. in accordance with the opinion I held at that time, a discussion of the development of ideas in positive Roman law, as though the development of the ideas of positive law (I don’t mean in its purely finite terms) could ever be anything different from the formation of the concept of law which the first part should already have dealt with! Moreover, I had further divided this section into formal and material legal doctrine, the first of which was to describe the pure form of the system in its consistent development, its divisions and range, while the second was to describe the self-incarnation of the form in its content. This was an error that I held in common with Herr v. Savigny, as I found out later in his learned work on property, only with the difference that he calls the formal definition of the idea ‘the finding of the place that such and such a doctrine occupies in the (fictional) Roman system’, and material ‘the doctrine of the positive content that the Romans included in a concept thus defined’, whereas I meant by form the necessary structure of the expressions of an idea and by matter the necessary quality of these expressions. The fault here was that I believed that the one could and must develop itself independently of the other and thus I did not obtain a true form but merely a desk into whose drawers I proceeded to pour sand . . . At the same time I translated Tacitus’s Germania and Ovid’s Tristia and began to learn English and Italian on my own, i.e. out of grammars, though I have not yet got anywhere with them. I also read Kelin’s Criminal Law and his Annals and all the latest literature, though this latter only as a sideline. At the end of the term I again sought the dances of the Muses and the music of the Satyrs and in the last volume that I sent you the forced humour of Scorpion and