3 Articles for the rheinische Zeitung The seven extracts which follow were all written for the rheinische Zeitung a newspaper founded in January 1842 to defend the liberal interest of rhineland industrialists against the Prussian Central government. Most of the Berlin Young Hegelians contributed articles dur- the first few months of the papers existence, and it was natural that Marx, who had participated in the discussions preceding its foundation should also contribute. his pro- spects of a university career evaporated when his friend bruno bauer was dismissed from hi post for unorthodox teaching in March 1842, and Marx moved to the rhineland to devote himself to full-time journalism. His contributions were so well received that in October 1842 he was offered the editorship the paper was a great success but its outspoken criticism of the government caused it to be suppressed in March 1843. During the year that he spent in journalism, Marxs views were in transition and reveal no systematic framework; it is of the essence of a polemicist to be eclectic, and Marx uses expressions and lines of argument drawn alike from Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel On the freedom of the press The following extracts are taken from Marx 's first contribution to the rheinische Zeitung Written in May 1842, it is a commentary on the debate in the rhenish Parliament on the extent to which press publication of their proceedings should be allowed. The two extracts deal with religion as an ideological cloak and the role of law in society Because the real situation of these gentlemen in the modern state bears no relation at all to the conception that they have of their situation, because they live in a world situated beyond the real world, and because in consequence their imagination holds the place of their head and their heart, they necessarily turn towards theory, being unsatisfied with practice, but it is towards the the- ory of the transcendent, i. e. religion. However, in their hands religion acquires a polemical bitterness impregnated with political cies and becomes in a more or less conscious manner, simply a sacred hide desires that are both very secular and at the same time very imaginary Thus we shall find in our Speaker that he opposes a mystical/religious theory of his imagination to practical demands. and that to what is reasonable from
3 Articles for the Rheinische Zeitung The seven extracts which follow were all written for the Rheinische Zeitung, a newspaper founded in January 1842 to defend the liberal interest of Rhineland industrialists against the Prussian Central government. Most of the Berlin Young Hegelians contributed articles during the first few months of the paper’s existence, and it was natural that Marx, who had participated in the discussions preceding its foundation, should also contribute. His prospects of a university career evaporated when his friend Bruno Bauer was dismissed from his post for unorthodox teaching in March 1842, and Marx moved to the Rhineland to devote himself to full-time journalism. His contributions were so well received that in October 1842 he was offered the editorship. The paper was a great success, but its outspoken criticism of the government caused it to be suppressed in March 1843. During the year that he spent in journalism, Marx’s views were in transition and reveal no systematic framework; it is of the essence of a polemicist to be eclectic, and Marx uses expressions and lines of argument drawn alike from Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel. On the Freedom of the Press The following extracts are taken from Marx’s first contribution to the Rheinische Zeitung. Written in May 1842, it is a commentary on the debate in the Rhenish Parliament on the extent to which press publication of their proceedings should be allowed. The two extracts deal with religion as an ideological cloak and the role of law in society. . . . Because the real situation of these gentlemen in the modern state bears no relation at all to the conception that they have of their situation, because they live in a world situated beyond the real world, and because in consequence their imagination holds the place of their head and their heart, they necessarily turn towards theory, being unsatisfied with practice, but it is towards the theory of the transcendent, i.e. religion. However, in their hands religion acquires a polemical bitterness impregnated with political tendencies and becomes, in a more or less conscious manner, simply a sacred cloak to hide desires that are both very secular and at the same time very imaginary. Thus we shall find in our Speaker that he opposes a mystical/religious theory of his imagination to practical demands . . . and that to what is reasonable from
THE EARLY WRITINGS I837-I844 the human point of view he opposes superhuman sacred entities and to the true sanctuary of ideas a vulgar point of view that is both arbitrary and Thus so far from a law on the press being a repressive measure directed against the repetition of a crime, the lack of a law dealing with the press should rather be seen as an exclusion of freedom of the press from the sphere of legal free dom, for legally recognized freedom exists in the state as law. Laws are as little repressive measures directed against freedom as the law of gravity is a repres sive measure directed against movement, because although it keeps the heav enly bodies in perpetual motion yet it can also kill me if i wish to violate it and dance in the air. Laws are rather positive, bright and general norms in which freedom has attained to an existence that is impersonal, theoretical, and independent of the arbitrariness of individuals. a people's statute book is its Bible of freedom The law on the press is therefore the legal recognition of the freedom of the press. It is law because it is the positive existence of freedom. Thus it must always be present, even when it is never applied, as in North America, while censorship, like slavery, can never become legal, though it were a thousand times present as law There are no preventive laws at the present time. Law only prevents by forbidding. It becomes active law as soon as it is transgressed for it is only true law when in it the unconscious natural law of freedom becomes the conscious law of the state. Where law is true law i.e. where it is the existence of freedom it is the true existence of the freedom of man. Thus the laws cannot prevent mans actions, for they are the inner laws of life of his action itself, the con- scious mirror-images of his life. Law thus retreats before man's life as a life of freedom, and only when his behaviour has actually shown that he has ceased to obey the natural law of freedom does the state law compel him to be free Similarly physical law appears alien to me only when my life has ceased to be the life of these laws, when it is sick Thus a preventive law is a meaningless contradiction The Leading Article of the KoInische Zeitung This article was a reply to an attack on the 'new philosophical school by Karl Hermes, editor of the Kolnische Zeitung the big conservative rival of the rheinische Zeitung. hermes had accused the rheinische Zeitung of intemperate discussion of religion. In the following extract Marx is concerned to show, in a rather hegelian manner, that the state is not based on eligion but on 'the rational character of freedom
the early writings 1837–1844 | 23 the human point of view he opposes superhuman sacred entities and to the true sanctuary of ideas a vulgar point of view that is both arbitrary and unbelieving . . . Thus so far from a law on the press being a repressive measure directed against the repetition of a crime, the lack of a law dealing with the press should rather be seen as an exclusion of freedom of the press from the sphere of legal freedom, for legally recognized freedom exists in the state as law. Laws are as little repressive measures directed against freedom as the law of gravity is a repressive measure directed against movement, because although it keeps the heavenly bodies in perpetual motion yet it can also kill me if I wish to violate it and dance in the air. Laws are rather positive, bright and general norms in which freedom has attained to an existence that is impersonal, theoretical, and independent of the arbitrariness of individuals. A people’s statute book is its Bible of freedom. The law on the press is therefore the legal recognition of the freedom of the press. It is law because it is the positive existence of freedom. Thus it must always be present, even when it is never applied, as in North America, while censorship, like slavery, can never become legal, though it were a thousand times present as law. There are no preventive laws at the present time. Law only prevents by forbidding. It becomes active law as soon as it is transgressed for it is only true law when in it the unconscious natural law of freedom becomes the conscious law of the state. Where law is true law, i.e. where it is the existence of freedom, it is the true existence of the freedom of man. Thus the laws cannot prevent man’s actions, for they are the inner laws of life of his action itself, the conscious mirror-images of his life. Law thus retreats before man’s life as a life of freedom, and only when his behaviour has actually shown that he has ceased to obey the natural law of freedom does the state law compel him to be free. Similarly physical law appears alien to me only when my life has ceased to be the life of these laws, when it is sick. Thus a preventive law is a meaningless contradiction . . . The Leading Article of the Kölnische Zeitung This article was a reply to an attack on the ‘new philosophical school’ by Karl Hermes, editor of the Kölnische Zeitung, the big conservative rival of the Rheinische Zeitung. Hermes had accused the Rheinische Zeitung of intemperate discussion of religion. In the following extract Marx is concerned to show, in a rather Hegelian manner, that the state is not based on religion but on ‘the rational character of freedom’
4KARL MARX: SELECTED WRITINGS Either the Christian state corresponds to the concept of a state which is to be a realization of liberty according to reason, and in that case the only condi tion for a state's being Christian is that it should be rational and then it sufficient to deduce the state from the rational character of human relation ships, which is the job of philosophy. Or the state of rational freedom cannot be deduced from Christianity, and in that case you will yourselves admit that this deduction is not included in the attitude of Christianity, for it cannot wish for a bad state and a state that is not a realization of rational freedom is a bad state However you answer this dilemma, you will have to agree that the construc- tion of the state ought not to start from religion but from the rational character of freedom. Only the crassest ignorance would hold that this theory of the autonomous character that belongs to the concept of the state is the sudden fantasy of modern philosophers Philosophy has done with regard to politics what physics, mathematics, medicine, and each science have done in their respective sphere. Bacon of Veru lam declared that theological physics was a virgin consecrated to god and sterile: he emancipated physics from theology and it became fertile. You should no more ask a politician if he is a believer than you would put this question to a doctor. In the period that preceeds and immediately follows the great discovery by Copernicus of the true solar system, the law of gravity of the state was also discovered. Its centre of gravity was found to be in itself, and the different European governments tried to apply this discovery, with the superficiality of every first practical trial, in the system of the balance of powers. Similarly, first Machiavelli and Campenella, then later Hobbes, Spinoza, Hugo Grotius through to Rousseau, Fichte, and Hegel began to consider the state through human eyes and deduced its natural laws from reason and experience and not from theology, just like Copernicus, who disregarded the fact that Joshua had ordered the sun to stop on gabaon and the moon above the valley of ajalon Modern philosophy has only continued work that Heraclitus and Aristotle had already begun. Therefore your polemics are not against the reason of modern philosophy, they are against the ever new philosophy of reason. Of course, the ignorance which discovered for the first time yesterday or the day before in the Rheinische Zeitung or the kolnische Zeitung the very old ideas on the state, this ignorance regards the ideas of history as sudden fantasies of isolated indi iduals because to it they are new and arrived overnight. This ignorance forgets that it assumes itself the old role of the doctor of the sorbonne who thought it his duty publicly to accuse Montesquieu for having had the frivolity to declare that the supreme civic quality was political virtue and not religious virtue; it forgets that it assumes the role of joachim Lange who denounced Wolff on the pretext that his doctrine of predestination would lead to the desertion of soldiers and thus the relaxation of a military discipline and in the end the
24 | karl marx: selected writings . . . Either the Christian state corresponds to the concept of a state which is to be a realization of liberty according to reason, and in that case the only condition for a state’s being Christian is that it should be rational and then it is sufficient to deduce the state from the rational character of human relationships, which is the job of philosophy. Or the state of rational freedom cannot be deduced from Christianity, and in that case you will yourselves admit that this deduction is not included in the attitude of Christianity, for it cannot wish for a bad state, and a state that is not a realization of rational freedom is a bad state. However you answer this dilemma, you will have to agree that the construction of the state ought not to start from religion but from the rational character of freedom. Only the crassest ignorance would hold that this theory of the autonomous character that belongs to the concept of the state is the sudden fantasy of modern philosophers. Philosophy has done with regard to politics what physics, mathematics, medicine, and each science have done in their respective sphere. Bacon of Verulam declared that theological physics was a virgin consecrated to god and sterile: he emancipated physics from theology and it became fertile. You should no more ask a politician if he is a believer than you would put this question to a doctor. In the period that preceeds and immediately follows the great discovery by Copernicus of the true solar system, the law of gravity of the state was also discovered. Its centre of gravity was found to be in itself, and the different European governments tried to apply this discovery, with the superficiality of every first practical trial, in the system of the balance of powers. Similarly, first Machiavelli and Campenella, then later Hobbes, Spinoza, Hugo Grotius, through to Rousseau, Fichte, and Hegel began to consider the state through human eyes and deduced its natural laws from reason and experience and not from theology, just like Copernicus, who disregarded the fact that Joshua had ordered the sun to stop on Gabaon and the moon above the valley of Ajalon. Modern philosophy has only continued work that Heraclitus and Aristotle had already begun. Therefore your polemics are not against the reason of modern philosophy, they are against the ever new philosophy of reason. Of course, the ignorance which discovered for the first time yesterday or the day before in the Rheinische Zeitung or the Kölnische Zeitung the very old ideas on the state, this ignorance regards the ideas of history as sudden fantasies of isolated individuals because to it they are new and arrived overnight. This ignorance forgets that it assumes itself the old role of the doctor of the Sorbonne who thought it his duty publicly to accuse Montesquieu for having had the frivolity to declare that the supreme civic quality was political virtue and not religious virtue; it forgets that it assumes the role of Joachim Lange who denounced Wolff on the pretext that his doctrine of predestination would lead to the desertion of soldiers and thus the relaxation of a military discipline and in the end the
THE EARLY WRITINGS I837-I844 dissolution of the state; finally it forgets that the prussian civil code comes precisel the philosophical school of that same ' and the Code Napoleon not from the old Testament but from the ideas of voltaire, Rous seau,Condorcet, Mirabeau, Montesquieu, and the French Revolution. Ignor nce is a demon, it is to be feared that it may yet play many a tragedy The greatest Greek poets were right to represent it in terrible dramas of the royal families of Mycenae and Thebes in the form of a tragic destiny But if the previous professors of constitutional law have constructed the state from instincts either of ambition or sociability or even from reason, but from the individuals reason and not social reason, the profounder conception of modern philosophy deduces the state from the idea of the all. It considers the state as the great organism in which juridical, moral, and political liberties must be realized and in which each citizen, by obeying the laws of the state, only obeys the natural laws of his own reason, human reason Sapienti sat [ A word to the wisel Communism and the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung This is Marxs first article as editor of the rheinische Zeitung. The Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung had accused the rheinische Zeitung of communist sympathies. Moses hess had been esponsible for the papers reprinting an article on workers' housing from a journal of Wilhelm Weitling and reporting the speeches of followers of Fourier delivered at a recent congress at Strasburg. The extract which follows is particularly interesting in that it reveals Marx's initially hostile reaction to French socialism The rheinische Zeitung does not even concede theoretical validity to com- munist ideas in their present form, let alone desire their practical realization which it anyway finds impossible, and will subject these ideas to a fundamental criticism. If it had aims and capacities beyond well-polished phrases, the augs- burger would have perceived that books like those of Leroux and Considerant and above all the acute work of Proudhon, cannot be criticized by superficial and transitory fancies but only after consistent and probing study We have to take such theoretical works all the more seriously as we cannot agree with the Augsburger which finds the reality of communist ideas not in Plato but in its obscure acquaintance who, though being gifted in several lines of scientifie research, sacrificed all the money he could lay his hands on and washed his comrades' plates and cleaned their boots according to the will of Father Enfan in. We are firmly convinced that the true danger does not lie in the practical attempt to carry out communist ideas but in their theoretical development; for practical attempts, even by the masses, can be answered with a cannon as soon as they become dangerous, but ideas that have overcome our intellect and
the early writings 1837–1844 | 25 dissolution of the state; finally it forgets that the Prussian civil code comes precisely from the philosophical school of that same ‘Wolff’ and the Code Napoléon not from the Old Testament but from the ideas of Voltaire, Rousseau, Condorcet, Mirabeau, Montesquieu, and the French Revolution. Ignorance is a demon, it is to be feared that it may yet play many a tragedy. The greatest Greek poets were right to represent it in terrible dramas of the royal families of Mycenae and Thebes in the form of a tragic destiny. But if the previous professors of constitutional law have constructed the state from instincts either of ambition or sociability or even from reason, but from the individual’s reason and not social reason, the profounder conception of modern philosophy deduces the state from the idea of the all. It considers the state as the great organism in which juridical, moral, and political liberties must be realized and in which each citizen, by obeying the laws of the state, only obeys the natural laws of his own reason, human reason. Sapienti sat. [A word to the wise] Communism and the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung This is Marx’s first article as editor of the Rheinische Zeitung. The Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung had accused the Rheinische Zeitung of communist sympathies. Moses Hess had been responsible for the paper’s reprinting an article on workers’ housing from a journal of Wilhelm Weitling and reporting the speeches of followers of Fourier delivered at a recent congress at Strasburg. The extract which follows is particularly interesting in that it reveals Marx’s initially hostile reaction to French socialism. . . . The Rheinische Zeitung does not even concede theoretical validity to communist ideas in their present form, let alone desire their practical realization, which it anyway finds impossible, and will subject these ideas to a fundamental criticism. If it had aims and capacities beyond well-polished phrases, the Augsburger would have perceived that books like those of Leroux and Considérant, and above all the acute work of Proudhon, cannot be criticized by superficial and transitory fancies but only after consistent and probing study. We have to take such theoretical works all the more seriously as we cannot agree with the Augsburger which finds the reality of communist ideas not in Plato but in its obscure acquaintance who, though being gifted in several lines of scientific research, sacrificed all the money he could lay his hands on and washed his comrades’ plates and cleaned their boots according to the will of Father Enfantin. We are firmly convinced that the true danger does not lie in the practical attempt to carry out communist ideas but in their theoretical development; for practical attempts, even by the masses, can be answered with a cannon as soon as they become dangerous, but ideas that have overcome our intellect and
KARL MARX: SELECTED WRITINGS conquered our conviction, ideas to which reason has riveted our conscience are chains from which one cannot break loose without breaking one's heart; they are demons that one can overcome only by submitting to them. Yet the Augsburger Zeitung has never got to know the crisis of conscience caused by the rebellion of man's subjective desires against the objective insights of his own reason, for it has neither reason of its own, nor insights, nor even conscience The law on thefts of wood This article also deals with a debate in the rhenish parliament. a more stringent law on thefts of timber had been proposed. The gathering of dead wood had traditionally been unrestricted but scarcities were caused by the agrarian crises of the 1820s and the growing needs of industry. The situation was getting out of hand: five-sixths of all prosecutions in Prussia dealt with wood, and the proportion was even higher in the rhineland. So now it was being proposed that the keeper be the sole arbiter of an alleged offence and that he alone assess the damages. Marx's general view is that the state should defend customary law against the rapacity of the rich. It was the writing of this article that first directed Mar's attention to socioeconomic problems. he himself wrote in 185 that the proceedings of the Rhenish parliament on thefts of wood . provided one of the first occasions for occupying myself with economic questions. If every violation of property without differentiation or further definition is theft, would not private property be theft? Through my private property do i not exclude a third party from this property? and do i not thus violate his right to property? When you deny the distinction between essentially different types of the same crime, then you deny the crime as distinct from the law and you do away with the law itself, for every crime has a facet that is in common with the law. It is thus a fact as historical as it is rational that an undifferentiated harsh ness destroys all the effects of punishment for it has destroyed punishment as a consequence of the law But we unpractical men lay claim, on behalf of the masses of the poor who have no political or social possessions, to what the learned and docile servants of the so-called historians found to be the true philosopher's stone which could form any impure pretension into the pure gold of right. We reclaim for poverty the right of custom, and moreover a right of custom which is not a local one but which is that of poverty in all lands. We go further and affirm that customary right by its nature can only be the right of the lowest and elementary mass of propertyless people Among the so-called customs of the privileged are understood customs
26 | karl marx: selected writings conquered our conviction, ideas to which reason has riveted our conscience, are chains from which one cannot break loose without breaking one’s heart; they are demons that one can overcome only by submitting to them. Yet the Augsburger Zeitung has never got to know the crisis of conscience caused by the rebellion of man’s subjective desires against the objective insights of his own reason, for it has neither reason of its own, nor insights, nor even conscience . . . The Law on Thefts of Wood This article also deals with a debate in the Rhenish parliament. A more stringent law on thefts of timber had been proposed. The gathering of dead wood had traditionally been unrestricted, but scarcities were caused by the agrarian crises of the 1820s and the growing needs of industry. The situation was getting out of hand: five-sixths of all prosecutions in Prussia dealt with wood, and the proportion was even higher in the Rhineland. So now it was being proposed that the keeper be the sole arbiter of an alleged offence and that he alone assess the damages. Marx’s general view is that the state should defend customary law against the rapacity of the rich. It was the writing of this article that first directed Marx’s attention to socioeconomic problems. He himself wrote in 1859 that ‘the proceedings of the Rhenish parliament on thefts of wood. . . provided one of the first occasions for occupying myself with economic questions.’ . . . If every violation of property without differentiation or further definition is theft, would not private property be theft? Through my private property do I not exclude a third party from this property? And do I not thus violate his right to property? When you deny the distinction between essentially different types of the same crime, then you deny the crime as distinct from the law and you do away with the law itself, for every crime has a facet that is in common with the law. It is thus a fact as historical as it is rational that an undifferentiated harshness destroys all the effects of punishment for it has destroyed punishment as a consequence of the law . . . But we unpractical men lay claim, on behalf of the masses of the poor who have no political or social possessions, to what the learned and docile servants of the so-called historians found to be the true philosopher’s stone which could form any impure pretension into the pure gold of right. We reclaim for poverty the right of custom, and moreover a right of custom which is not a local one but which is that of poverty in all lands. We go further and affirm that customary right by its nature can only be the right of the lowest and elementary mass of propertyless people. Among the so-called customs of the privileged are understood customs