THE EARLY WRITINGS I837-I844 against the law. The date of their birth falls in the period when the history of mankind formed a part of natural history and the Egyptian legend was proved true when all the gods concealed themselves in the form of animals Mankind appears as disintegrated into particular animal races who are held together not by equality but by an inequality that regulates the laws. a uni- versal lack of freedom requires laws that lack freedom, for whereas human law is the existence of freedom animal law is the existence of a lack of The rights of aristocratic custom run counter by their content to the form of general law. They cannot be formed into laws because they are formulations of lawlessness. The fact that these customary rights are through their content in conflict with the form of law, i.e. its universality and necessity, proves that they are unjust customs and that, instead of being enforced in opposition to the law, they should be abrogated because of this opposition and even on occasion l punished. For no one stops behaving unjustly simply because this way of behaving is a custom, any more than the thieving son of a thief is excused by his family's idiosyncrasies. If a man behaves unjustly intentionally, then his inten tion should be punished, and if he behaves unjustly out of custom, then his custom should be punished as being a bad one. In an age of general law rational customary rights are nothing but the custom of legal rights, for rights do not cease to be customary once they have constituted themselves as law, but they do cease to be purely customary. For the law-abiding man law becomes his own custom whereas the man who does not abide by the law is constrained by it gh it is not his custom Rights no longer depend on the chance of whether custom is rational for custom becomes rational, because rights are legal, because custom has become the custom of the state It is unwillingly that we have followed this boring and stupid debate but we thought it our duty to use an example to show what can be expected of an estates assembly motivated by particular interests, were it ever really called upon to legislate We repeat once again that our estates have fulfilled their position as estates, but we are far from wishing to justify them thereby. The rhinelander would have to triumph in them over the representative, and the man over the owner of the woods. Even in law it is not only the representation of particular interests but also the representation of the interest of the province that has been entrusted to them. However contradictory both these tasks may be, one should not hesitate in the case of a confrontation to sacrifice the representation of particular interests to that of the province. The feeling for right and law is the most important provincial characteristic of the rhinelander; but it is
the early writings 1837–1844 | 27 against the law. The date of their birth falls in the period when the history of mankind formed a part of natural history and the Egyptian legend was proved true when all the gods concealed themselves in the form of animals. Mankind appears as disintegrated into particular animal races who are held together not by equality but by an inequality that regulates the laws. A universal lack of freedom requires laws that lack freedom, for whereas human law is the existence of freedom, animal law is the existence of a lack of freedom . . . The rights of aristocratic custom run counter by their content to the form of general law. They cannot be formed into laws because they are formulations of lawlessness. The fact that these customary rights are through their content in conflict with the form of law, i.e. its universality and necessity, proves that they are unjust customs and that, instead of being enforced in opposition to the law, they should be abrogated because of this opposition and even on occasion be punished. For no one stops behaving unjustly simply because this way of behaving is a custom, any more than the thieving son of a thief is excused by his family’s idiosyncrasies. If a man behaves unjustly intentionally, then his intention should be punished, and if he behaves unjustly out of custom, then his custom should be punished as being a bad one. In an age of general law rational customary rights are nothing but the custom of legal rights, for rights do not cease to be customary once they have constituted themselves as law, but they do cease to be purely customary. For the law-abiding man law becomes his own custom whereas the man who does not abide by the law is constrained by it even though it is not his custom. Rights no longer depend on the chance of whether custom is rational for custom becomes rational, because rights are legal, because custom has become the custom of the state . . . It is unwillingly that we have followed this boring and stupid debate, but we thought it our duty to use an example to show what can be expected of an estates assembly motivated by particular interests, were it ever really called upon to legislate . . . We repeat once again that our estates have fulfilled their position as estates, but we are far from wishing to justify them thereby. The Rhinelander would have to triumph in them over the representative, and the man over the owner of the woods. Even in law it is not only the representation of particular interests but also the representation of the interest of the province that has been entrusted to them. However contradictory both these tasks may be, one should not hesitate in the case of a confrontation to sacrifice the representation of particular interests to that of the province. The feeling for right and law is the most important provincial characteristic of the Rhinelander; but it is
KARL MARX: SELECTED WRITINGS self-evident that particular interests know no fatherland and no province either, no cosmopolitanism and no parochialism either Those imaginative writers who are pleased to find in romantic idealism a bottomless depth of character and a most fruitful source of peculiarly indi vidual types of attitude in a representation of particular interests are quite wrong: such a representation destroys all natural and spiritual differences in that it enthrones in their place an immoral, foolish, and spiritless abstraction of limited content which is slavishly subordinate to a narrow consciousness Letter to Arnold ruge This letter, written in November 1842, explains in detail the reasons for Marx's break with his Berlin Young Hegelian friends known as the Freien, or Free Men whose contributions he eventually excluded from the newspaper. He had become increasingly estranged from his former colleagues whose extremism did not permit them, so he thought, to appreciate the difficulties involved in editing a Rhineland newspaper. A few days ago i received a letter from little Meyen, whose favourite cat- egory, and quite rightly, is ought, in which there was talk of my relationship (I)to you and Herwegh; (2 )to the Free Men; and(3)of the new principles of editing and the position vis-a-vis the government. I replied immediately and gave him my frank opinion of the deficiencies of their work, which finds fr dom more in a licentious. sansculottish and thus convenient form than in a free i. e independent and profound content. I called for them to show less vague reasoning, fine-sounding phrases, conceited self-admiration, and more preci sion, more detail on concrete circumstances, and more knowledge of the sub ject. I explained that i held the smuggling into incidental theatre reviews etc. of communist and socialist dogmas, that is of a new world-view, to be unsuitable and indeed immoral, and that I desired quite a different and more profound discussion of communism if it were to be discussed at all. i then asked that religion should be criticized more within a critique of the political situation than the political situation within a critique of religion, because this approach fits better the nature of a newspaper and the education of the public; for religion has no content of its own and does not live from heaven but from earth and falls automatically with dissolution of the inverted reality whose theory it is Finally i wished that, if philosophy were to be spoken of, there should be less trifling with the slogan 'atheism'(like children who assure anyone who will listen to them that they are not afraid of an ogre) and more presenting its pIe. That's all
28 | karl marx: selected writings self-evident that particular interests know no fatherland and no province either, no cosmopolitanism and no parochialism either. Those imaginative writers who are pleased to find in romantic idealism a bottomless depth of character and a most fruitful source of peculiarly individual types of attitude in a representation of particular interests are quite wrong: such a representation destroys all natural and spiritual differences in that it enthrones in their place an immoral, foolish, and spiritless abstraction of limited content which is slavishly subordinate to a narrow consciousness . . . Letter to Arnold Ruge This letter, written in November 1842, explains in detail the reasons for Marx’s break with his Berlin Young Hegelian friends known as the Freien, or Free Men, whose contributions he eventually excluded from the newspaper. He had become increasingly estranged from his former colleagues whose extremism did not permit them, so he thought, to appreciate the difficulties involved in editing a Rhineland newspaper. . . . A few days ago I received a letter from little Meyen, whose favourite category, and quite rightly, is ‘ought’, in which there was talk of my relationship: (1) to you and Herwegh; (2) to the Free Men; and (3) of the new principles of editing and the position vis-à-vis the government. I replied immediately and gave him my frank opinion of the deficiencies of their work, which finds freedom more in a licentious, sansculottish and thus convenient form than in a free, i.e. independent and profound content. I called for them to show less vague reasoning, fine-sounding phrases, conceited self-admiration, and more precision, more detail on concrete circumstances, and more knowledge of the subject. I explained that I held the smuggling into incidental theatre reviews etc. of communist and socialist dogmas, that is of a new world-view, to be unsuitable and indeed immoral, and that I desired quite a different and more profound discussion of communism if it were to be discussed at all. I then asked that religion should be criticized more within a critique of the political situation than the political situation within a critique of religion, because this approach fits better the nature of a newspaper and the education of the public; for religion has no content of its own and does not live from heaven but from earth and falls automatically with dissolution of the inverted reality whose theory it is. Finally I wished that, if philosophy were to be spoken of, there should be less trifling with the slogan ‘atheism’ (like children who assure anyone who will listen to them that they are not afraid of an ogre) and more presenting its content to the people. That’s all . .
THE EARLY WRITINGS I837-I844 On the estates committees in prussia Marx here attacks an article in the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung that advocated the institution of the Estates Committees -national advisory committees whose membership was chosen on the basis of estates. frederick William iv had decided on their institution as an attempt to meet demands for popular representation. the extract below gives Marx's interpretation, again in a very Hegelian manner, of what representation' should mean If this political self-reliance of particular interests were a necessity in the state, this would only be a symptom of its inner disease, just as the laws of nature say that an unhealthy body must break out in spots. One must opt for one of two points of view, either that the particular interests overstrain them selves, become alienated from the political spirit of the state and wish to limit the state, or the state concentrates itself in the government alone, and grants the limited spirit of the people as a recompense simply a sphere to ventilate its particular interests. Finally one could make a synthesis of both views. So if the desire for a representation of intelligence is to be meaningful, then we must intel pret it as the desire for the conscious representation of the people' s intelli- gence not in order to enforce individual needs against the state but to realize that its highest need is to make the state really its own creation, its own state To be represented is in general something to be suffered; only the material, spiritless, dependent, insecure need representation; but no element in the state should be material, spiritless, dependent, insecure Representation should not be conceived of as the representation of some stuff that is not the people itself, but only as its self-representation, as an action of state that only distinguishes itself by the universality of its content from the other manifestations political life. Representation must not be looked upon as a concession to defenceless weakness and powerlessness but as the self-conscious vitality of the strongest force. In a true state there is no landed property, no industry, no material stuff that can, as such elements, strike a bargain with the state; there are only spiritual powers and it is only in their resurrection in the state, in their political rebirth, that natural powers are capable of having a political voice. The state has spiritual nerves throughout the whole of nature, and it must appear at every point that not matter but form, not nature without the state but political nature, not the unfree object but the free man, dominates Defence of the Moselle correspondent This article, too engaged Marx's interest in economic questions. One of the correspondents of the rheinische Zeitung had exposed the poverty of the wine-growers in the Moselle region. Challenged by the government, Marx defended his correspondent's conclusions In his view
the early writings 1837–1844 | 29 On the Estates Committees in Prussia Marx here attacks an article in the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung that advocated the institution of the Estates Committees—national advisory committees whose membership was chosen on the basis of Estates. Frederick William IV had decided on their institution as an attempt to meet demands for popular representation. The extract below gives Marx’s interpretation, again in a very Hegelian manner, of what ‘representation’ should mean. . . . If this political self-reliance of particular interests were a necessity in the state, this would only be a symptom of its inner disease, just as the laws of nature say that an unhealthy body must break out in spots. One must opt for one of two points of view, either that the particular interests overstrain themselves, become alienated from the political spirit of the state and wish to limit the state, or the state concentrates itself in the government alone, and grants the limited spirit of the people as a recompense simply a sphere to ventilate its particular interests. Finally one could make a synthesis of both views. So if the desire for a representation of intelligence is to be meaningful, then we must interpret it as the desire for the conscious representation of the people’s intelligence not in order to enforce individual needs against the state but to realize that its highest need is to make the state really its own creation, its own state. To be represented is in general something to be suffered; only the material, spiritless, dependent, insecure need representation; but no element in the state should be material, spiritless, dependent, insecure. Representation should not be conceived of as the representation of some stuff that is not the people itself, but only as its self-representation, as an action of state that only distinguishes itself by the universality of its content from the other manifestations of its political life. Representation must not be looked upon as a concession to defenceless weakness and powerlessness but as the self-conscious vitality of the strongest force. In a true state there is no landed property, no industry, no material stuff that can, as such elements, strike a bargain with the state; there are only spiritual powers and it is only in their resurrection in the state, in their political rebirth, that natural powers are capable of having a political voice. The state has spiritual nerves throughout the whole of nature, and it must appear at every point that not matter but form, not nature without the state but political nature, not the unfree object but the free man, dominates . . . Defence of the Moselle Correspondent This article, too, engaged Marx’s interest in economic questions. One of the correspondents of the Rheinische Zeitung had exposed the poverty of the wine-growers in the Moselle region. Challenged by the government, Marx defended his correspondent’s conclusions. In his view
KARL MARX: SELECTED WRITINGS the problems were not so much the result of human intentions as of objective economic relationships; and a free press could help towards a resolution of such problems When investigating political conditions, one is too easily tempted to neglect the objective character of the relationships and to explain everything from the wills of the persons acting. There are relationships, however, which determine both the actions of private persons and of individual authorities, and which are as independent of the will as breathing. If this objective standpoint is taken from the beginning, one will not presuppose an exclusively good or bad will on either side. Rather, one will observe relationships in which, at first, only per sons appear to act; and as soon as it is proved that something was necessitated by circumstances, it will not be difficult to work out under which external conditions this thing actually had to come into being, and under which other conditions it could not have come about although a need for it was present This can be determined with almost the same certainty as a chemist determines under which external conditions given substances will form a compound BIBLIOGRAPHY ORIGINAL MEW Vol.1:pp.47fp.58;pp.103f;p.108;pp.113,115,116146f;vol.27,p.412; MEGA, I (: )1, pp 334 f. MEW, Vol 1, pp 177 PRESENT TRANSLATION K Marx, Early Texts, pp 35 f. pp 4l f pp 47 f 49 f. p 53; pp 56 f translated for OTHER TRANSLATIONS Excerpts in Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, ed Easton and Guddat, pp 96 ff. K. Marx, F. Engels, Collected Works, New York, 1975, Vol. 1, pp. 109 ff COMMENTARIES D. Howard, The Development of the Marxian Dialectic, Carbondale, Ill 1972, pp. 24 ff H. Lubasz, Marx's Initial Problematic: The Problem of Poverty' Political Studies, Mar A. McGovern, ' Marx's First Political Writings: the Rheinische Zeitung 1842-43, in F. Adelmann, ed. Demythologising Marxism, The Hague, 1969 D. McLellan, Marx before Marxism, Harmondsworth 1972 Ch 4
30 | karl marx: selected writings the problems were not so much the result of human intentions as of objective economic relationships; and a free press could help towards a resolution of such problems. . . . When investigating political conditions, one is too easily tempted to neglect the objective character of the relationships and to explain everything from the wills of the persons acting. There are relationships, however, which determine both the actions of private persons and of individual authorities, and which are as independent of the will as breathing. If this objective standpoint is taken from the beginning, one will not presuppose an exclusively good or bad will on either side. Rather, one will observe relationships in which, at first, only persons appear to act; and as soon as it is proved that something was necessitated by circumstances, it will not be difficult to work out under which external conditions this thing actually had to come into being, and under which other conditions it could not have come about although a need for it was present. This can be determined with almost the same certainty as a chemist determines under which external conditions given substances will form a compound . . . BIBLIOGRAPHY ORIGINAL MEW, Vol. 1: pp. 47 f.; p. 58; pp. 103 f.; p. 108; pp. 113, 115, 116, 146 f.; Vol. 27, p. 412; MEGA, I (:) 1, pp. 334 f.; MEW, Vol. 1, pp. 177. PRESENT TRANSLATION K. Marx, Early Texts, pp. 35 f.; pp. 41 f.; pp. 47 f.; 49 f.; p. 53; pp. 56 f.; translated for present edition. OTHER TRANSLATIONS Excerpts in Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, ed. Easton and Guddat, pp. 96 ff. K. Marx, F. Engels, Collected Works, New York, 1975, Vol. 1, pp. 109 ff. COMMENTARIES D. Howard, The Development of the Marxian Dialectic, Carbondale, Ill., 1972, pp. 24 ff. H. Lubasz, ‘Marx’s Initial Problematic: The Problem of Poverty’, Political Studies, Mar. 1976. A. McGovern, ‘Marx’s First Political Writings: the Rheinische Zeitung 1842–43’, in F. Adelmann, ed., Demythologising Marxism, The Hague, 1969. D. McLellan, Marx before Marxism, Harmondsworth, 1972, Ch. 4
THE EARLY WRITINGS I837-I8443 M. Rose, Marx's Lost Aesthetic, Cambridge, 1984, Ch 3 E. Sherover-Marcuse, Emancipation and Consciousness: Dogmatic and Dialectical Perspectives in the early Marx, Oxford, 1986, Ch.1
the early writings 1837–1844 | 31 M. Rose, Marx’s Lost Aesthetic, Cambridge, 1984, Ch. 3. E. Sherover-Marcuse, Emancipation and Consciousness: Dogmatic and Dialectical Perspectives in the Early Marx, Oxford, 1986, Ch. 1