sartesian wrote:
Marx accomplishes much more than just a "simple" corresponding
transliteration of Hegel-- tool for mind, instrument of labor for
cunning of reason. Marx finds in fact that the difference between
human
weaving and spider weaving is that the former goes on under specific
historical circumstances, specific relations of property and
labor. The
latter does not. There is no property in the world of spiders and
bees,
there is no labor to alienate, to exchange, to circulate as a
universal
form of value.
This isn't the difference specified in the text from Capital. The
difference specified there concerns the role of conscious mind in the
human form of "labour." This is taken directly from "idealism."
"By right we ought only to describe as art, production through
freedom, i.e. through a will that places reason at the basis of its
actions. For although we like to call the product of bees
(regularly built cells of wax) a work of art, this is only by way
of analogy; as soon as we feel that this work of theirs is based on
no proper rational deliberation, we say that it is a product of
nature (of instinct)."
"If, as sometimes happens, in searching through a bog
we come upon a bit of shaped wood, we do not say, this is a product
of nature, but of art. Its producing cause has conceived a purpose
to which the plank owes its form. Elsewhere too we should see art
in everything which is made, so that a representative of it in its
cause must have preceded its actual existence (as even in the case
of bees), though without the effect of it even being capable of
being thought. But if we call anything absolutely a work of art,
in order to distinguish it from a natural effect, we always
understand by that a work of man." Kant, Critique of Judgment, pp.
145-6
The "materialist" aspect of Marx's sublation of Hegel is found in the
role given to "real, sensuous activity" both in human being in
general and in the historical process through which the "in itself"
of humanity - the "true individuality" of the "universally developed
individual" - is realized, i.e. becomes "for itself."
The relation of this to "idealism" is set out in the Theses on
Feuerbach. The first thesis is:
The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism – that of
Feuerbach included – is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is
conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but
not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence,
in contradistinction to materialism, the active side was developed
abstractly by idealism – which, of course, does not know real,
sensuous activity as such.
Feuerbach wants sensuous objects, really distinct from the thought
objects, but he does not conceive human activity itself as
objective activity. Hence, in The Essence of Christianity, he
regards the theoretical attitude as the only genuinely human
attitude, while practice is conceived and fixed only in its dirty-
judaical manifestation. Hence he does not grasp the significance of
“revolutionary”, of “practical-critical”, activity.
<http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm>
This explains the role assigned to "forces and relations of
production." According to Marx, human "development" - "education" in
the sense of "bildung" - is brought about by "sensuous activity"
within "relations of production." Thus wage-labour is conceived as a
"steeling school" through which those performing it are in
significant ways "fitted" to become the architects and builders of
the penultimate social form from which all barriers to full human
development have been removed. The "sensuous activity" that
constitutes the "revolutionary praxis" through which this social
transformation is accomplished is also conceived as positively
developmental in this sense.
This role is itself a sublation of Hegel's idealism, specifically of
Hegel's account of the positive developmental impact of the master/
slave relation on slaves.
Understood in this way, "the development of the human mind" - the
development of "reason" - is expressed by the development of "forces
and relations of production" which objectify it. This only becomes
evident to individual minds, however, at the "end" of the process
when the objectifications are perceived as the creations of "sensuous
human activity" - "praxis" - because they are now, in fact, the self-
conscious creations of that activity. Prior to this, forces and
relations of production are "fetishized."
This "materialism" also explains Marx's sublation of Hegel's idea of
the "passions." Hegel has these embodied in "world-historical
individuals" such as Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon. Marx has them
embodied in individuals as members of "classes." Thus, capitalists
are "world-historical individuals" motivated by "passions" and wage-
labour within capitalist relations of production works to develop
individuals into the "world-historical individuals" with the
capabilities and means required to create the penultimate social
form. The "passions" are of necessity to some degree irrational
since they are instrumental means though which "rationality" is
realized.
History as a Continuous Process
In history up to the present it is certainly an empirical fact that
separate individuals have, with the broadening of their activity
into world-historical activity, become more and more enslaved under
a power alien to them (a pressure which they have conceived of as a
dirty trick on the part of the so-called universal spirit, etc.), a
power which has become more and more enormous and, in the last
instance, turns out to be the world market. But it is just as
empirically established that, by the overthrow of the existing
state of society by the communist revolution (of which more below)
and the abolition of private property which is identical with it,
this power, which so baffles the German theoreticians, will be
dissolved; and that then the liberation of each single individual
will be accomplished in the measure in which history becomes
transformed into world history. From the above it is clear that the
real intellectual wealth of the individual depends entirely on the
wealth of his real connections. Only then will the separate
individuals be liberated from the various national and local
barriers, be brought into practical connection with the material
and intellectual production of the whole world and be put in a
position to acquire the capacity to enjoy this all-sided production
of the whole earth (the creations of man). All-round dependence,
this natural form of the world-historical co-operation of
individuals, will be transformed by this communist revolution into
the control and conscious mastery of these powers, which, born of
the action of men on one another, have till now overawed and
governed men as powers completely alien to them. Now this view can
be expressed again in speculative-idealistic, i.e. fantastic, terms
as “self-generation of the species” (“society as the subject”), and
thereby the consecutive series of interrelated individuals
connected with each other can be conceived as a single individual,
which accomplishes the mystery of generating itself. It is clear
here that individuals certainly make one another, physically and
mentally, but do not make themselves.
[5. Development of the Productive Forces as a Material Premise of
Communism]
This “alienation” (to use a term which will be comprehensible to
the philosophers) can, of course, only be abolished given two
practical premises. For it to become an “intolerable” power, i.e. a
power against which men make a revolution, it must necessarily have
rendered the great mass of humanity “propertyless,” and produced,
at the same time, the contradiction of an existing world of wealth
and culture, both of which conditions presuppose a great increase
in productive power, a high degree of its development. And, on the
other hand, this development of productive forces (which itself
implies the actual empirical existence of men in their world-
historical, instead of local, being) is an absolutely necessary
practical premise because without it want is merely made general,
and with destitution the struggle for necessities and all the old
filthy business would necessarily be reproduced; and furthermore,
because only with this universal development of productive forces
is a universal intercourse between men established, which produces
in all nations simultaneously the phenomenon of the “propertyless”
mass (universal competition), makes each nation dependent on the
revolutions of the others, and finally has put world-historical,
empirically universal individuals in place of local ones. Without
this, (1) communism could only exist as a local event; (2) the
forces of intercourse themselves could not have developed as
universal, hence intolerable powers: they would have remained home-
bred conditions surrounded by superstition; and (3) each extension
of intercourse would abolish local communism. Empirically,
communism is only possible as the act of the dominant peoples “all
at once” and simultaneously, which presupposes the universal
development of productive forces and the world intercourse bound up
with communism. Moreover, the mass of propertyless workers – the
utterly precarious position of labour – power on a mass scale cut
off from capital or from even a limited satisfaction and,
therefore, no longer merely temporarily deprived of work itself as
a secure source of life – presupposes the world market through
competition. The proletariat can thus only exist world-
historically, just as communism, its activity, can only have a
“world-historical” existence. World-historical existence of
individuals means existence of individuals which is directly linked
up with world history.
Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be
established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust
itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the
present state of things. The conditions of this movement result
from the premises now in existence.
<http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/
ch01a.htm>
"Freedom," conceived within this "materialist" framework, is fully
free end in itself "sensuous human activity" (that defines what Marx
calls "the true realm of freedom" of an ideal community). It
requires fully developed capabilities both for itself and for the
instrumental activity (that defines what Marx calls "the realm of
necessity" of such a community) that provides the material and other
means required for it . One key "need" is for the "free time" fully
free activity occupies. This is provided by the minimization of time
spent in the realm of necessity, a minimization made possible by the
"productivity" of the instrumental activity of universally developed
individuals organized through relations of mutual recognition. This
"productivity" would, by definition, far exceed that of any previous
form of "human sensuous activity."
Ted
