Fisherman, critical critics, etc.

[Michael Hoover]

> "...it is possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to
> hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening,
> criticise after dinner, just as I have mind, without ever becoming a
> hunger, fisherman, shepherd or critic. The fixation of social identity,
> this consolidation of what we produce into an objective power above us,
> growing out of control, thwarting our expectations, bringing to naught our
> calculations is one of the chief historical factors up till now."
> In  discussions of whether Marx's vision of communism resonated with an
> impractical romanticism, there seems to me to have been inadequate analysis
> of what Marx is getting at in this last sentence. I had been thinking about
> it without much success. There seems to be a critique here of the division
> of labor and the fixed social identities on which it has hitherto depended
> (the caste system seemingly the most extreme version) even as more flexible
> responses are needed in the face of the very social problems that such a
> social division of labor throws up.
> rnb

Subjective, or self, alienation, is a persistent theme in Marx's work.
Writing in the *1844 Manuscripts* that this condition has assumed the
form of capital, he is indicating that it has been created and,
therefore, can be acted upon and changed.  His commentary on *James
Mill* is replete with references to the production of objects that
are foreign to the producer.  Marx alludes to the concept in the
*Holy Family* with the assertion of the 'mass rising against its
own deficiency' when it rises against independently existing products.
In *Grundrisse*, he refers to the 'divorce between property and labor
and in *Capital 3*, he writes of the 'domination of capitalist over
worker,' of 'product over producer,' amd of the 'process of alienation'
of labor.

Marx's position on objective alienation - the result of human
relationsship to nature and division of labor - appears to change
over the course of his life.  In the *Manuscripts*, he writes of 
the 'definitive resolution of the antagonism between man and nature,'
but in *Capital 3*, he remarks that humans will 'regulate their
exchange with nature rationally.'  Similarly, the *German Ideology*
contends that communism will be characterized by the 'abolition of
the division of labor,' but *Capital 1* refers to 'abolition of the
old division of labor.'

Marx does not abandon the concept of alienation, however, universal
transcendence of the condition appears a lesser possibility.  Mandel
suggests that Marx adopted a position of 'progressive disalienation'
in which self-alienation can be overcome, but objective alienation
remains inevitable, though certainly diminished due to rational
appropriation of nature and a simplified division of labor.  Plus,
it would seem less alienating as the coercion of subjective 
alienation - though abolition of private property and wage-labor and
participation is more direct democratic processes - is eliminated,
The 'realm of necessity,' inherently alienating remains but becomes
the basis for the 'realm of freedom' (of which a shorter work-day
is the 'primary requisite' as Marx asserts in *Capital 3*).
Subjective alienation disappears with the development of generally
satisfied, rational, social beings.     Michael Hoover