> how does the concept throw light on the 'problems'
> of a socialist regime as it first emerges from capitalism. Those
> who are
> build both the movement for socialism _and_ the early decades of a
> socialist society are individuals 'created' by capitalism, and
> those who
> create the world of "'freely associated' producers" will not
> themselves
> "universally developed."
Marx claims the penultimate form of social arrangement that will emerge from capitalism can't be the ideal form because the "subjective and objective conditions" this form requires aren't able to fully develop within capitalism. He also claims, however, that It is an arrangement from which all barriers to this full development will have been removed. Since the end determines the means with "the rigidity of a law," we need to know the nature of the ideal and of the subjective and objective conditions its full actualization requires to know the nature of an arrangement which would eliminate all barriers to full individual development. This would include the nature and degree of "planning" associated with the penultimate arrangement.
This arrangement itself can only be actualized where the subjective and objective conditions it requires (the conditions necessary for the existence of individuals willing and able to actualize it) have been created. For it to be practicable in a given context it must be the case that the context has worked to create the individual capabilities its creation and functioning requires.
This requirement appears in the distinction Marx draws between "appropriation" and "possession". "Means of production" are the "power of knowledge, objectified." Their "appropriation" requires the knowledge they objectify. This in turn requires the developed capability for such knowledge. So "socialism" as Marx understands involves more than collective "possession" of the means of production; it invovles their collective "appropriation" and this requires individuals with an already highly developed capability to "think and feel rightly" (as Keynes puts it).
This idea of "appropriation" is elaborated in the following passage from the German Ideology:
"Thus things have now come to such a pass that the individuals must appropriate the existing totality of productive forces, not only to achieve self-activity, but, also, merely to safeguard their very existence. This appropriation is first determined by the object to be appropriated, the productive forces, which have been developed to a totality and which only exist within a universal intercourse. From this aspect alone, therefore, this appropriation must have a universal character corresponding to the productive forces and the intercourse.
"The appropriation of these forces is itself nothing more than the development of the individual capacities corresponding to the material instruments of production. The appropriation of a totality of instruments of production is, for this very reason, the development of a totality of capacities in the individuals themselves.
"This appropriation [of the forces of production developed in capitalism] is further determined by the persons appropriating. Only the proletarians of the present day, who are completely shut off from all self-activity, are in a position to achieve a complete and no longer restricted self-activity, which consists in the appropriation of a totality of productive forces and in the thus postulated development of a totality of capacities. All earlier revolutionary appropriations were restricted; individuals, whose self-activity was restricted by a crude instrument of production and a limited intercourse, appropriated this crude instrument of production, and hence merely achieved a new state of limitation. Their instrument of production became their property, but they themselves remained subordinate to the division of labour and their own instrument of production. In all expropriations up to now, a mass of individuals remained subservient to a single instrument of production; in the appropriation by the proletarians, a mass of instruments of production must be made subject to each individual, and property to all. Modern universal intercourse can be controlled by individuals, therefore, only when controlled by all.
"This appropriation is further determined by the manner in which it must be effected. It can only be effected through a union, which by the character of the proletariat itself can again only be a universal one, and through a revolution, in which, on the one hand, the power of the earlier mode of production and intercourse and social organisation is overthrown, and, on the other hand, there develops the universal character and the energy of the proletariat, without which the revolution cannot be accomplished; and in which, further, the proletariat rids itself of everything that still clings to it from its previous position in society." http:// www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01d.htm
Ted