> You indicate that Marx sees the labor process as constituting
> subjectivity, but forget that the laboring subject, or at least the
> collective subject, also acts on capital. This, I think, is the
> point of, among other things, the sections in Capital on
> cooperation and the fight for the ten-hour day (and even the
> sections on primitive accumulation). And I certainly don't agree
> with your teleological, progressivist account of Marx's conception
> of history. Probably in Marx's early years this existed, but it
> disappeared by Capital. Presumably, when you say "penultimate
> social form" you mean before the final social form, ie, communism.
> But Marx defined communism as the destruction of the present state
> of things, so I don't see how a stagist, progressive history fits
> in with a future that never arrives. Finally, I don't think that
> Marx has such an essential view of freedom as you indicate here;
> that is, I don't read freedom as a static state to come to. The
> Chapter on Money on Capital is clear that capitalism *depends* on
> freedom, even if it is a wholly negative freedom.
The "subjectivity" Marx has it constituting involves, as the passage Read quoted explicitly claims, "consciousness (or better: the idea) of free self-determination." This is a "humanist" idea of human subjectivity, i.e. it confirms the humanist idea of human subjectivity I'm attributing to him and contradicts, as do many other texts of the "late" Marx (lots of which I've quoted), the attribution of "anti-humanism" to the late Marx.
It's the idea of "free self-determination," in combination with the development of "capabilities" that, according to Marx, the capitalist labour process also develops, that explains both the will and ability of the real "subjects" involved to alter that process, through their own self-determined action, in a way that makes it more consistent with "free self-determination" (e.g. that makes them able to reduce the working day through self-determined "struggle") and eventually to transform it in a way that eliminates all obstacles to the full development of the capabilities required for the actualization of "the true realm of freedom" (a concept elaborated in the late writings of Marx that Engels assembled as vol. 3 of Capital <http:// www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch48.htm>).
So the fact that Marx has those subjected to the capitalist labour process developing the will and capability to act on that process and make it more consistent with "free self-determination" confirms rather than contradicts the reading I'm defending (and contradicts readings that claim the late Marx's idea of human being excludes the idea of "free self-determination").
There are also many late texts (lots of which I've also quoted) that confirm a "teleological, progessivist account of Marx's conception of history". For instance, the Critique of the Gotha Programme (written in 1875) contains the following passage:
What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.
“Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form.
“Hence, equal right here is still in principle -- bourgeois right, although principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads, while the exchange of equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the average and not in the individual case. “In spite of this advance, this equal right is still constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. The right of the producers is proportional to the labor they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labor. “But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only -- for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.
“But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.
“In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co- operative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!” http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm
This assumes the existence of an ultimate eternally valid principle of “right” that will characterize “the true realm of freedom” that constitutes, according to Marx, the “telos” of humanity, i.e. a principle that will constitute the content of human willing when that content becomes “universal” and actualizes fully “free self- determination.”
It claims this aspect of full “freedom” can only be actualized “in a higher phase of communist society” after the penultimate preceding phase has made possible the “all-around development of the individual” by eliminating “the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor” etc.
It therefore posits a penultimate phase which eliminates the obstacles to the full actualization of the telos – fully “free self- determination” (“a complete and no longer restricted self-activity” in which “labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want”), but in which the telos itself is not yet fully practicable.
This is “a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges.” In particular, “morally” it actualizes a distributive principle – a principle of “right” – that is “stigmatized by a bourgeouis limitation” and hence is inconsistent with the “universal” principle that would characterize fully “free self-determination.” Ted