> The corrected translation makes clear, that the "potential" you
> spoke about is an every day necessity for a person
> in modern, capitalist society:
>
> "Individuals in their capacity as citizens in this state ["this
> state" refers to § 183, "Not- und Verstandesstaat"] are
> private persons whose end is their own interest. This end is
> mediated through the general public which thus
> appears as a means to its realisation. Consequently,
> individuals can attain their ends only in so far as they
> themselves determine their knowing, willing, and acting in a
> general way and make themselv
> es links in this
> chain of social connections."
>
>
> You quoted parts of the "German Ideology". In these parts -
> in contrast to the text of Hegel - in the in german
> text not only the word "universell" /(en. "universal"), but
> even interesting derivatives like "universeller"/ more
> universal/ – and "universellste"/ most universal/ - have
> actually been used by Marx and/ore Engels – trough it by
> no means clear, what a superlative degree of "universal"
> could mean in plain german.
>
> But it is clear, that the direct relationship you see between
> Hegels text and the text of the "German Ideology"
> does only exist in the english translation.
The idea conveyed by "universal" as opposed to "general" is, however, found in the elaboration of the idea of "educated men" that follows. It's this idea of I'm attributing to Marx.
"By educated men, we may prima facie understand those who without the obtrusion of personal idiosyncrasy can do what others do. It is precisely this idiosyncrasy, however, which uneducated men display, since their behaviour is not governed by the universal characteristics of the situation. Similarly, an uneducated man is apt to hurt the feelings of his neighbours. He simply lets himself go and does not reflect on the susceptibilities of others. It is not that he intends to hurt them, but his conduct is not consonant with his intention. Thus education rubs the edges off particular characteristics until a man conducts himself in accordance with the nature of the thing. Genuine originality, which produces the real thing, demands genuine education, while bastard originality adopts eccentricities which only enter the heads of the uneducated." <http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/pr/prcivils.htm>
This idea of human "behaviour" as able to become, through "education," behaviour "governed by the universal characteristics of the situation" is what Hegel means by "freedom" as the "idea" of humanity, as the human "destiny." In terms of willing, such "freedom" is the potential to develop and actualize a "will proper" and a "universal will."
"The Will Proper, or the Higher Appetite, is (a) pure indeterminateness of the Ego, which as such has no limitation or a content which is immediately extant through nature but is indifferent towards any and every determinateness. (b) The Ego can, at the same time, pass over to a determinateness and make a choice of some one or other and then actualize it." (Hegel, The Philosophical Propaedeutic, p. 2)
The "Universal Will" is "the Will which is Lawful and Just or in accordance with Reason." (Philosophical Propaedeutic, p. 1)
"But that the Will may be truly and absolutely free it is requisite that what it wills, or its content, be naught else than the Will itself: i.e. the pure self-determination, or the act that is in harmony with itself. It is requisite that it wills only in-itself and has itself for its object. The Pure Will, therefore, does not will some special content or other on account of its specialty but in order that the Will as such may in its deed be free and be freely actualized; in other words, that the Universal Will be done." (Philosophical Propaedeutic, p. 4)
"Education" of the individual is necessary "to elevate his being as an individual into conformity with his universal nature."
"Man, as an individual, stands in relation to himself. He has two aspects: his individuality and his universal essence. His Duty to Himself consists partly in his duty to care for his physical preservation, partly in his duty to educate himself, to elevate his being as an individual into conformity with his universal nature.
"Explanatory: Man is, on the one hand, a natural being. As such he behaves according to caprice and accident as an inconstant, subjective being. He does not distinguish the essential from the unessential. Secondly, he is a spiritual, rational being and as such he is not by nature what he ought to be. The animal stands in no need of education, for it is by nature what it ought to be. It is only a natural being. But man has the task of bringing into harmony his two sides, of making his individuality conform to his rational side or of making the latter become his guiding principle. For instance, when man gives way to anger and acts blindly from passion he behaves in an uneducated way because, in this, he takes an injury or affront for something of infinite importance and seeks to make things even by injuring the transgressor in undue measure." (Philosophical Propaedeutic, pp.41-2)
As elaborated by Hegel (and, following him, by Marx), human history is a process of "education" in this sense through which the "Idea of Humanity," human being as "species-being." is actualized.
"The error which first meets us is the direct contradictory of our principle that the state presents the realization of Freedom; the opinion, viz., that man is free by nature, but that in society, in the State – to which nevertheless he is irresistibly impelled – he must limit this natural freedom. That man is free by Nature is quite correct in one sense; viz., that he is so according to the Idea of Humanity; but we imply thereby that he is such only in virtue of his destiny – that he has an undeveloped power to become such; for the “Nature” of an object is exactly synonymous with its 'Idea.' But the view in question imports more than this. When man is spoken of as 'free by Nature,' the mode of his existence as well as his destiny is implied. His merely natural and primary condition is intended. In this sense a 'state of Nature' is assumed in which mankind at large are in the possession of their natural rights with the unconstrained exercise and enjoyment of their freedom. This assumption is not indeed raised to the dignity of the historical fact; it would indeed be difficult, were the attempt seriously made, to point out any such condition as actually existing, or as having ever occurred. Examples of a savage state of life can be pointed out, but they are marked by brutal passions and deeds of violence; while, however rude and simple their conditions, they involve social arrangements which (to use the common phrase) restrain freedom. That assumption is one of those nebulous images which theory produces; an idea which it cannot avoid originating, but which it fathers upon real existence, without sufficient historical justification.
“What we find such a state of Nature to be in actual experience, answers exactly to the Idea of a merely natural condition.
“Freedom as the ideal of that which is original and natural, does not exist as original and natural. Rather must it be first sought out and won; and that by an incalculable medial discipline of the intellectual and moral powers. The state of Nature is, therefore, predominantly that of injustice and violence, of untamed natural impulses, of inhuman deeds and feelings. Limitation is certainly produced by Society and the State, but it is a limitation of the mere brute emotions and rude instincts; as also, in a more advanced stage of culture, of the premeditated self-will of caprice and passion. This kind of constraint is part of the instrumentality by which only, the consciousness of Freedom and the desire for its attainment, in its true – that is Rational and Ideal form – can be obtained. To the Ideal of Freedom, Law and Morality are indispensably requisite; and they are in and for themselves, universal existences, objects and aims; which are discovered only by the activity of thought, separating itself from the merely sensuous, and developing itself, in opposition thereto; and which must on the other hand, be introduced into and incorporated with the originally sensuous will, and that contrarily to its natural inclination.” <http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hi/introduction-lectures.htm
>
Such "universality" also characterizes fully "free" artistic activity.
“In caprice it is involved that the content is not formed by the nature of my will, but by contingency. I am dependent upon this content. This is the contradiction contained in caprice. Ordinary man believes that he is free, when he is allowed to act capriciously, but precisely in caprice is it inherent that he is not free. When I will the rational, I do not act as a particular individual but according to the conception of ethical life in general. In an ethical act I establish not myself but the thing. A man, who acts perversely, exhibits particularity. The rational is the highway on which every one travels, and no one is specially marked. When a great artist finishes a work we say: ‘It must be so.’ The particularity of the artist has wholly disappeared and the work shows no mannerism. Phidias has no mannerism; the statue itself lives and moves. But the poorer is the artist, the more easily we discern himself, his particularity all caprice. If we adhere to the consideration that in caprice a man can will what he pleases, we have certainly freedom of a kind; but again, if we hold to the view that the content is given, then man must be determined by it, and in this light is no longer free.” <http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/pr/printrod.htm>
So "freedom" as elaborated here is the "determination" of "knowing, willing and acting in a universal way." Individuals with the fully developed "species-powers" such freedom requires are what Marx means by "species-beings," "true individuality," fully "free individuality," "universally developed individuals," "totally developed individuals," etc. It's the idea of "freedom" found in the passage from Engels's Anti-Duhring on the relation of "freedom" to "necessity."
This explains why the full development and actualization of "freedom" requires the "annihilation" of the division of labour. The "totally developed individual" is "the individual man who is absolutely available for the different kinds of labour required of him" and "for whom the different social functions are different modes of activity he takes up in turn.” <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm>
This is Hegel's "educated" individual, an idea to which Marx explicitly makes reference earlier in Capital.
"Hegel held very heretical views on division of labour. In his “Rechtsphilosophie” he says: 'By well educated men we understand in the first instance, those who can do everything that others do.'" <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch14.htm>
Such "annihilation" includes annihilation of the division of labour in artistic activity. Division of labour in such activity generates and expresses "narrowness," as opposed to "universality," of development.
"The exclusive concentration of artistic talent in particular individuals, and its suppression in the broad mass which is bound up with this, is a consequence of division of labour. Even if in certain social conditions, everyone were an excellent painter, that would by no means exclude the possibility of each of them being also an original painter, so that here too the difference between ‘human’ and 'unique' labour amounts to sheer nonsense. In any case, with a communist organisation of society. there disappears the subordination of the artist to local and national narrowness, which arises entirely from division of labour, and also the subordination of the individual to some definite art, making him exclusively a painter, sculptor, etc.; the very name amply expresses the narrowness of his professional development and his dependence on division of labour. In a communist society there are no painters but only people who engage in painting among other activities." <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch03l.htm
>
The "all-around development of the individual" and the annihilation of the division of labour are also made a prerequisite for the actualization of "freedom" in this sense in The Critique of the Gotha Programme. The "higher phase of communist society" is one where
"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".
So the meaning of "species-being" elaborated in the text from the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts" as the "totally developed individual" "capable of producing according to the standards of every species and of applying to each object its inherent standard; hence, man also produces in accordance with the laws of beauty" (i.e. as the being whose "behaviour is governed by the universal characteristics of the situation," who "conducts himself in accordance with the nature of the thing"} is a foundational idea for the "mature" as well as the "early" Marx (and Engels), as many texts, including these, demonstrate.
Ted