> For me, this is exactly backwards. According to Marx, it is the
> social conditions of a socialist society that make possible the
> "full development" and "many-sidedness" of individuals (cue Ted
> here). The fully developed people of Marx's communist society are
> not free of social constraints and social forces; rather, the
> ensemble of social forces in a communist society facilitate the
> creation of fully developed people. We are always and inescapably
> the product of social relations.
But, for Marx, it's the degree to which individuals are "autonomous" in the sense of rationally self-determined that's "the product of social relations," "communist" relations being both the product and the producer of such fully rationally self-determined individuals. This is explicitly claimed in the Grundrisse passage that makes such relations necessarily the rationally self-conscious creation of "universally developed individuals." <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch03.htm>
For this reason, communist relations can only be fully actualized by individuals with the developed capacities required to be their fully rationally self-conscious "architects" in the sense of
"what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement. He not only effects a change of form in the material on which he works, but he also realises a purpose of his own that gives the law to his modus operandi, and to which he must subordinate his will." <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htm>
So such relations can't be created by individuals not having a rational idea of what they are and of what's required to create them. This is the only "practical" way of doing this; the "means" are entailed in the "purpose" they are to realize.
In stages of "bildung" prior to this, positive consequences do not require to be, and cannot be, the consciously intended product of fully rational self-consciousness individuals since such "individuality" has yet to be fully actualized. They are the product of "passions" in the sense of Hegel.
But, the higher the stage the greater the degree of rational self- consciousness required.
Thus the penultimate stage created by the "revolutionary praxis" that transforms capitalism requires the degree of individual development necessary to enable the individuals whose praxis it is to "appropriate" the "productive forces" (these being themselves understood as developed "mind" and objectifications of developed "mind") developed within capitalism and use them to create social relations from which all barriers to full individual development (in the above sense) have been removed.
In Capital, Marx contrasts this kind of "personal appropriation" with "capitalistic appropriation."
"Science, generally speaking, costs the capitalist nothing, a fact that by no means hinders him from exploiting it. The science of others is as much annexed by capital as the labour of others. Capitalistic appropriation and personal appropriation, whether of science or of material wealth, are, however, totally different things. Dr. Ure himself deplores the gross ignorance of mechanical science existing among his dear machinery-exploiting manufacturers, and Liebig can a tale unfold about the astounding ignorance of chemistry displayed by English chemical manufacturers." <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm>
Ted