>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.
Of course are we all a product of at least one social relation: sexuality. But as I learned on this list sexuality is a big issue, producing children and the following coevolution with them for many years not so much.
So your remark is more about the old philosophical prejudice, that people are the product of the circumstances. For Marxist this is a special problem, because Marx text in the 6th thesis on Feuerbach is seen as special formulation of this old prejudice:
"But the human essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations."
An if we keep in mind the remarks on the "the materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances" in the 3rd thesis it may be the case, that Marx had the old idea in mind. But is the 6th thesis the marxist solution of the problem of "human essence"? Ore is it - like other statements to be find in Marx writings - only one step in the evolution
of his ideas?
A eastgerman marxist philosopher, Lothar Kühne, many years ago asked this question. He tried to change the discourse on "Marxism and theory of personality" (Lucien Seve). And Kühne made no secret out of his opposition to the commonly accepted view on the 6th thesis, writing:
"It makes no much difference, if an individual sees his essence in God, the world spirit ore the ensemble of the social relations. Any case his essence would be an outer, alien power and he remained unessential and helpless."
But Kühnes argument was not restricted to polemic remarks, wich could be seen as backward romantic. He made a clear point on the conceptual basis, on wich the circulus vitiosus of "the materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances" is build, writing:
"Bourgeois materialism was unable to distinguish between the specific beeing of human individuals und conditions of this beeing. ... Bourgeois materialism because of the class-constrains of his horizon of thinking could conceive labour only as a condition of human beeing, not as an essential form selfactivity of humon beings [plural!], their selfproduction and history, his social theory got inevitably an naturistic character and was open for idealistic conclusions." [my bad translation]
This , I think, is the central point: Instead of explaining the beeing in question the bourgeois materialism dissolves this beeing into its conditions of existence, and then dissolve these conditions into their conditions and so=2 0on and on. It is a form of disputing away this specific beeing, instead of explaining it. Every selfactivity is taken away in straightforward contradiction to Spinozas great conclusion of the first book of the Ethica: "Nothing exists, from whose nature does not follow some effect." (Proposition 36) If we are not able to consistently think material action, we will never be able to comprehend human labour.
Yes, if individuals would not really exist, they could do nothing. But they do exist, their activities have consequences, and only that's why social relations do exist too. Marx put it in his polemic against Stirner - only a short time after writing the Theses on Feuerbach - this way: "the relations of individuals under all circumstances can only be their mutual behaviour" (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch03o.htm)
ore in the letter to Annenkov, December 28th 1846:
"the social history of human beings [plural!] an is never anything else than the history of their [plural!] individual development, whether they are conscious of this or not." (the translation in http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1846/letters/46_12_28.htm is not exact, it takes "man" in singular for the german "Menschen" in plural.)
I think, there is clear change to be seen between the isolated emphasis on the social relations as the highest essence in the 6th thesis towards a more realistic and - yes - empirical view on society. Marx changed his ideas. Already before the Theses on F euerbach he made a clear statement:
"The individual is the social being." (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm) - in German: "Das Individuum ist das gesellschaftliche Wesen." - quite in contrast to the 6th thesis. New ideas are seldom born like Pallas Athena, coming out of Zeus head fully developed and fully armed. (And for the friends of Althusser: There is no single epistemeological break.)
Marx did not stop in changing his ideas in December 1846. But the most important change from the "Paris manuscripts" over the "Theses on Feuerbach" to the "German ideology" remained, I think, valid: The change to a view that takes the individuals seriously: their possibilites and their reponsibility. It is not at all about taking away the material conditions of production and society - Starting from oxygen in athmosphere, water and ground - but the individuals a part of the overall matter too.
Every one a small part only (take the single axiom of part IV of Spinoza Ethica). That's why we should work together, especially in leftist politics, and that's not easy, because cooperations takes time and efforts. Sometimes it is easyer to make things alone. But not every thing can be realized this way. Communism surely not.
Communism was the second issue in the above cited remark. I have to confess, that I would not like to be a "fully developed person" in the way, many leftist are speaking about communism: a synthesis of everything with everything in society.20Lothar Kühne liked to make jokes about such synthesis, resulting in the individual combination of conflicting human possibilities like the "criminal detective". Only on paper such biographies are a pleasure. In the real world - and in real communism - we have to take decisions and act. But I do not want to start a second debate on freedom and the different ways, in wich we may relate necessity to it.
There are conditions. I have to go back to work.
Sebastian
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