[lbo-talk] Dustup - final installment

Ted Winslow egwinslow at rogers.com
Tue Jul 29 06:41:45 PDT 2008


Sebastian wrote:


> 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?

The sixth thesis is consistent with the third. It's also consistent with Marx's particular conception of human "species-being."

That term designates the specifically human "essence," the potential to become beings who "determine their knowing, willing, and acting in a universal way." (Hegel, Philosophy of Right, § 187)

The sixth thesis makes this a "relational" essence, i.e. an essence that requires a specific set of social relations - "communist" relations - for its existence. These relations and the human essence that both constitutes and is constituted by them are themselves the product of an internally related set of historically precedent relations understood as "stages in the development of the human mind," i.e. as stages in an "educational" process through which human "species-being" - the human "in itself" - becomes actual - "for itself."

This idea of the human essence is found throughout Marx's writing. It's found, for instance, in the context of the passage you quote from the German Ideology.

"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 )

The meaning of "behaviour" here derives from the ontological idea found in the sixth thesis of being as "activities" in "internal relations." It's as "internal relastions" in this ontological sense, that "the relations of individuals under all circumstances can only be their mutual behaviour," i.e. their mutual 'activities" where all "being" including human "being" is "activity" in "internal relations." Following this ontological claim, Marx goes on to claim that capitalism has developed “intercourse and productive forces to such a degree of universality that private property and division of labour have become fetters on them.” The further development of “individuality” therefore requires the “abolition of private property” and division of labour; it requires “liberation from a quite definite mode of development.”

This is turn requires “the all-round development of individuals [a development that will partly be brought about by the “revolutionary praxis” necessary to accomplish the “liberation”], "precisely because the existing form of intercourse and the existing productive forces are all-embracing and only individuals that are developing in an all- round fashion can appropriate them, i.e., can turn them into free manifestations of their lives.”

The “degree of universality” embodied in “intercourse and productive forces” is an index of the degree of “the development of the human mind” to “universality,” since relations and forces of production objectify this development. So "appropriation" of a given developed "degree of universality" in relations and forces of production requires the same developed "degree of universality" in the individuals doing the "appropriating."

When the fettering of this development by private property and the division of labour has been eliminated through their abolition, social relations are made consistent with the further development required for the actualization of ideal “communist” relations.”

These are the relations required for the “genuine and free development of individuals” into “universally developed individuals,” i.e. into “educated” individuals in Hegel’s sense of individuals who "determine their knowing, willing, and acting in a universal way." This both requires and makes possible "the universal character of the activity of individuals on the basis of the existing productive forces."

So the "mutual behaviour" that constitutes the "relations of individuals" in "communism" has "the universal character" set out in the passage in "Comments on James Mill" elaborating how we would produce if "we had carried out production as human beings," i.e as "species-beings" whose "activities" are "the unity of the universal and individual." <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/james-mill/>

“Freedom” as the “free manifestation” of this “universality” – the “freedom” that constitutes human “species-being” – will finally have become “for itself” in “the true realm of freedom.”

"What, at best, does Sancho’s sharpening of contradiction and abolition of the special amount to? To this, that the mutual relations of individuals should be their behaviour to one another, while their mutual differences should be their self-distinctions (as one empirical self distinguishes itself from another). Both of these are either, as with Sancho, an ideological paraphrase of what exists, for the relations of individuals under all circumstances can only be their mutual behaviour, while their differences can only be their self- distinctions. Or they are the pious wish that they should behave in such a way and differ from one another in such a way, that their behaviour does not acquire independent existence as a social relationship independent of them, and that their differences from one another should not assume the material character (independent of the person) which they have assumed and daily continue to assume.

“Individuals have always and in all circumstances ‘proceeded from themselves’, but since they were not unique in the sense of not needing any connections with one another, and since their needs, consequently their nature, and the method of satisfying their needs, connected them with one another (relations between the sexes, exchange, division of labour), they had to enter into relations with one another. Moreover, since they entered into intercourse with one another not as pure egos, but as individuals at a definite stage of development of their productive forces and requirements, and since this intercourse, in its turn, determined production and needs, it was, therefore, precisely the personal, individual behaviour of individuals, their behaviour to one another as individuals, that created the existing relations and daily reproduces them anew. They entered into intercourse with one another as what they were, they proceeded ‘from themselves’, as they were, irrespective of their ‘outlook on life’. This ‘outlook on life’ — even the warped one of the philosophers — could, of course, only be determined by their actual life. Hence it certainly follows that the development of an individual is determined by the development of all the others with whom he is directly or indirectly associated, and that the different generations of individuals entering into relation with one another are connected with one another, that the physical existence of the later generations is determined by that of their predecessors, and that these later generations inherit the productive forces and forms of intercourse accumulated by their predecessors, their own mutual relations being determined thereby. In short, it is clear that development takes place and that the history of a single individual cannot possibly be separated from the history of preceding or contemporary individuals, but is determined by this history.

“The transformation of the individual relationship into its opposite, a purely material relationship, the distinction of individuality and fortuity by the individuals themselves, is a historical process, as we have already shown, and at different stages of development it assumes different, ever sharper and more universal forms. In the present epoch, the domination of material relations over individuals, and the suppression of individuality by fortuitous circumstances, has assumed its sharpest and most universal form, thereby setting existing individuals a very definite task. It has set them the task of replacing the domination of circumstances and of chance over individuals by the domination of individuals over chance and circumstances. It has not, as Sancho imagines, put forward the demand that ‘I should develop myself’, which up to now every individual has done without Sancho’s good advice; it has on the contrary called for liberation from a quite definite mode of development. This task, dictated by present-day relations, coincides with the task of organising society in a communist way.

"We have already shown above that the abolition of a state of affairs in which relations become independent of individuals, in which individuality is subservient to chance and the personal relations of individuals are subordinated to general class relations, etc. — that the abolition of this state of affairs is determined in the final analysis by the abolition of division of labour. We have also shown that the abolition of division of labour is determined by the development of intercourse and productive forces to such a degree of universality that private property and division of labour become fetters on them. We have further shown that private property can be abolished only on condition of an all-round development of individuals, precisely because the existing form of intercourse and the existing productive forces are all-embracing and only individuals that are developing in an all-round fashion can appropriate them, i.e., can turn them into free manifestations of their lives. We have shown that at the present time individuals must abolish private property, because the productive forces and forms of intercourse have developed so far that, under the domination of private property, they have become destructive forces, and because the contradiction between the classes has reached its extreme limit. Finally, we have shown that the abolition of private property and of the division of labour is itself the association of individuals on the basis created by modern productive forces and world intercourse.

“Within communist society, the only society in which the genuine and free development of individuals ceases to be a mere phrase, this development is determined precisely by the connection of individuals, a connection which consists partly in the economic prerequisites and partly in the necessary solidarity of the free development of all, and, finally, in the universal character of the activity of individuals on the basis of the existing productive forces. We are, therefore, here concerned with individuals at a definite historical stage of development and by no means merely with individuals chosen at random, even disregarding the indispensable communist revolution, which itself is a general condition for their free development. The individuals’ consciousness of their mutual relations will, of course, likewise be completely changed, and, therefore, will no more be the “principle of love” ordévoûment than it will be egoism." <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch03o.htm

>

Ted



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