> Actually, the perspective of Marx's "critique" is that:
>
> "Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form.
> The critic can therefore start out from any form of theoretical and
> practical consciousness and from the forms peculiar to existing
> reality develop the true reality as its obligation and its final goal."
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/letters/43_09.htm
Well, quickly:
I wasn't talking about the perspective of Marx's "critique" at a particular point of his intellectual trajectory. I was talking about the general perspective of Marxism, which is different. Marx's thought is not identical to Marxism. Marx's thought evolved. And Marxism is more than Marx's thought: It includes the thought of several generations of Marxist thinkers.
In Prussia ca. 1843, Marx came to the realization that the "point of departure" for his *subjective* engagement with the world was whatever the hell was out there -- whatever was relevant, the focus of the social conflicts as they were ideologically rationalized in the given context. (And "subjective" here is not merely speculation or passive contemplation, but also active subjectivity, or "practice," a notion of subjectivity that Marx attributed to Hegel or to the "idealists" in general.) In Marx's context then, the main ideological battles were fought over the nature of religion and of the Prussian state. The young Hegelians were into that, and that was Marx's milieu.
Hence statements like the ones pasted below, including the one Ted referred -- which I reproduce with its previous and a subsequent paragraph.
Although, I believe, Marx remained largely loyal to his fundamental youthful ideas, say, as expressed in the Jahrbucher and later in his Economic & Philosophical Manuscripts, he was permanently broadening his scope, fleshing out his "generalities" (turning them into "totalities"), shifting or adjusting his emphasis, concerns, etc. Marx's "points of departure" shifted over his life time, and although one can argue that all these "points of departure" were special cases of the *general* "point of departure" enunciated in the Jahrbucher, namely the "real struggles," how he viewed the conditions under which these struggles were waged, the social sources of these struggles, etc. changed significantly over his lifetime. Clearly, at some point in the late 1840s as he moved to Paris, and then to Brussels and London, something clicked and Marx broadened his view of the world he was engaged with, and concluded that his new "point of departure" should be the critique of political economy -- the highest point of bourgeois science and ideology in his time. He refers to this realization in the 1859 preface, which he deemed necessary in order to grasp the inner workings (the "anatomy") of his general notion of modern "civil society," etc.
Here's on Marx's "points of departure" in the early 1840s:
* * *
"And the whole socialist principle in its turn is only one aspect that concerns the reality of the true human being. But we have to pay just as much attention to the other aspect, to the theoretical existence of man, and therefore to make religion, science, etc., the object of our criticism. In addition, we want to influence our contemporaries, particularly our German contemporaries. The question arises: how are we to set about it? There are two kinds of facts which are undeniable. In the first place religion, and next to it, politics, are the subjects which form the main interest of Germany today. We must take these, in whatever form they exist, as our point of departure, and not confront them with some ready-made system such as, for example, the Voyage en Icarie. [Etienne Cabet, Voyage en Icarie. Roman philosophique et social.]
"Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form. The critic can therefore start out from any form of theoretical and practical consciousness and from the forms peculiar to existing reality develop the true reality as its obligation and its final goal. As far as real life is concerned, it is precisely the political state – in all its modern forms – which, even where it is not yet consciously imbued with socialist demands, contains the demands of reason. And the political state does not stop there. Everywhere it assumes that reason has been realised. But precisely because of that it everywhere becomes involved in the contradiction between its ideal function and its real prerequisites."
[...]
"Hence, nothing prevents us from making criticism of politics, participation in politics, and therefore real struggles, the starting point of our criticism, and from identifying our criticism with them. In that case we do not confront the world in a doctrinaire way with a new principle: Here is the truth, kneel down before it! We develop new principles for the world out of the world’s own principles. We do not say to the world: Cease your struggles, they are foolish; we will give you the true slogan of struggle. We merely show the world what it is really fighting for, and consciousness is something that it has to acquire, even if it does not want to."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/letters/43_09.htm
* * *
"The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses. Theory is capable of gripping the masses as soon as it demonstrates ad hominem, and it demonstrates ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical. To be radical is to grasp the root of the matter. But, for man, the root is man himself. The evident proof of the radicalism of German theory, and hence of its practical energy, is that is proceeds from a resolute positive abolition of religion. The criticism of religion ends with the teaching that man is the highest essence for man – hence, with the categoric imperative to overthrow all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, abandoned, despicable essence, relations which cannot be better described than by the cry of a Frenchman when it was planned to introduce a tax on dogs: Poor dogs! They want to treat you as human beings!"
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm