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Marx Lectures
I. A. 1. Original Philosophical point of departure - dialectic of estrangement and reunification on higher plane - early: Estranged labor; JQ - later: Wage Labor and Capital; German Ideology, Communist Manifesto, Capital 2. Wage Labor and Capital - "Scientific basis": labor power 3. Communist Manifesto - "Scientific" history
B. Philosophy of History/Empirical History - Preface, Theses, German Ideology
II. Capital A. Scientific Economy B. History
III. Eighteenth Brumaire A. Concrete History B. Discussion -? Karl Marx, Early Writings
- nature of man - creative labor NB not speech, dialogue: man is not political man but homo faber, a kind of economic man, and justice becomes communal equality in labor - alienation of labor, of product, of self, to others - domination through property relations and its converse in communism - needs and their creation; role of money - critique of liberalism: political emancipation, civil society, state and rights - critique of political economy - economic emancipation and the proletariat
Entfremdete Arbeit - Man is species-being (75); editor's FN, pp.33-4 labor - sustenance and life activity (75-6 paragraph) Karl Marx, Early Writings (Tucker, ed - Second edition) On the Jewish Question - part 1 28 have to emancipate selves before others; abolish religion 30-1 North America - Jewish Question loses theological significance and becomes secular; religion as secular narrowness, even when full political emancipation 32 emancipation of state from religion 33 state suppression of private property and religion does not remove their influence from civil society 34-5 in fully developed political state, man leads double life - political and private 35 religion abolished from state becomes spirit of civil society, differentiation 36 state must destroy religion by permanent revolution 39 members of political state religion because of dualism between individual life and species life, civil society and political life - man in political democracy not yet educated, social, species-being 39-40 emancipation of state from religion is emancipation of real man from religion - human emancipation 40f "so-called rights of man" and of citizen 42 liberty of man as monad, private property, self-interest, equality as equal liberty 43 security - assurance of egoism; none of these rights go beyond egoistic man - only bond is need and necessity [cf. Hegel] - reduce citizenship and political community to preserving rights of man - So/man as bourgeois not as citizen considered true 44-5 political emancipation/dissolution of old (feudal) society, revolution of civil society - old society (feudal) had directly political character; revolution abolished political character of civil society, dissolved it into basic elements: individuals and material and cultural elements - man not emancipated from religion, received religious liberty, same as with property and with egoism 46 man in civil society thus appears as natural man (egoistic) and political life built from this without revolutionizing these elements - political man becomes abstract; cf. Rousseau (cite) political emancipation versus human emancipation - species-being On the Jewish Question - part 2 48-9 profane basis of Judaism - practical need, self-interest, huckstering [cf. fn 6, p.50] emancipation from huckstering and money, from Judaism, our age would emancipate itself - "emancipation of the Jews is emancipation of mankind from Judaism" - to now emancipation of Jew has been that Christians have become Jews 50 Money dominates politics; money is alienated essence of man's work and existence 51-2 Judaism perfected in civil society, civil society perfected in the world; objectification and alienation. Essence of Judaism universally realized and secularized in civil society - could not convince Jew of his need for emancipation, unreality of his religious essence, practical need Karl Marx, Zur Kritik of Hegel (in Tucker)
54 religion opium 54ff backwards Germany 59 abolish philosophy by realizing it 61 breeding grounds of radical revolution lacking 62 Germany: merely political revolution 62-3 class must claim general interests 64 proletariat is this class 64-5 proletariat is dissolution of other classes, of society Karl Marx, Early Writings Die entfremdete Arbeit 70 From premises of political economics - all society must fall into 2 classes, property owners and propertyless workers 71 Shouldn't start for primordial condition but from established economic fact: worker becomes ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates 71-3 I. Object which labor produces, product, confronts worker as something alien, power independent of worker over him - congealed labor; objectification as loss of object, object-bondage; appropriation as estrangement, alienation. Nature provides means of life as living and as subsistence: thus laborer becomes slave to object since (a) he receives object of labor or work and (b) he receives means of subsistence [wages] 73-5 II. Estrangement in act of production, not just result - estrangement from self. Labor external to worker, not part of his essential being; forced; becomes a means to satisfying a need external to need for labor (as activity); not his own activity but someone else's; does not feel free except in his animal functions 75-7 III. Man is a species being; labor, life activity, productive life, appears just as means of satisfying a need (physical existence) Animal immediately identical to its life activity, but man's is conscious and he is therefore not identical, and he is therefore a species being (works on self), and his activity is therefore free - estranged labor reverses this, makes labor a means to life Man proves himself conscious being by working up inorganic nature, creating objective world - creates in accordance with laws of beauty Working up objective world proves him to be species being; object of labor is objectification of species life: duplicates self not only in thought but in reality and confronts world he has made and sees himself in it 77 Estranged labor thus also - estranges worker's external nature and his spiritual essence - and estranges man from man 78 Alien being to whom labor product belongs is man himself 79 Private property result of alienated labor, becomes reciprocal; wages and private property identical 80 Emancipation of workers contains universal human emancipation 81 Appropriation as alienation Karl Marx, Early Writings (Tucker, ed - Second edition) Private Property and Communism 82 Communism as positive expression of annulled private property (1) As universal private property - all become laborers 84 (2) Political or without state, Communism as transcendence of human self-estrangement (3) Return of man to himself as social being - riddle of history solved Activity and consumption both social 85 (4) Not expressed in sense of having - man appropriates his total essence in total manner, i.e. as whole, social man - develops new social senses 91f (5) Independence through self-creation: (92) for socialist man history is begetting of man through human labor, coming-to-be of nature of man 93 Communism as phase (negation of negation) of development of human society The Meaning of Human requirements
(Critique of political economy) 93 New needs created by private property (false ones) 94 Money a pimp 96 Less you are, more you have - stored in money 97 Ethics and religion provide social cement which political economy breaks down 98 Unity of wages and capital in political economy 99 Combination of workmen creates need for community 101 Society, to political economy, is civil society Money
102 Money is pimp 103 Money's properties are my properties 104 Transforms incapacities into opposite 105 Human relations - man can only do what he's capable of (eg. love) - specific expression Karl Marx, "Preface" to Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy in Tucker, Second Edition
p.4f - Historically, men find themselves in given material conditions (of production) independent of their will - corresponds to historical period - Relations of production are real, economic base structure - all else (law, politics, consciousness) is superstructure - Mode of material production determines consciousness, not other way around - At certain stage of development, material production forces come into contradiction with relations of production (property relations) - latter becomes fetters - Thus begins an epoch of social revolution - superstructure transformed - No social order ever perishes before all the (new) production forces for which there are room in it have developed, and new relations of production never emerge before material conditions are present (womb image) - Stages of development: Asiatic, ancient, feudal, modern bourgeois - Latter is last antagonistic stage, and its overcoming signals the end of the prehistory of human society Karl Marx, German Ideology, Part I in Tucker, Second Edition A. 149 Begin with real premises [material] - individuals, social relations 150 Men distinct from animals - produce means of subsistence = produce their lives, intercourse of relations (Verkehr); level of development is development of division of labor 151 Division of labor = forms of property ownership: tribal (extended family, slaves); ancient communal and State (community of citizens, slaves) (NB town and country); 152-3 Conquest versus private property - feudal or estate (serfdom and lords) - counterpart in medieval towns (guilds: master and apprentice): NB feudal property, land and skill plus small capital - little division of labor; NB feudal kingdoms (154) 154-5 So/ material relations; ideas and consciousness produced by material conditions, not vice versa 155-7 First premises of human existence and therefore history: (1) production of means to satisfy needs of subsistence; (2) this leads to new needs - production of new needs as first historical fact; (3) propagation of species leads to social relations in the family 157 So/ production of life (subsistence and procreation) both natural and social: mode of production always connected to mode of cooperation - latter itself a productive force; thus history of humanity must be studied in relation to history of industry and exchange 157-8 Only on this (material) basis, possible to discuss consciousness, language based on social relations, consciousness a social product 159 Division of labor into material and mental - only basis for "independent" consciousness 159 Three moments (forces of production, state of society, consciousness) come into contradiction with division of labor 159f Contradiction implicit in division of labor and difference of interest between individual and family 160-1 Also contradiction of interest between individuals or family and community (cf. pastoral view of communist society) - cf. the State as illusory resolution: in reality it is in control of dominant class - real contradiction and activity is class struggle 161-2 Estrangement (of control) can only be abolished: (1) when mass of men become propertyless and their conditions intolerable and revolutionary, (2) conditions become 161-2 World-historical and intercourse universal (by extension of capitalism) - NB communism only possible "all at once" and world-wide 162-3 Inevitability of communism and revolution 163 Civil society true source of all history - civil society only develops with bourgeoisie; state and idealistic superstructure illusory 164 Revolution, not criticism, driving force of history 165 Men make circumstances and vice versa 172 History - men acting on given materials through generations 172-3 Ideas of ruling class (material) are ruling ideas of each epoch - expression of dominant material relations 173-4 Revolutionary idea presupposes revolutionary class; each rising class must represent its ideas as universal, and each new class achieves hegemony on broader basis than previous ruling class
B. Historical Sketch- 176 Greatest division of labor - material and mental, town and country 176f Medieval towns - unorganized rabble, organized into guilds (patriarchal) 178 (revolts mainly in countryside) 178 - Capital "naturally derived" - house, tools, traditional customers 178f First Extension - separation of commerce and rise of merchant class - extended beyond each town; rise of classes as towns banded together: class only insofar as battle another class 180 (NB against technological determinism) 180f Second Extension - rise of manufacture, outgrown guilds - division of labor among towns - accumulation of capital, concentration of population (NB machines) 181 NB - vagabondage: trade now political 182ff Relations between worker and employer - no longer patriarchal; extension of markets; big bourgeoisie, the State, colonies, protection, finance 184ff Third Extension - Big Industry - use of machinery, complex division of labor produced world history, etc.; industrial production; proletariat 186ff On law 189ff Instruments of production and focus of property - NB contradictions, proletariat 192f Conclusions from this view of history - contradictions between production forces and form of intercourse - new class called fourth; why proletarian revolution is different
C. Communism - 193 Communism materialistic, not idealistic 194f Production forces and intercourse: fetters and development 195 Naturally occurring evolution - illusory community of State; consciousness of contradiction 196 NB - all collisions in history - from contradiction between production forces and forces of intercourse 197 - Used to take form of struggle of ideas 197f Illusory community in State; real community among proletarians; freedom only possible in community 198f Divided lives of individuals due to division of labor - product of bourgeois rule 199f To overcome divided lives of proletarians - must overthrow present conditions (including present division of labor), and thus the State Karl Marx, German Ideology Summary Methodology of historical development and analysis 1. Relationship between men's free activity and conditions surrounding it 3. Relationship of consciousness to practical activity 2. Basic needs and development of social relations (Verkehr) 3a. Comparison to German Ideology (Young Hegelians) Outline of historical development
- Broad outline of stages based on property relations - Specific historical development of civil society and capitalism - Place of politics and the State - The transcendence of the proletariat in Communist Revolution: also method of revolution vs. criticism - Question of contradiction in method and results - whether communist revolution follows form his concrete historical materialistic analysis, or whether it is result of "residual" Hegelian dialectical logic - esp. problem of world society, pastoral view and technology, disappearance of private property and question of authority relations Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto (Tucker, ed - Second edition)
473 Class struggle 475 State - committee for bourgeoisie 476 Bourgeoisie revolutionized production 477 Centralization 478 Sorcerer - spun off proletariat, crisis of over-production 479 Proletariat - organization 479f Petty bourgeoisie 480f Stages of proletarian existence, organization, consciousness 481 Bourgeois ideologists 481f Other classes - lower middle class, Lumpenproletariat 484 Communist Party - vanguard 490 New program 490f - Proletarian rule will become apolitical, classes will disappear Karl Marx, "Wage Labor and Capital" (Marx-Engels Selected Works, 1970; Tucker, ed. 2nd ed. 1978) [* = ellipses from Tucker, ed.]
65; * (Intro by Engels) - NB essay appeared in Neue Rheinische Zeitung - remained unfinished 73; * Work divided into 3 parts - (1) relation of wage labor to capital; (2) destruction of the middle classes; (3) subjugation of world by England 73; 204 Wages - sum of money paid for labor time or for output - worker actually sells labor power, not labor; labor power thus a commodity 74; * Wages merely the price for the commodity called labor power - not workers' share in commodity produced by him, part of clearly existing commodities with which capitalist buys labor power 74; 204 Labor power a commodity which worker sells to capital to live from 75; 204 But labor power is life activity - which worker sells to live [alienation] 75; 205 Slave is owned, serf half owned - free labor sells labor power 76; 205 But free labor is not free to leave the class of purchasers (capitalists) without renouncing his existence 76; * Competition among buyers, among sellers, between buyers and sellers 77; * Measure of profit is cost of production 78; * Level of prices draws in or drives out capital Price determined by cost of production in long run 79; * Anarchistic fluctuations contain order of this long run Cost of production equivalent to labor time - indirect and direct Same laws that regulate price of commodities regulate wages (price of labor) 79; 206 Wages will rise and fall according to supply and demand - competition of buyers and sellers 79f; 206 Cost of production of labor power - cost of manufacturing and developing worker: price of necessary means of subsistence 80; 206 So - depreciation of labor considered like depreciation of machinery Cost of production of simple labor power - cost of existence and reproduction or worker Wage minimum - defined for species not individual - for class 81; 207 Negro only becomes slave in certain circumstances; cotton-spinning jenny ...only becomes capital in certain circumstances Social relations grow out of relations in production - latter not just action on nature Social relations of production change with means or forces of production (Produktionsmittel, -kräfte) - totality thereof defines historical stage Capital a bourgeois production relation 81; 208 Capital not just material goods - also exchange values, commodities 82; 208 Products which are exchangeable for others are commodities - exchange value, price Existence of class with no property but its capacity to labor prerequisite for capital Capital only exists by domination of accumulated, past, materialized labor over direct living labor 82-3; 209 Exchange of worker and capitalist - worker receives means of subsistence, but gives up value produced beyond that - gives to accumulated labor a greater value than it previously possessed (strengthens capital) 83; 209f Wage labor and capital mutually presuppose each other: bourgeois economists thus assert that their interest are the same 84; 210 Tolerable situation for worker depends on growth of capital: i.e. growing power of that which enslaves him; as capital grows, so does number of workers 84-5; * Rise in wages depends on growth of productive capital - this in turn brings rise in social wants: though enjoyment of worker has increased, that of capitalist more - therefore social enjoyment of former has fallen since "our desires and pleasures spring from society" and are therefore "of a relative nature" 85; * Nominal, real wage 86; * For capitalist, sale of commodities broken up into (1) cost of raw materials and depreciation of tools, machines, etc; (2) wages; (3) profit - parts 2 & 3 taken from new value created by worker 86-7; * Thus wages and profits stand in inverse relation to each other (cf. even opening new markets - wages fall because profits rise) 88; 210f Workers' interests same as capitals' only true in the sense that growth of latter produces richer crumbs for former 88; 211 Workers' interests and capitalists' interests remain opposed - profits and wages inverse. Material position of worker may rise with growth of capital, but only at cost of his position 89; 211f One capitalist can only compete successfully by selling more cheaply - i.e. by introducing greater division of labor and machinery to raise productive power of labor 89; 212 Improved productivity enables capitalist to sell more cheaply - also compels him to 90; 213 Privileged position of this capitalist of short duration, as others catch up - next round of prices not only lower than old, lower than new prices Division of labor, machinery, scale all increase, mutually reinforcing law - price of commodities tends to their cost of production 91; 213f Competition becomes sharper - matter of life and death for capitalists 91; 214 Competition brings prices to costs of production Development of world market accelerates this process 91f; 214 Greater productivity reduces number of workers needed - raises competition among workers - and as division of labor and machines introduced, work becomes worse 92; 214f Labor becomes less satisfying, competition increases, wages decrease - workers end by competing with themselves (as class); NB "driven by want" [socially defined] Trend to replace skilled male workers with unskilled, women, children 92; 215 Unemployed individuals can't find other work, though employment in other branches of industry opens 93; 216 Sum - rise in productivity brings more division of labor, more machinery, more competition among workers, decline in wages 93f; 216 Also - class polarization: petty industrialists and small rentiers become workers 94; 217 Also - crises increase as competition and concentration increase and as markets become worldwide Eighteenth Brumaire
15 Tragedy, comedy 21f Periods 27f Constituent Assembly 29f Constitution 36 Bourgeois parties 42 May 28, `48 - December 2, `51 - bicyclist image 46f Party of order - rule 49f Mountain 57f National Guard 61f State interests 67 Bourgeois rule 70 Electoral law 75 Soc December 10 - Lumpenproletariat 91 "Parliamentary cretinism" 93 Commercial crisis 95 Split in Party of Order 102 Split in Party of Order in and out of Parliament 104-5 Contradiction between economic and political rule 106 Didn't want to rule - for order 112 Bonaparte redeclares universal suffrage 116 Calendar of events - periodization 121 Executive power - bureaucracy 122 State independent 123f Peasants 124 Definition of class 126f Small holding 128 For peasant - proletarian alliance; cf. Tocqueville: centralization, destruction of intermediate bodies 130 Army (copyright Frederick Weil) |