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NEWS & LETTERS, March-April 2005Youth
A look at the young Marx's humanism
by Carlos Saracino An extensive analysis of Marx’s early works,
especially his 1844 ECONOMIC-PHILOSOPHIC MANUSCRIPTS, is a prerequisite for
understanding of Marxism "as a totality," a phrase that I borrow from
the 20th-century Marxist-Humanist philosopher, Raya Dunayevskaya. It is here
that we cannot fail to find human beings at the center of his inquiry: as the
premises of their own history, the makers of their own existence, and the
inventors of their own reality. Indeed, no other thinker focuses so widely on humanity
in order to explain the latter in all its aspects. Marx writes that in
"direct contrast to German philosophy which descends from heaven to
earth...we ascend from earth to heaven." Throughout history--and Germany is
certainly not alone in this--writers and thinkers have explained the existence
of human beings in all their aspects (from society to art) by resorting to all
sorts of mystical explanations, of which the gods have usually been the most
prominent. Yet Marx reverses this relationship: gods come to be explained
through the (contradictory) existence of human beings. It is with this purpose of illuminating Marx’s
humanism that I will discuss below what I believe to be one of the most
important of Marx’s early writings, THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY (1846). Although
Engels wrote part of this text, I will refer below only to its main author,
Marx. Many believe that Marx dissipated his previous humanism
here, coming to embrace a more mature scientific materialism. Yet where they see
a Marx rejecting all idealism and embracing a scientific-empirical method that
necessitates relentless action, I see a Marx that further expands his 1844
humanism by expounding his practical-idealist method to show the universality of
human beings and the dual nature (conscious and material) of their existence,
which is not a sharp dichotomy but an incessant dialectical relationship. As Marx writes in THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY,
"circumstances make men just as much as men make circumstances." The
key, then, is not the difference between idealism and materialism, but Marx’s
rejection of two one-sided perspectives, abstract idealism and scientific
empiricism. THE FUNDAMENTAL PREMISE Marx dispels all mysticism and legend regarding the
origin of humanity, seizing the fire from the gods and bringing it down to earth
and its rational inhabitants. Such a Promethean view of humanity is articulated
by Dunayevskaya in her MARXISM AND FREEDOM. Thus, he writes, "The first
premise of all human history is...the existence of living individuals." As Marx wrote in "Alienated Labor" (1844),
humans exist not on their own, in virtue of themselves, but as part of nature,
as part of that which is the only thing that exists in virtue of itself; thus
human material existence depends on nature, "for nature depends on
itself." From this follows the
first historical act of humans, who depending on nature for sustenance must
acquire or produce their means of subsistence, an act which in turn constitutes
the production of their "actual material life." Hence, humans’
productive activity is their life-activity. To better understand what Marx means by human
production, we must refer again to his essay on "Alienated Labor":
"man produces freely from physical need and only truly produces when he is
thus free; .... thus man also fashions things according to the laws of
beauty." Thus, he presupposes the existence in humans of a free, universal
consciousness, capable of relating to the material condition multilaterally.
From such a concept follows Marx’s idealist-materialist statement to the
effect that "free conscious activity is the species characteristic of
man." But we notice immediately that Marx can by no means be compared to
the abstract idealists, for his view is ultimately bound to the relationship
between consciousness and its material condition, and not solely on inward,
subjective perceptions. MODE OF PRODUCTION AS EXISTENTIAL DETERMINANT In THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY, Marx takes a closer look at the
life-activity of human beings and its results, for, as he has shown, what they
are is determined by their production, and thus the way in which they produce
must determine the way in which they are: "What [human beings]
are...coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with how
they produce it." Consciousness, in Marx’s view, is a reflection of
humans’ material existence in all its facets--and since the latter is
conditioned by the means, the mode and the object of production, then so is the
former. Thus. "The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness,
is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material
intercourse of men, the language of real life." All "mental
production," from metaphysics to religion, is conditioned by--yet not
confined to--the material factors determining production as well as the material
relations ensuing from the latter. More specifically, Marx makes clear that
humans are the creators of their own ideas and conceptions, and thus he parts
completely with other-worldly concepts: "Consciousness can never be
anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual
life process." THE FIVE MOMENTS OF HISTORY Marx now offers a more systematic view of history, its
development and the concomitant rise of consciousness that is in direct
contradiction to the ideologists’ view. He takes us back to where we started:
"the first premise of all human existence and, therefore, of all history...
[is] that men must be in a position to live in order to be able to make
history." Thus, human life involves the satisfaction of basic needs. The second premise of history, simply stated, is that
the satisfaction of the first needs, which involves both the "action of
satisfying...[as well as] the instrument of satisfaction," leads to the
development of new needs. We can call this second premise the driving force of
development. A very important point here is that Marx does not merely confine
his view of human need to scientific and economic development, but also to all
sorts of creative activity, from art to poetry. For instance, World War II spawned several scientific
inventions, such as the jet engine, which later became necessary to air travel
(a need we had acquired earlier). Yet simultaneously, Pablo Picasso’s Guernica
(one of the greatest works by one of the greatest painters in history) was a
reaction to the international political climate, and more specifically, to the
murderous nature of Nazi aerial war tactics in fascist Spain. Thus, a change in
the social relations during that period resulted not only in technological and
scientific advances, but also in artistic developments (e.g. the advancement of
Cubism). Lastly we proceed to the third premise of human history,
which is that "people, who daily remake their own life, begin to make other
people, to propagate their kind: the relation between man and woman, parent and
children, the family." The family is the first social relationship, yet
with increased development it becomes subordinate to the state. All three premises of history, says Marx, exist from the
very first, not as chronological stages but as "three ‘moments’...which
have existed simultaneously since the dawn of history and the first men, and
which still assert themselves in history today." Thus he writes: "The
production of life, both of one’s own in labor and of fresh life in
procreation, now appears as a double relationship: on the one hand as a NATURAL,
on the other as a SOCIAL, relationship" (my emphasis). Marx defines a
social relationship as "the co-operation of several individuals, no matter
under what conditions, in what manner, and to what end." Now we come to see a fourth "moment": a
certain mode of production must be coupled with a certain mode of cooperation,
which Marx defines as a "productive force." The productive forces
accessible to human beings in a given society determine the nature of that
society, and hence, human history "must always be studied and treated IN
RELATION to the history of industry and exchange" (my emphasis). Marx now comes to the fifth "moment,"
consciousness. Having established four basic premises of history, he says that
we also come to know that humans have consciousness, yet that it is "not
inherent, not ‘pure’ consciousness." Consciousness, like all of human
existence, is bound by matter, and thus consciousness first expresses itself
through its material form: language. But once again, we note his implacable
emphasis on the material condition, which is not to say that consciousness is
completely subordinate to matter, but that it is conditioned by the latter.
"Language," Marx says, "is as old as consciousness, language is
practical consciousness that exists also for other men...LANGUAGE, LIKE
CONSCIOUSNESS, ARISES FROM THE NEED, THE NECESSITY, OF INTERCOURSE WITH OTHER
MEN" (my emphasis). As humanity develops, the division of labor ceases to be
solely sexual (arising from the inevitability of the differing roles of man and
woman in procreation), or spontaneous (arising out of natural predisposition,
"needs, accidents, etc."). It is at this point that division of labor
proper--the "DIVISION OF MENTAL AND MATERIAL LABOR" [emphasis
added]--makes its first appearance, with the priests entering history as the
first ideologists. Only at this point, Marx argues, can consciousness
become "other than consciousness of existing practice... [representing]
something without representing something real." Consciousness is now in a
position to free itself from the fetters of the material world, and only now can
it venture into religion, philosophy, etc. Yet even if the latter comes into
contradiction with existing socio-political relations, it is only because
consciousness itself, even its "unfettered" manifestations, never
ceases to represent at least part of the active life-process of human beings,
and thus the material reality by which it is conditioned; thus Marx writes that
if any of these "pure" manifestations of consciousness come into
conflict with existing relations, it is only because "existing social
relations have come into contradiction with existing forces of production." Consciousness, as a part of human existence since the
first moment in history, constitutes an essential reflection (or a dialectical
negation) of the existing forces of production and society. Yet insofar as
consciousness is interwoven with material activity and reacts to the latter just
as much as the latter reacts to it, we see that IT TOO CAN AFFECT CHANGE. But we
make this claim carefully, lest we should forget the material medium on which
consciousness must, so to speak, exert and manifest itself: the world that we
have built through our conscious-material life-activity can only change--TRULY
change--by means of a change in the latter. THE HUMANIST PATH TO REVOLUTION We have now seen the materialist premises underlying the
whole of Marx’s Humanism. We have seen him take the first certainty, the
self-evident fact of all of human existence--human existence itself--and build
from it a whole new way of looking at the world and its rational inhabitants.
Human beings ARE no longer made in the image of God, nor are we because we
think--Cogito ergo sum--we now see that God was made in our image, and that we
think because we ARE! And who but human beings, by the very PROCESS whereby they
live could have created all of this? This is all too evident to us. What strikes us now with more force than ever is that
inherent in the very core of Marx’s thought, from the very first, is the path
to revolution. Any and all change in human society derives from a change in the
mode of labor, and a free society must of necessity be a society wherein
individuals associate freely and spontaneously--wherein they freely relate to
the activity and object of production. Thus we see that freedom as an idea no
longer retains any independence or any hope of effecting change by itself, for
freedom in actuality can be nothing but freedom and spontaneity in production. We also see that the "uprooting of existing social
relations"--the patriarchal family, class society, etc.--depends as much on
the development of theory, insofar as producing real change is concerned, as on
our actual LIFE-ACTIVITY. Theory acquires its merit and relevance, not insofar
as it is a clever logical abstraction or a castle in the air, but insofar as it
is PRACTICAL THEORY, that is INSOFAR AS IT HAS THE POWER TO INFLUENCE AND DIRECT
ACTION. Marx has empowered humanity with the fire of
creation--it is for no other reason that Dunayevskaya calls Marx’s view
Promethean. He writes of human beings that not only create their OWN existence
by means of production but that "daily remake their own life": thus
the world in which we wake up tomorrow will forever be of our own making.
Whether we exterminate all life on earth, or whether we build the material
foundations for a new social order--so long as we exist remains OUR choice. "Human Power is its own end." |
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