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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2009
The purpose of this paper is to present briefly the theories of secular social and economic development which can be found in the work of Karl Marx and to place them within the context of general thought and theorizing on these matters during the nineteenth century. I shall not present in this paper any new interpretations of Marx's theories, but shall merely try to show that Marx's views are related at many points to other theories on social and economic development proposed during his life and that in many ways he must be regarded as a typical thinker of that period of European social thought.
1 These two manuscripts are: (1) Marx, Karl, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Moscow,Google Scholar n.d. (ca. 1959); this is a translation of “Oekonomisch-philosophische Manuskripte”, which was first published in Karl Marx, Engels, Friedrich, Historischkritische Gesamtausga.be: Werke, Schriften, Briefe, Abteilung I, Vol. III, Berlin, 1932, pp. 29–172.Google Scholar All references hereinafter will be made to both the German and the English edition of this work, the former will be cited as MEGA, III (since the customary abbreviation of this edition of the works of Marx and Engels is MEGA), and the latter Manuscript of 1844. It should be noted that almost simultaneously with the publication of this manuscript in MEGA, III, another somewhat differently arranged version of this work appeared under the title “Nationaloekonomie und Philosophic”, in Marx, Karl. Der historische Materialismus: Die Frühschriften, ed. by Landshut, S. and Mayer, J.P., Vol. I (Leipzig, 1932), pp. 283–375.Google Scholar (2) The second manuscript appeared first in 1939–1941 under the title Marx, Karl, Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Oekonomie (Rothentwurf, Moscow),Google Scholar 2 vols. It was reprinted photomechanically in 1953, and brought out in a single volume by the Dietz Verlag in Berlin. I have used the 1953 reprint. This work hereinafter will be cited as Grundrisse.
2 See, Marx, Karl, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Chicago, Charles H. Kerr Co., 1904), pp. 10–11.Google Scholar
3 See Auguste Cornu, Marx, Karl, I'homme et I'oeuvre (Paris, 1934), pp. 324–327.Google Scholar This indebtedness of Marx to the indicated writings is acknowledged by him; cf. MEGA, III, p. 34, and Manuscript of 1844, pp. 16–17.
4 MEGA, III, pp. 114, and 167; Manuscript of 1844, pp. 102 and 164.
5 MEGA, III, pp. 158–161. The passage quoted is on pp. 159–160. Manuscript of 1844, p. 155. (The translation in this, as in other instances, is my own and not that of M. Milligan, the translator of the English edition of the Manuscript of 1844.)
6 See MEGA, III, pp. 151–152; Manuscript of 1844, p. 145.
7 See MEGA, III, pp. 155–156, 169–171, and 116–117. See also, on the Marxian analysis of the interrelation between man and nature, Venable, Vernon, Human Nature: The Marxian View (New York, 1946), pp. 66 ff.Google Scholar
8 Engels, Friedrich, Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy (New York, 1941), pp. 22–23.Google Scholar
9 MEGA, III, pp. 163–164, and 166–167; Manuscript of 1844, pp. 158–161.
10 MEGA, III, p. 110; Manuscript of 1844, pp. 69–71.
11 Marx's treatment of the concept and the circumstance of alienation has been dis cussed in several places. Perhaps the two most satisfactory analyses are found in the following works: Auguste Cornu. Marx, Karl. Die ökonimisch-philosophischen Manuskripte, Berlin, 1955;Google Scholar and Popitz, Heinrich, Der entfremdete Mensch: Zeitkritik und Geschichtsphilosophie des jungen Marx, Basel, 1953.Google Scholar See also Bekker, Konrad, Marx's philosophische Entwicklung, sein Verhältnis zu Hegel, Zürich, 1940.Google Scholar The interpretation of Marx's teleology, expressed in this paragraph is shared by Popitz, op. cit., pp. 155 ff.
12 Marx, Karl, Capital, vol. III (Chicago, Charles H. Kerr Co., 1906), pp. 954–955Google Scholar (Italics added). For the original German text of this passage, see Das Kapital (Volksausgabe, Vienna - Berlin, 1932), vol. III, pp. 873,Google Scholar 874. For a French text of the crucial part of this passage see Marx, Karl, Pages choisis pour une ethique socialiste, ed. by Rubel, Maximilien (Paris, 1948), pp. 313–314.Google Scholar
13 See Gray, J.L., “Karl Marx and Social Philosophy”, in Hearnshaw, F.J.C., ed., The Social and Political Ideas of Some Representative Thinkers of the Victorian Age (London, 1933), p. 126.Google Scholar
14 Grundrisse, pp. 75–76. (Italics in original).
15 Ibid., pp. 375–413.
16 Ibid., pp. 79–82.
17 Ibid., pp. 543–545. The passage quoted is on p. 545.
18 See Capital, Vol. I, pp. 81 ff; Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Die deutsche Ideologic in MEGA, Vol. V., pp. 351–355; and Engels, Friedrich, Herrn Eugen Duhring's Umwalzung der Wissenschaft, 11th ed. (Berlin, 1928),Google Scholar pp. 112 ff. and passim.
19 See Weber, Max, The Religion of India (Glencoe, III., 1958), p. 337.Google Scholar
20 See Grundrisse, pp. 387 and 722–723. The passage cited is on p. 723,
21 See Hess, Moses, “Ueber das Geldwesen”, reprinted in Sozialistische Aufsiitze, ed. by Zlocisti, Th. (Berlin, 1921), pp. 158–187,Google Scholar especially pp. 179–180. In a later work, first published in 1845, Hess discusses the same theme with greater clarity and precision. See, ibid, pp. 140–141.
22 Hess, Moses, “Sozialismus und Kommunismus” (first publishes in Herwegh, G., ed., Einundzwanzig Bogen aus der Schweiz, 1843),Google Scholar reprinted in Sozialistische Aufsätze, op. cit., pp. 51, 70–74. The words cited are on page 74, and italics have been added.
23 Many students of Marx's works have overlooked or even misinterpreted this trend of thought. Vernon Venable, whose otherwise excellent book on Marx's views on human nature, was cited above (n. 7), neither mentions the alienation nor the abolition of labor. The reason why this point could be so easily misunderstood is, in my opinion, principally semantic, i.e., it turns around the double meaning of the word, “labor”. In some contexts this means the expenditure of physical or mental energy under conditions of alienation. In others, it means the manifestation of a human need, i.e., the need for creative activity. Hence, we can only give qualified assent to Abram Harris, L. when he says in his paper, “Utopian Elements in Marx's Thought”, Ethics, LX, (01, 1950), p. 90,Google Scholar that in Marx's definition labor is an abstract universal which, in the historical process, symbolizes man's creative powers, and that “man's nature as a human or social animal is expressed in labor”. A more extended discussion of what appears to be Marx's complete resolution of labor in a state of necessity and “labor” in a state of freedom is presented in the text above.
24 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Die deutsche Ideologic, in MEGA, Vol. V, pp. 184–185.
25 Grundrisse, p. 594.
26 Ibid., p. 231 (italics added).
27 Ibid., p. 505.
28 See on this problem, above all, Bekker, op. cit; Bell, Daniel, The End of Ideology (Glencoe, 111., The Free Press, 1960),Google Scholar pp. 335 ff; Fromm, Erich, Marx Concept of Man (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1961),Google Scholar pp. 43 ff; and Lukacz, Georg, Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein (Berlin: Malik-Verlag, 1923),Google Scholar esp. pp. 57 ff.
29 On Marx's life experiences in Paris in 1843 to 1844, see Institute, Marx-Engels-Lenin, Karl Marx: Chronik seines Lebens (Moscow, 1934), pp. 19–25Google Scholar and the additional sources cited there.
30 Marx is reported to have said late in his life: “To be incapable of work is to any human being who does not wish to be simply an animal the equivalent of a death sentence.” See Riazanov, D., Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (New York, 1927), p. 206.Google Scholar
31 Adam Smith also expressed serious concern over the highly unsatisfactory human conditions of workers under capitalism. Though he regarded the development of a modern “commercial society” as a necessary and desirable end product of historical evolution, he maintained, nevertheless, that under this system “the employment of the far greater part of those who live by labour.… comes to be confined to a few very simple operations, frequently to one or two. But the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their employments. The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations … becomes as stupid and ignorant as is possible for a human creature to become. The torpor of his mind renders him, not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgment concerning many of even the ordinary duties of private life. Of the great and extensive interests of his country he is altogether incapable of judging; and unless very particular pains have been taken to render him otherwise, he is equally incapable of defending his country in war … His dexterity at his own particular trade seems, in this manner, to be acquired at the expense of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues.” See Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (New York, The Modern Library, 1937), pp. 734–735.Google Scholar We note that the distress, low living levels, and intellectual limitations of the proletariat in the early phases of the industrial revolution gave rise to very similar evaluations on the part of different students of the economy. In fact, it was this degradation of a large part of human beings which gave economics the title of a dismal science.
32 MEGA, III, pp. 129–130; Manuscript of 1844, pp. 118–119.
33 Capital, Vol. I, pp. 649 and 652.
34 Schumpeter's views are expressed at length in his work, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (New York, 1942),Google Scholar especially chapters 12–14. On the views of Sombart see below.
35 Sombart, Werner, Die Zukunft des Kapitalismus, Berlin, 1932, pp. 8–9.Google Scholar
36 It should be scarcely necessary to mention that the gradual development of the theory of progress from its early beginnings to the period contemporary with Marx has been admirably analysed in the work by Bury, J.B., The Idea of Progress, London, 1920.Google Scholar As an example of the profound belief in the all-powerful effects of science, one may cite a prophetic statement of William Godwin, which he regarded as the clinching argument in his controversy with Malthus, T.R.. In his final reply to Malthus's demographiceconomic theory, Godwin writes in On Population, London, 1820:Google Scholar “Of all the sciences, natural or mechanical, which within the last half century have preceded with such gigantic strides, chemistry is that which has advanced most rapidly. All the substances that nature presents, all that proceeds from earth or air, is analysed by us into its original elements … And it is surely no great stretch of the faculty of anticipation to say that whatever man can decompose, man will be able to compound. The food that nourishes us, is composed of certain elements; and wherever these elements can be found, there human art may hereafter produce nourishment; and thus we are presented with a real infinite series of increase in the means of subsistence to match Mr. Malthus's geometrical ratio for the multiplication of mankind.” (pp. 499–501).
