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Early Writings
Written in 1833-4, when Marx was barely twenty-five, this astonishingly rich body of works formed the cornerstone for his later political philosophy. In the Critique of Hegel's Doctrine of the State, he dissects Hegel's thought and develops his own views on civil society, while his Letters reveal a furious intellect struggling to develop the egalitarian theory of state. Equally challenging are his controversial essay On the Jewish Question and the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, where Marx first made clear his views on alienation, the state, democracy and human nature. Brilliantly insightful, Marx's Early Writings reveal a mind on the brink of one of the most revolutionary ideas in human history - the theory of Communism.This translation fully conveys the vigour of the original works. The introduction, by Lucio Colletti, considers the beliefs of the young Marx and explores these writings in the light of the later development of Marxism.
460 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1962
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About the author
Karl Marx
3,332 books6,805 followersWith the help of Friedrich Engels, German philosopher and revolutionary Karl Marx wrote
The Communist Manifesto
(1848) and
Das Kapital
(1867-1894), works, which explain historical development in terms of the interaction of contradictory economic forces, form many regimes, and profoundly influenced the social sciences.
German social theorist Friedrich Engels collaborated with Karl Marx on The Communist Manifesto in 1848 and on numerous other works.
Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakunin in London opposed Communism of Karl Marx with his antithetical anarchy.
Works of Jacques Martin Barzun include Darwin, Marx, Wagner (1941).
The Prussian kingdom introduced a prohibition on Jews, practicing law; in response, a man converted to Protestantism and shortly afterward fathered Karl Marx.
Marx began co-operating with Bruno Bauer on editing Philosophy of Religion of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (see Democritus and Epicurus), doctoral thesis, also engaged Marx, who completed it in 1841. People described the controversial essay as "a daring and original piece... in which Marx set out to show that theology must yield to the superior wisdom." Marx decided to submit his thesis not to the particularly conservative professors at the University of Berlin but instead to the more liberal faculty of University of Jena, which for his contributed key theory awarded his Philosophiae Doctor in April 1841. Marx and Bauer, both atheists, in March 1841 began plans for a journal, entitled Archiv des Atheismus (Atheistic Archives), which never came to fruition.
Marx edited the newspaper Vorwärts! in 1844 in Paris. The urging of the Prussian government from France banished and expelled Marx in absentia; he then studied in Brussels. He joined the league in 1847 and published.
Marx participated the failure of 1848 and afterward eventually wound in London. Marx, a foreigner, corresponded for several publications of United States.
He came in three volumes. Marx organized the International and the social democratic party.
Marx in a letter to C. Schmidt once quipped, "All I know is that I am not a Marxist," as Warren Allen Smith related in Who's Who in Hell .
People describe Marx, who most figured among humans. They typically cite Marx with Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, the principal modern architects.
Bertrand Russell later remarked of non-religious Marx, "His belief that there is a cosmic ... called dialectical materialism, which governs ... independently of human volitions, is mere mythology" ( Portraits from Memory , 1956).
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bi...
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/...
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic...
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/...
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t...
German social theorist Friedrich Engels collaborated with Karl Marx on The Communist Manifesto in 1848 and on numerous other works.
Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakunin in London opposed Communism of Karl Marx with his antithetical anarchy.
Works of Jacques Martin Barzun include Darwin, Marx, Wagner (1941).
The Prussian kingdom introduced a prohibition on Jews, practicing law; in response, a man converted to Protestantism and shortly afterward fathered Karl Marx.
Marx began co-operating with Bruno Bauer on editing Philosophy of Religion of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (see Democritus and Epicurus), doctoral thesis, also engaged Marx, who completed it in 1841. People described the controversial essay as "a daring and original piece... in which Marx set out to show that theology must yield to the superior wisdom." Marx decided to submit his thesis not to the particularly conservative professors at the University of Berlin but instead to the more liberal faculty of University of Jena, which for his contributed key theory awarded his Philosophiae Doctor in April 1841. Marx and Bauer, both atheists, in March 1841 began plans for a journal, entitled Archiv des Atheismus (Atheistic Archives), which never came to fruition.
Marx edited the newspaper Vorwärts! in 1844 in Paris. The urging of the Prussian government from France banished and expelled Marx in absentia; he then studied in Brussels. He joined the league in 1847 and published.
Marx participated the failure of 1848 and afterward eventually wound in London. Marx, a foreigner, corresponded for several publications of United States.
He came in three volumes. Marx organized the International and the social democratic party.
Marx in a letter to C. Schmidt once quipped, "All I know is that I am not a Marxist," as Warren Allen Smith related in Who's Who in Hell .
People describe Marx, who most figured among humans. They typically cite Marx with Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, the principal modern architects.
Bertrand Russell later remarked of non-religious Marx, "His belief that there is a cosmic ... called dialectical materialism, which governs ... independently of human volitions, is mere mythology" ( Portraits from Memory , 1956).
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bi...
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/...
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic...
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/...
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
February 22, 2011
I’m not going to be generous with Marx because he would become among the most consequential thinkers of modernity. Of anyone, Marx would have noted that being worshipful of the well-regarded is idiocy and these writings are among the least of his accomplishments. We find Marx at twenty five and twenty six, hot blooded and angry that he’s been censored. His philosophical writing isn’t particularly good or thorough, he’d like to think of himself as a student of economics, but what he excels at is polemics.
The young Marx’s ideological evil twin is Anne Coulter. Both have a talent for polemics, selectively quoting sources, and claiming that one sentence speaks for the whole of an entire class, state, etc. Both love a good provocation. Both are very fond of italics when making a point that is insuffciently well-argued as though the font can compensate for a dialectical deficiency. He has begun with his conclusion, the way society should be, and proceeds to work towards it by finding evidence of duplicity and lazy thinking by his ideological opposites. At this point, communism belongs to his Parisian clique and not properly to Marx. His early writings are devoid of actual praxis philosophy apart from that already published by other, more developed thinkers. This is an apprentice's work.
It’s a bit unfair to critique some of this harshly. Much of this book is scraps of manuscripts abandoned for good reason: the thinking is scattered, it never progresses beyond angry reaction to other peoples’ works. There is little novel in it. True that Karl didn’t/wouldn't ask Penguin to publish it, few would want every fragment of their writing torn from its social and political context and dragged out before the rabble, but as a published work the collection deserves to be judged on its own merits. I found it lacking.
The young Marx’s ideological evil twin is Anne Coulter. Both have a talent for polemics, selectively quoting sources, and claiming that one sentence speaks for the whole of an entire class, state, etc. Both love a good provocation. Both are very fond of italics when making a point that is insuffciently well-argued as though the font can compensate for a dialectical deficiency. He has begun with his conclusion, the way society should be, and proceeds to work towards it by finding evidence of duplicity and lazy thinking by his ideological opposites. At this point, communism belongs to his Parisian clique and not properly to Marx. His early writings are devoid of actual praxis philosophy apart from that already published by other, more developed thinkers. This is an apprentice's work.
It’s a bit unfair to critique some of this harshly. Much of this book is scraps of manuscripts abandoned for good reason: the thinking is scattered, it never progresses beyond angry reaction to other peoples’ works. There is little novel in it. True that Karl didn’t/wouldn't ask Penguin to publish it, few would want every fragment of their writing torn from its social and political context and dragged out before the rabble, but as a published work the collection deserves to be judged on its own merits. I found it lacking.
October 11, 2023
Marx is a 10/10 for both his literary genius and political philosophy.
December 7, 2020
Þetta er tvöfaldur pakki. Stór fínar þýðingar á ótrúlega áhugaverðum textum Marx sem enn er hægt að hugsa með í samhengi samtímans. Svo er inngangur Ottós (135 bls.) frábært rit útaf fyrir sig sem staðsetur textana bæði í sögulegu samhengi og í samhengi hugsunar Marx. Hrósa Ottó fyrir gott verk og gef þessu fullt hús stiga.
October 23, 2017
It’s rare that you get to see evidence of demonization in a writer, but you can see that with Marx. Accordingly, some essays are hard to read. That might not be entirely fair, though. Marx is dealing with Hegel--no easy writer himself--so one can’t exactly be clear. And to give credit to Marx, I think his critique of Hegel is interesting and points to tensions in the Hegelian system.
Thesis: Hegel cannot escape an alienation that exists between the people and the state.
Hegel’s logic: the Idea becomes a subject; other concepts, like political sentiment, become predicates of the Idea (Marx 65). The Idea is differentiated into its members.
At best Hegel can only say that the monarch embodies the abstract universality of the Idea. The concrete people do not. And concepts like “constitution” do not help at all. Constitutions do not create themselves; they are created. Yet, the constitution governs the legislature. How can the created control the creator?
Ontology of Violence
Hegel establishes the executive branch as the polar opposite of civil society. Each keep the other in check by suspicion. Marx rightly points out this cannot establish an organic union (116).
Economics:
Money represents an object’s intrinsic worth. The real value of a thing is its exchange value, “which resides in money” (262). And in this situation, all labor is wage-labor (268). And wage-labor alienates labor from its subject and object. Marx then makes a wild statement that inanimate objects do the acting: “exchange is mediated necessarily by the objects of mutual production and mutual possession” (276).
For exchange to take place there must be a common element of quantity between the two. This must be labor.
Criticisms
*Marx says that the worker is on the side of society, and the interests of capitalists is against the interests of society (300), yet it is undeniable that capitalists produce technology (medicine, scientific advancements, etc) that benefit society.
*Marx revisited some of his problems in Capital years later. Labor isn’t homogenous, so how can it serve as a uniform medium of exchange? Gary North points out the major flaw: “ If all profits stem from the employment of human labor, then it follows that greater profits can be made in businesses that are labor intensive. The more machinery one employs in the production process, the less profit should be available, since there are fewer laborers present to exploit….Yet what we do see is precisely the reverse: the most profitable industries tend to be those in which large quantities of constant capital are employed (Marx’s Religion of Revolution, 123).
There is a simpler problem with the Labor theory: when men exchange, they aren’t exchanging on the supposed equality of a third term in the equation, but precisely on the inequality--the goods are unequal in the traders’ eyes.
*Marx sees all credit systems as the fat cat capitalist oppressing the poor borrower. He never imagines a situation where the creditor lends to the government.
*Marx has no concept of time-preference, where he sees production only as the gratification of immediate selfish needs (274).
Thesis: Hegel cannot escape an alienation that exists between the people and the state.
Hegel’s logic: the Idea becomes a subject; other concepts, like political sentiment, become predicates of the Idea (Marx 65). The Idea is differentiated into its members.
At best Hegel can only say that the monarch embodies the abstract universality of the Idea. The concrete people do not. And concepts like “constitution” do not help at all. Constitutions do not create themselves; they are created. Yet, the constitution governs the legislature. How can the created control the creator?
Ontology of Violence
Hegel establishes the executive branch as the polar opposite of civil society. Each keep the other in check by suspicion. Marx rightly points out this cannot establish an organic union (116).
Economics:
Money represents an object’s intrinsic worth. The real value of a thing is its exchange value, “which resides in money” (262). And in this situation, all labor is wage-labor (268). And wage-labor alienates labor from its subject and object. Marx then makes a wild statement that inanimate objects do the acting: “exchange is mediated necessarily by the objects of mutual production and mutual possession” (276).
For exchange to take place there must be a common element of quantity between the two. This must be labor.
Criticisms
*Marx says that the worker is on the side of society, and the interests of capitalists is against the interests of society (300), yet it is undeniable that capitalists produce technology (medicine, scientific advancements, etc) that benefit society.
*Marx revisited some of his problems in Capital years later. Labor isn’t homogenous, so how can it serve as a uniform medium of exchange? Gary North points out the major flaw: “ If all profits stem from the employment of human labor, then it follows that greater profits can be made in businesses that are labor intensive. The more machinery one employs in the production process, the less profit should be available, since there are fewer laborers present to exploit….Yet what we do see is precisely the reverse: the most profitable industries tend to be those in which large quantities of constant capital are employed (Marx’s Religion of Revolution, 123).
There is a simpler problem with the Labor theory: when men exchange, they aren’t exchanging on the supposed equality of a third term in the equation, but precisely on the inequality--the goods are unequal in the traders’ eyes.
*Marx sees all credit systems as the fat cat capitalist oppressing the poor borrower. He never imagines a situation where the creditor lends to the government.
*Marx has no concept of time-preference, where he sees production only as the gratification of immediate selfish needs (274).
December 8, 2023
There are some real hits and real misses in this collection, which was expected. The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts were excellent (5/5)—they’re accessible and cover some of the material in Capital in a more compact manner. On the Jewish Question should probably just not have been written (1/5). Marx’s critiques of Hegel were insightful at times, but a bit dense for me as I’m still not well-read on Hegel. Overall, I’d still recommend some of these, and the Manuscripts are available for free elsewhere.
January 21, 2021
I guess genius does not always manifest early. I initially picked this book to aid my research for my PhD and understand Marx's ideas on alienation more. Although I did gain a lot of useful information, everything else did not really add anything. Even for the period, Marx manages to say the simplest points in the most convoluted way possible. He clearly learned his lesson later, or most likely Engels helped, but I do not know how he expected anyone to get behind his ideas. This is not helped by Rodney Livingstone and Gregor Benton's translation in the Penguin Classics edition, who either made it much harder to understand or made no effort to update it to English. I mean, the edition literally has the date of the manuscripts wrong on the blurb. ON THE BLURB! Three words into the book, and there is already a mistake, so how am I supposed to trust the translation? This is also not helped by the introduction by Lucio Colletti, which does not attempt to explain the texts to a general reader. I would consider myself to be quite well-read. I have history studying Marx and took a Masters' level course in his theories, and even I struggled to tell the points Colletti was making. Overall, I really cannot recommend this book unless you have to research something. It is not enjoyable or informative and will most likely leave you feeling confused.
October 17, 2021
Brilliant. Essential if one is to understand Capital and the mature works. Colletti's introduction (and other writings e.g. From Rousseau to Lenin) do an excellent job of showing - contra Althusser - that the conceptual roots of Marx's mature 'sociological' critique of capitalism, and its intellectual handmaiden Political Economy, lie in his earlier incisive 'social' critique of Hegel and Feurbach's abstractions; the two phases of Marx's thought ('young' and 'old') are inseparable. In the same manner, these youthful writings testify to the lifelong inseparability of Marx's social criticism and his practical commitment to revolution.
April 18, 2024
This bitch talks in circles and circles. He’s so hard to understand.
May 7, 2024
interesting but you have to reread things 5 times before understanding it💜💜
Read
January 8, 2026The man goes scorched earth. Had a blast reading this
May 30, 2020
Excellent
Wonderful book if you want to understand Marx's early work and how it informs later books such as Das Capital
Wonderful book if you want to understand Marx's early work and how it informs later books such as Das Capital
May 23, 2025
Marx’s early writings in 1844-5 are a mixed bag in terms of quality as well as their theoretical usefulness. I appreciate the effort to collect all of his writings from this time period in one book, the time before, as Althusser put it, the ‘epistemological break’, but I feel a more curated collection would be better. For example, Marx’s critique of Hegel’s philosophy of right is messy and convoluted and incredibly unnecessary.
However, this book also includes some of Marx’s clearest writings and most excellently elaborated ideas. It is here that he first expounds his visions of communism, and breaks firmly with the Young Hegelian tradition of idealism, as well as contemplative materialism. It is here that Marx explains alienation in the crispest detail — far more so than in Capital, for example, which makes sense given the focus there is economic rather than philosophical — and explores theories of the state that very helpfully supplement and enrich Lenin’s analyses 60-70 years later.
“It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.”
“But without revolution socialism cannot be made possible. It stands in need of this political act just as it stands in need of destruction and dissolution. But as soon as its organising functions begin and its goal, its soul emerges, socialism throws its political mask aside.”
“Only in socialism can a philosophical nation discover the praxis consonant with its nature and only in the proletariat can it discover the active agent of its emancipation.”
“The existence of the state is inseparable from the existence of slavery…If the modern state desired to abolish the impotence of its administration it would have to abolish contemporary private life. And to abolish private life it would have to abolish itself, since it exists only as the antithesis of private life.”
“Religious sentiment, when it is drunk, of course, not when it is sober, considers itself to be the only good. Whenever it comes across evil it attributes it to its own absence for, if it is the only good, then it alone can create the good.”
“Estrangement appears not only in the fact that the means of my life belong to another and that my desire is the inaccessible possession of another, but also in the fact that all things are other than themselves, that my activity is other than itself, and that finally…an inhuman power rules over everything”.
Self-denial, the denial of life and of all human needs, is its principal doctrine. The less you eat, drink, buy books, go to the theatre, go dancing, go drinking, think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save and the greater will become that treasure which neither moths nor maggots can consume - your capital. The less you are, the less you give expression to your life, the more you have, the greater is your alienated life and the more you store up of your estranged life. Everything which the political economist takes from you in terms of life and humanity, he restores to you in the form of money and wealth, and everything which you are unable to do, your money can do for you: it can eat, drink, go dancing, go to the theatre, it can appropriate art, learning, historical curiosities, political power, it can travel, it is capable of doing all those things for you; it can buy everything; it is genuine wealth, genuine ability. But for all that, it only likes to create itself, to buy itself, for after all everything else is its servant.”
“Communism is the act of positing as the negation of the negation, and is therefore a real phase, necessary for the next period of historical development, in the emancipation and recovery of mankind.”
“Prostitution is only a particular expression of the universal prostitution of the worker, and since prostitution is a relationship which includes not only the prostituted but also the prostitutor…the capitalist is also included in this category.” — ABOLISH SEX WORK.
“The positive supersession of private property [communism], as the appropriation of human life, is therefore the positive supersession of all estrangement, and the return of man from religion, the family, the state, etc, to his human, ie social existence.”
“An enforced rise in wages…would therefore be nothing more than better pay for slaves and would not mean an increase in human significance or dignity for either the worker or the labourer…Wages are an immediate consequence of estranged labour, and estranged labour is the immediate cause of private property. If the one falls, then the other must fall too.”
“The inevitable consequence of this competition is the deterioration in the quality of good, adulteration, spurious production and universal pollution to be found in large towns.”
“My labour would be the free expression and hence the enjoyment of life. In the framework of private property it is the alienation of life since I work in order to live, in order to procure for myself the means of life. My labour is not life.
Moreover, in my labour the specific character of my individuality would be affirmed because it would be my individual life. Labour would be authentic, active, property. In the framework of private property my individuality has been alienated to the point where I loathe this activity, it is torture for me. It is in fact no more than the appearance of activity and for that reason it is only a forced labour imposed on me not through an inner necessity but through an external arbitrary need.”
“The perfect form of monopoly is competition.”
“The mutual separation of labour, capital and landed property, i.e. of labour from labour, capital from capital and landed property from landed property, and finally the separation of labour from wages, of capital from profits, of profits from interest, and finally of landed property from ground rent, ensures that self-estrangement becomes manifest both as self-estrangement and mutual estrangement.”
“When the proletariat demands the negation of private property, it is only elevating to a principle for society what society has already made a principle for the proletariat”.
“In the formation of a class [the proletariat] with radical chains…a class which is the dissolution of all classes, a sphere which has a universal character because of its universal suffering…and finally a sphere which cannot emancipate itself without emancipating itself from — and thereby emancipating — all the other spheres of society.”
“To be radical is to grasp things by the root.”
“Religious suffering is at one and the same time the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
“The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.”
“Money is the jealous god of Israel before whom no other god may stand. Money debases all the gods of mankind and turns them into commodities. Money is the universal and self-constituted value of all things. It has therefore deprived the entire world — both the world of man and of nature — of its specific value. Money is the estranged essence of man’s work and existence; this alien essence dominates him and he worships it.”
“The limitations of political emancipation are immediately apparent from the fact that the state can liberate itself from a restriction without man himself being truly free of it, that a state can be a free state without man himself being a free man.”
“Hence man was not freed from religion — he received the freedom of religion. He was not freed from property — he received the freedom of property.“
However, this book also includes some of Marx’s clearest writings and most excellently elaborated ideas. It is here that he first expounds his visions of communism, and breaks firmly with the Young Hegelian tradition of idealism, as well as contemplative materialism. It is here that Marx explains alienation in the crispest detail — far more so than in Capital, for example, which makes sense given the focus there is economic rather than philosophical — and explores theories of the state that very helpfully supplement and enrich Lenin’s analyses 60-70 years later.
“It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.”
“But without revolution socialism cannot be made possible. It stands in need of this political act just as it stands in need of destruction and dissolution. But as soon as its organising functions begin and its goal, its soul emerges, socialism throws its political mask aside.”
“Only in socialism can a philosophical nation discover the praxis consonant with its nature and only in the proletariat can it discover the active agent of its emancipation.”
“The existence of the state is inseparable from the existence of slavery…If the modern state desired to abolish the impotence of its administration it would have to abolish contemporary private life. And to abolish private life it would have to abolish itself, since it exists only as the antithesis of private life.”
“Religious sentiment, when it is drunk, of course, not when it is sober, considers itself to be the only good. Whenever it comes across evil it attributes it to its own absence for, if it is the only good, then it alone can create the good.”
“Estrangement appears not only in the fact that the means of my life belong to another and that my desire is the inaccessible possession of another, but also in the fact that all things are other than themselves, that my activity is other than itself, and that finally…an inhuman power rules over everything”.
Self-denial, the denial of life and of all human needs, is its principal doctrine. The less you eat, drink, buy books, go to the theatre, go dancing, go drinking, think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save and the greater will become that treasure which neither moths nor maggots can consume - your capital. The less you are, the less you give expression to your life, the more you have, the greater is your alienated life and the more you store up of your estranged life. Everything which the political economist takes from you in terms of life and humanity, he restores to you in the form of money and wealth, and everything which you are unable to do, your money can do for you: it can eat, drink, go dancing, go to the theatre, it can appropriate art, learning, historical curiosities, political power, it can travel, it is capable of doing all those things for you; it can buy everything; it is genuine wealth, genuine ability. But for all that, it only likes to create itself, to buy itself, for after all everything else is its servant.”
“Communism is the act of positing as the negation of the negation, and is therefore a real phase, necessary for the next period of historical development, in the emancipation and recovery of mankind.”
“Prostitution is only a particular expression of the universal prostitution of the worker, and since prostitution is a relationship which includes not only the prostituted but also the prostitutor…the capitalist is also included in this category.” — ABOLISH SEX WORK.
“The positive supersession of private property [communism], as the appropriation of human life, is therefore the positive supersession of all estrangement, and the return of man from religion, the family, the state, etc, to his human, ie social existence.”
“An enforced rise in wages…would therefore be nothing more than better pay for slaves and would not mean an increase in human significance or dignity for either the worker or the labourer…Wages are an immediate consequence of estranged labour, and estranged labour is the immediate cause of private property. If the one falls, then the other must fall too.”
“The inevitable consequence of this competition is the deterioration in the quality of good, adulteration, spurious production and universal pollution to be found in large towns.”
“My labour would be the free expression and hence the enjoyment of life. In the framework of private property it is the alienation of life since I work in order to live, in order to procure for myself the means of life. My labour is not life.
Moreover, in my labour the specific character of my individuality would be affirmed because it would be my individual life. Labour would be authentic, active, property. In the framework of private property my individuality has been alienated to the point where I loathe this activity, it is torture for me. It is in fact no more than the appearance of activity and for that reason it is only a forced labour imposed on me not through an inner necessity but through an external arbitrary need.”
“The perfect form of monopoly is competition.”
“The mutual separation of labour, capital and landed property, i.e. of labour from labour, capital from capital and landed property from landed property, and finally the separation of labour from wages, of capital from profits, of profits from interest, and finally of landed property from ground rent, ensures that self-estrangement becomes manifest both as self-estrangement and mutual estrangement.”
“When the proletariat demands the negation of private property, it is only elevating to a principle for society what society has already made a principle for the proletariat”.
“In the formation of a class [the proletariat] with radical chains…a class which is the dissolution of all classes, a sphere which has a universal character because of its universal suffering…and finally a sphere which cannot emancipate itself without emancipating itself from — and thereby emancipating — all the other spheres of society.”
“To be radical is to grasp things by the root.”
“Religious suffering is at one and the same time the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
“The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.”
“Money is the jealous god of Israel before whom no other god may stand. Money debases all the gods of mankind and turns them into commodities. Money is the universal and self-constituted value of all things. It has therefore deprived the entire world — both the world of man and of nature — of its specific value. Money is the estranged essence of man’s work and existence; this alien essence dominates him and he worships it.”
“The limitations of political emancipation are immediately apparent from the fact that the state can liberate itself from a restriction without man himself being truly free of it, that a state can be a free state without man himself being a free man.”
“Hence man was not freed from religion — he received the freedom of religion. He was not freed from property — he received the freedom of property.“
August 2, 2023
AN EXCELLENT COLLECTION OF LITTLE-KNOWN MARXIST WRITINGS
The Introduction to this book by Lucio Colletti states, “The writings contained in this volume were produced by Marx during the two years 18434-4, when he was little more than twenty-five years old. Some were published at once…. Others... were published only posthumously… Marx’s youthful philosophical work was for the most part only discovered comparatively recently… the Marxism of the Second International was constituted in almost total ignorance of the difficult and intricate process through which Marx has passed in the years from 1843 to 1845, as he formulated historical materialism for the first time… A whole generation of Marxist theorists knew next to nothing through no fault of their own of Marx’s early philosophical writings… The first generation of Marxists approached Marx through ‘Capital’ and his other published writings… and were unable to understand fully the philosophical precedents and background underlying them. They could not know the reasons, philosophical as well as practical, which had induced Marx to give up philosophy after his break with Hegel and Feuerbach; induced him to devote himself to the analysis of modern capitalist society, instead of going on to write a philosophical treatise of his own…
“This fundamental unease is revealed clearly in the Marxist writings of the Second International. Why had ‘Capital’ been given priority? Why had Marx devoted all his efforts to the analysis of one particular socio-economic formation, without prefacing it by some other work expressing his general philosophical conceptions, his overall vision of the world?... while a philosophical background or general conception could be glimpsed only occasionally and with some difficulty in Marx’s prevalently economic works, in Engels it stood squarely in the foreground… The leading intellectual figures … had all been drawn to Marx principally by the works of Engels.” (Pg. 7-9)
In his ‘Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of the State,’ Marx wrote, “Hegel’s logic is cogent if we accept the presuppositions of a constitutional state. But the fact that Hegal has ANALYZED the fundamental idea of these presuppositions does not mean that he has demonstrated their validity. It is in this confusion that the whole critical failure of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right can be discerned.” (Pg. 96)
He continues, “The bureaucratic mind is a Jesuitic, theological mind through and though. The bureaucrats are the Jesuits and theologians of the state. The bureaucracy is the religious republic.” (Pg. 107)
In an 1843 letter to Ruge, Marx stated, “Hitherto philosophers have left the keys to all riddles lying in their desks, and the stupid, uninitiated world had only to wait around for the roasted pigeons of absolute science to fly into its open mouth. Philosophy has now become secularized and the most striking proof of all this can be seen in the way that philosophical consciousness had joined battle not only outwardly, but inwardly too. If we have no business with the construction of the future or with organizing it for all time there can still be no doubt about the task confronting us at present: the ruthless criticism of the existing order, ruthless in that it will shrink neither from its own discoveries nor from conflict with the powers that be. I am therefore not in favor of our hoisting a dogmatic banner. Quite the reverse. We must try to help the dogmatists to clarify their ideas.” (Pg. 207)
In ‘On the Jewish Question,’ he asserted, “Money is the jealous god of Israel before whom no other god may stand. Money debases all gods of mankind and turns them into commodities… Money is the estranged essence of man’s work and existence; this alien essence dominates him and he worships it. The god of the Jews has been secularized and become the god of the world. Exchange is the true god of the Jew…” (Pg. 239)
In his ‘Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,’ he famously said, “The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is indeed the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself or has already lost himself again…. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world… The struggle against religion is therefore indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is at one and the same time the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions.” (Pg. 244)
He continues, “For Germany, theoretical emancipation has a specific practical significance even from a historical point of view. For Germany’s revolutionary past, in the form of the Reformation, is also theoretical. Just as it was then the MONK, so it is now the PHILOSOPHER in whose brain the revolution begins.” (Pg. 251)
He asserts, “The right of the landowners can be traced back to robbery. Landowners, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for the natural produce of the land.” (Pg. 309)
He explains, “Communism is the positive supersession of private property as human self-estrangement, and hence the true appropriation of the human essence through and for man; it is the complete restoration of man to himself as a social, i.e. human being, a restoration which has become conscious and which takes place within the entire wealth of previous periods of development.” (Pg. 348)
He argues, “Atheism, which is a denial of this unreality, no longer has any meaning, for atheism is a NEGATION of God, through which negation it asserts the existence of man. But socialism as such no longer needs such mediation. Its starting-point is the theoretically and practically sensuous consciousness of man and of nature as essential beings.” (Pg. 357)
In his ‘Theses On Feuerbach’ (aka ‘Concerning Feuerbach’), he wrote, “X: The standpoint of the old materialism is civil society; the standpoint of the new is human society, or social humanity. XI: The philosophers have only INTERPRETED the world, in various ways; the point is to CHANGE it.” (Pg. 423)
This book will be of great interest to those studying Marx.
The Introduction to this book by Lucio Colletti states, “The writings contained in this volume were produced by Marx during the two years 18434-4, when he was little more than twenty-five years old. Some were published at once…. Others... were published only posthumously… Marx’s youthful philosophical work was for the most part only discovered comparatively recently… the Marxism of the Second International was constituted in almost total ignorance of the difficult and intricate process through which Marx has passed in the years from 1843 to 1845, as he formulated historical materialism for the first time… A whole generation of Marxist theorists knew next to nothing through no fault of their own of Marx’s early philosophical writings… The first generation of Marxists approached Marx through ‘Capital’ and his other published writings… and were unable to understand fully the philosophical precedents and background underlying them. They could not know the reasons, philosophical as well as practical, which had induced Marx to give up philosophy after his break with Hegel and Feuerbach; induced him to devote himself to the analysis of modern capitalist society, instead of going on to write a philosophical treatise of his own…
“This fundamental unease is revealed clearly in the Marxist writings of the Second International. Why had ‘Capital’ been given priority? Why had Marx devoted all his efforts to the analysis of one particular socio-economic formation, without prefacing it by some other work expressing his general philosophical conceptions, his overall vision of the world?... while a philosophical background or general conception could be glimpsed only occasionally and with some difficulty in Marx’s prevalently economic works, in Engels it stood squarely in the foreground… The leading intellectual figures … had all been drawn to Marx principally by the works of Engels.” (Pg. 7-9)
In his ‘Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of the State,’ Marx wrote, “Hegel’s logic is cogent if we accept the presuppositions of a constitutional state. But the fact that Hegal has ANALYZED the fundamental idea of these presuppositions does not mean that he has demonstrated their validity. It is in this confusion that the whole critical failure of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right can be discerned.” (Pg. 96)
He continues, “The bureaucratic mind is a Jesuitic, theological mind through and though. The bureaucrats are the Jesuits and theologians of the state. The bureaucracy is the religious republic.” (Pg. 107)
In an 1843 letter to Ruge, Marx stated, “Hitherto philosophers have left the keys to all riddles lying in their desks, and the stupid, uninitiated world had only to wait around for the roasted pigeons of absolute science to fly into its open mouth. Philosophy has now become secularized and the most striking proof of all this can be seen in the way that philosophical consciousness had joined battle not only outwardly, but inwardly too. If we have no business with the construction of the future or with organizing it for all time there can still be no doubt about the task confronting us at present: the ruthless criticism of the existing order, ruthless in that it will shrink neither from its own discoveries nor from conflict with the powers that be. I am therefore not in favor of our hoisting a dogmatic banner. Quite the reverse. We must try to help the dogmatists to clarify their ideas.” (Pg. 207)
In ‘On the Jewish Question,’ he asserted, “Money is the jealous god of Israel before whom no other god may stand. Money debases all gods of mankind and turns them into commodities… Money is the estranged essence of man’s work and existence; this alien essence dominates him and he worships it. The god of the Jews has been secularized and become the god of the world. Exchange is the true god of the Jew…” (Pg. 239)
In his ‘Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,’ he famously said, “The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is indeed the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself or has already lost himself again…. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world… The struggle against religion is therefore indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is at one and the same time the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions.” (Pg. 244)
He continues, “For Germany, theoretical emancipation has a specific practical significance even from a historical point of view. For Germany’s revolutionary past, in the form of the Reformation, is also theoretical. Just as it was then the MONK, so it is now the PHILOSOPHER in whose brain the revolution begins.” (Pg. 251)
He asserts, “The right of the landowners can be traced back to robbery. Landowners, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for the natural produce of the land.” (Pg. 309)
He explains, “Communism is the positive supersession of private property as human self-estrangement, and hence the true appropriation of the human essence through and for man; it is the complete restoration of man to himself as a social, i.e. human being, a restoration which has become conscious and which takes place within the entire wealth of previous periods of development.” (Pg. 348)
He argues, “Atheism, which is a denial of this unreality, no longer has any meaning, for atheism is a NEGATION of God, through which negation it asserts the existence of man. But socialism as such no longer needs such mediation. Its starting-point is the theoretically and practically sensuous consciousness of man and of nature as essential beings.” (Pg. 357)
In his ‘Theses On Feuerbach’ (aka ‘Concerning Feuerbach’), he wrote, “X: The standpoint of the old materialism is civil society; the standpoint of the new is human society, or social humanity. XI: The philosophers have only INTERPRETED the world, in various ways; the point is to CHANGE it.” (Pg. 423)
This book will be of great interest to those studying Marx.
February 3, 2008
The event, or practice, is not the result of consciousness, or an idea. Consciousness is born out of practice. In order to 'think outside the box' you have to make another box.
"If we assume man to be man, and his relation to the world to be a human one, then love can be exchanged only for love, trust for trust, and so on."
I guess the 1844 Manuscripts were his first attempt to leave German, idealist philosophy behind and focus on political economy. "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it."
I know it's not Capital, and there's supposedly the problem of essentialism, but the idea of the human as self-producing force is so good. "If the problem of Marx's Early Works is really to be posed, the first condition to fulfill is to admit that even philosophers are young men for a time."<--That's Althusser
"If we assume man to be man, and his relation to the world to be a human one, then love can be exchanged only for love, trust for trust, and so on."
I guess the 1844 Manuscripts were his first attempt to leave German, idealist philosophy behind and focus on political economy. "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it."
I know it's not Capital, and there's supposedly the problem of essentialism, but the idea of the human as self-producing force is so good. "If the problem of Marx's Early Works is really to be posed, the first condition to fulfill is to admit that even philosophers are young men for a time."<--That's Althusser
September 28, 2010
Probably not the best stuff from the Great Karl Marx. Essentialist to its core, it reaks of simplicity. I re-read the works on Estranged Labor, which was interesting, but he just keeps trying to stick with the same simplistic point - Human Nature is basically good, and it is because of private-property & capitalist greed that people become evil.... well, yes, but Karl, things are much more complex than that. Definitely not as masterful as his mature works. It reaks of the cock-sure adolescent bravado of someone who has yet to figure out "Shit, I really don't have all the answers".... I still love his ideas, but these works do not showcase the depth of his genius... too simplistic. What you get are simple-minded revolutionary ideas obviously written by someone who has yet to really strike out and enter the real world yet (Gasp?!) but he's still brilliant, just not fully mature yet.
Read
April 17, 2024i do not know how much i liked this, karl mark. hits and misses, karl mark.
September 22, 2017
Sta certo di ciò, Io non cambierò la mia natura
Di malvagio per servirti.
Meglio essere il servitore di questa roccia
Che essere il fedele servitore di Zeus padre
Nei primi scritti del giovane Marx inizia a comparire la tensione verso le questioni religiose e quelle politiche, legate soprattutto alle contraddizioni del sistema liberale. Accompagnato dall'amore paterno, cui molte lettere sono dedicate, e dagli amori passionali tipici dei venti anni, Marx affronta con spirito critico e senso dell'urgenza le differenze fra la filosofia democritea e quella epicurea della natura, analizzando scrupolosamente il metodo con cui i due filosofi si cimentano nelle prime teorizzazioni dell'atomismo.
Colpisce che in un giovane di appena 20 anni siano così evidenti lo studio attento dei classici greci e latini - continui sono i richiami a Eschilo, Cicerone, Diogene Laerzio, Plutarco, Senofonte e altri - e la voglia di scandagliare nel profondo la filosofia, il diritto, la religione come solo il più attento degli scienziati può fare.
May 11, 2020
The central focus of why I got this book was the continue and philosophical manuscripts and I’m very happy with the result, one of the far more accessible Marxist texts which I’ll need to study more to fully appreciate.
I struggled a bit with the criticism of Hegels doctrine of the state but it reminded me in parts of reading Gramsci, it was good also to see the relation of the Estates, Monarch and Civil Society which might be better expressed today as the Ruling Class, the State, civil society, the specific political functions of civil society, and the working class.
Worth reading.
I struggled a bit with the criticism of Hegels doctrine of the state but it reminded me in parts of reading Gramsci, it was good also to see the relation of the Estates, Monarch and Civil Society which might be better expressed today as the Ruling Class, the State, civil society, the specific political functions of civil society, and the working class.
Worth reading.
February 9, 2024
Not an easy read for sure, but what is to be expected from Marx.
Definitely worth it, though. It is insightful hearing some of the basis of his philosophy in response to Hegel, and his discussion in the Jewish question. I was really looking forward to reading that one, given the events in Germany after his passing.
I would recommend reading Hegel’s work beforehand, or at least familiarizing yourself with it if you have not already. I think that was jarring to walk into, not knowing the context.
Definitely worth it, though. It is insightful hearing some of the basis of his philosophy in response to Hegel, and his discussion in the Jewish question. I was really looking forward to reading that one, given the events in Germany after his passing.
I would recommend reading Hegel’s work beforehand, or at least familiarizing yourself with it if you have not already. I think that was jarring to walk into, not knowing the context.
March 3, 2024
Some of these essays were unfinished or weren’t intended to be published. However, they were some sort of attempt for a younger Marx to consolidate some of his ideas which would become more prevalent in his later works or if you take the position of his epistemological break, ideas which he would later abandon. Some of these essays are difficult to read unless you have some background in Hegelese. I liked the essays which were in response to specific historical conditions. Nevertheless a good book if you are interested in the ideas of the Younger Marx
April 24, 2018
"...the more of himself man attributes to God the less he has left in himself. The worker puts his life into the object, and his life then belongs no longer to himself but to the object. The greater his activity, therefore, the less he possesses...."
Probably will not be reading anymore Marx books for awhile. I did try to read this with an open mind, and I can definitely see and understand where Marx and his followers are coming from. But for me, Capitalism for the win everyday.
Probably will not be reading anymore Marx books for awhile. I did try to read this with an open mind, and I can definitely see and understand where Marx and his followers are coming from. But for me, Capitalism for the win everyday.
August 26, 2019
I'd already read most of the material presented in this volume, but it's always helpful to revisit a difficult text, as Marx's usually are. The Jewish Question was the only thing here I hadn't read before. Far from the antisemitic screed you'd expect from something with a name like that, it's actually a pretty good look at religion itself, how the state interacts with religion and so forth.
All in all, this isn't a bad volume. You could do worse than start here if you're new to "Younger Marx."
All in all, this isn't a bad volume. You could do worse than start here if you're new to "Younger Marx."
April 23, 2024
wanted to rip this up at multiple points because marx is genuinely unintelligible and i need line by line annotations before i can begin to understand what he’s trying to get at. with that out of the way i am starting to understand why there are marxist enjoyers out there because it does feel very rewarding and illuminating to finally access the abstract threads that marx draws between very tangible things.
September 14, 2022
Marx’s early work is much more focused on the humanist and philosophical side of his thought than his later work. A familiarity with his early work is therefore absolutely essential for an understanding of Marx. However, the two most important works here are definitely the appendices: Theses on Feuerbach and Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
January 22, 2022
Fascinating
This is quite a fragmented set of writings but it does a great deal to illuminate a lot of Marx's thinking and the process by which he arrived at his loner critiques and theorem. This is much more focused on the l
Philosophical side of his journey.
This is quite a fragmented set of writings but it does a great deal to illuminate a lot of Marx's thinking and the process by which he arrived at his loner critiques and theorem. This is much more focused on the l
Philosophical side of his journey.
October 20, 2021
A great collection of Marx's early work, including the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts with a thought provoking introduction by Lucio Colletti.
December 18, 2023
hey you gotta give him his props this guys a pretty good poet
to-keep-reference
December 30, 2015Un importante ejemplo del funcionamiento de esta dimensión espacial se demuestra por los procesos que han terminado con el Tercer Mundo, junto con todas las glorias y desgracias de sus pasadas luchas, el poder de los deseos que atravesaron sus procesos de liberación, y la pobreza de los resultados que coronaron sus éxitos. Hoy, los héroes reales de la liberación del Tercer Mundo pueden haber sido los emigrantes y los flujos de población que destruyeron viejas y nuevas fronteras. De hecho, el héroe poscolonial es aquel que continuamente transgrede los límites territoriales y raciales, el que destruye los particularismos puntuales en pos de una civilización común. En contraste, el comando imperial aísla a las poblaciones en la pobreza, permitiéndoles actuar sólo en los corsés de las naciones poscoloniales subordinadas. El éxodo del localismo, la trasgresión de costumbres y límites, y la deserción de la soberanía fueron las fuerzas operativas de la liberación del Tercer Mundo. Aquí podemos reconocer más que nunca la diferencia que definió Marx entre emancipación y liberación.
Imperio Pág.270
Imperio Pág.270
June 28, 2009
Marx's style is difficult to decipher. In "On the Jewish Question," it was difficult to determine exactly how ironic he was being. I've since learned that when talking about the Jewish Cult he was really referring to the Capitalist Cult, but this is far from clear, and you can see just how easily anti-semites could have coopted these ideas for their own ends. His "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts" seem more weighty, but I wasn't exactly sure in what way until I read Fromm's "Marx's Concept of Man" and had it explained to me. Probably not the ideal leisure book, unless you like spending more time on a text than I do (entirely possible).
July 10, 2014
Slowly worked through this collection of writings over about a year with a Reading Group. Its an eclectic collection.
I suppose I would have to agree with Althusser's assessment that these early writings are somewhat un-marxist. They are infected with a kind of ahistorical humanism that is inconsistent with the later work on Political Economy - superstructure / economic base model.
I suppose I would have to agree with Althusser's assessment that these early writings are somewhat un-marxist. They are infected with a kind of ahistorical humanism that is inconsistent with the later work on Political Economy - superstructure / economic base model.
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