Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Martin Milligan (Translator)

Communism as a political movement attained global importance after the Bolsheviks toppled the Russian Czar in 1917. After that time the works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, especially the influential Communist Manifesto (1848), enjoyed an international audience. The world was to learn a new political vocabulary peppered with "socialism", "capitalism", "the working class", "the bourgeoisie", "labour theory of value", "alienation", "economic determinism", "dialectical materialism", and "historical materialism". Marx's economic analysis of history has been a powerful legacy, the effects of which continue to be felt world-wide.Serving as the foundation for Marx's indictment of capitalism is his extraordinary work titled "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts", written in 1844 but published nearly a century later. Here Marx offers his theory of human nature and an analysis of emerging capitalism's degenerative impact on man's sense of self and his creative potential. What is man's true nature? How did capitalism gain such a foothold on Western society? What is alienation and how does it threaten to undermine the proletariat? These and other vital questions are addressed as the youthful Marx sets forth his first detailed assessment of the human condition.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Economics, Nonfiction, Theory, Sociology, History

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1844

About the author

With 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 Bakhtin 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...

Reviews

[Ian "Marvin" Graye · Rating 5 out of 5]

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

Early Work

The EPM is an early work by Marx.

It is where he develops his version of alienation and the relationship of the self to others, but also the relationship to work and the means of production.

By the time of The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels had got involved in History and were not content just to describe it.

They became theorists and publicists for a revolutionary cause.

They created a theoretical justification for violence as a methodology for achieving a political goal.

Justifying the Use of Violence

Despite how democratic nations claim to be, many still use violence to achieve a goal or maintain the status quo.

Because they can't be seen to endorse revolution, they create and embrace the term "regime change".

They are both types of violence. The only difference is the justification.

They both use the same means, the difference is the end.

However, the EPM precedes all of this.

Reassessing Their Relevance

Marx and Engels have received a lot of bad publicity. Few dare to defend them.

But in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis, it's worth opening their works and having a dispassionate squiz.

Not so that we can all get on a revolutionary anti-capitalism bandwagon again, but so that we can understand the plight of people in contemporary society.


FULL REVIEW:
July 20, 2012

At 25

In October, 1843, Karl and Jenny Marx left Cologne and arrived in Paris, where they lived and worked for two years.

Marx’ intention was to write for a radical magazine. At the time of their arrival, Marx was 25 and Jenny was pregnant with their first child, Jenny.

While in Paris, Marx wrote the “Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts”, which were effectively the first draft of the ideas that would become the foundation of “Das Kapital” (“Capital”), the first volume of which he published in 1867.

The manuscripts are a critique of “political economy”, the term used then for what we now call “economics”.

They were never published during his lifetime and only became available in Russia in 1932, fifteen years after the Russian Revolution that brought the Communists to power.

Thus, a key work that explained the origin of his ideas remained unknown and of no influence for almost 90 years.

Communism as it manifested itself in the Soviet Union owed more to later works like “The Communist Manifesto” (1848) and “Capital”.

Just as importantly, the works weren’t translated into English until 1959, from which point they caused a radical reassessment of Marx’ ideas.

The Wealth of Nations

The manuscripts total about 120 pages.

The first 40 to 50 pages largely describe the operation of the economy.

If you were to read these pages for the first time today, you would think they encapsulated the principal communist analysis of the capitalist economy.

They describe private property; the separation of labour, capital and land; the separation of wages, profit of capital and rent of land; the division of labour, competition and the concept of exchange value.

Yet, ironically, most of this analysis is quoted from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations”, a work sympathetic to capitalism published in 1776.

Marx highlights that:

• The worker does not necessarily gain when the capitalist gains, but he necessarily loses with him.

• Where worker and capitalist both suffer, the worker suffers in his very existence, while the capitalist suffers primarily in the profit on his capital.

• The worker must not only struggle for his physical means of subsistence, he must also struggle for work (in order to obtain the possibility and means of realizing his activity).

• The accumulation of capital increases the division of labour.

• As a consequence of the division of labour and the accumulation of capital, the worker becomes more and more dependent on labour, in particular a very one-dimensional and machine-like labour, which depresses him both intellectually and physically to the level of a machine.

• Even when the economy is growing, the consequence for workers is overwork and early death.

• The more mechanical nature of his work makes him more vulnerable to competition from both other workers and machines.

• Wages are designed to be just enough to enable him to continue to work.

• Even if the average income of all classes has increased, the relative incomes have grown further apart and the differences between wealth and poverty have become sharper.

• Relative poverty has grown, even though absolute poverty has diminished.

• Political economy knows the worker only as a beast of burden, as an animal reduced to the minimum bodily needs.

• It is foolish to conclude, as Smith does, that the interest of the landlord or capitalist is always identical with that of the tenant or society.

So far then, “from political economy itself, using its own words,” Marx shows that:

• The worker sinks to the level of a commodity.

• The misery of the worker is in inverse proportion to the power and volume of his production.

• The necessary consequence of competition is the accumulation of capital in a few hands and hence the restoration of monopoly in a more terrible form.

• The distinction between capitalist and landlord, between agricultural worker and industrial worker, disappears and the whole of society must split into the two classes of property owners and propertyless workers.

Marx concludes that “Political economy proceeds from the fact of private property. It does not explain it...Political economy fails to explain the reason for the division between labour and capital, between capital and land.”

Marx therefore sets out to grasp “the essential connection between private property, greed, the separation of labour, capital and landed property, exchange and competition, value and the devaluation of man, monopoly and competition, etc. – the connection between this entire system of estrangement [alienation] and the money system.”

Putting the Political Back Into “Political Economy”

I have quoted so much of Marx, partly to show how much he relied on Smith and Ricardo for his underlying analysis of the economy, partly to illustrate how little things have changed, partly to identify the moment at which Marx became political, and partly so that we can consider the political and economic options that might have been available to him to address the problems he perceived.

It was common ground that the economy was effectively a joint venture between labour, capital and landed property.

The problem was how to regulate and manage the relationship between them.

If they are all prerequisites of economic activity, are they equally vital and therefore should they be given an equal or at least more equitable status?

Is any one ingredient more or less fundamental than the others?

The Relative Significance of Capital

Smith would have said that capital was the foundation of capitalism and the one true determinant of the relationship.

Capital is money, and money has a purchasing power that can buy labour, just as it can buy property.

Capital therefore doesn’t acknowledge a joint venture relationship.

It buys what it needs to make more money and effectively replicate itself.

Capital, in its own eyes, is in control.

Over the course of 1844, this viewpoint became a red rag to Marx' bull.

The Options

One option would have been to remunerate workers more adequately.

Another would have been to grant them a share of the joint venture profit.

These options might have remedied some of the inequities.

However, they weren’t adequate from Marx’ perspective.

His preferred option was to abolish private property, in effect, to abolish private capital.

Why did he suggest this?

Entitlement to the Surplus Value

Again, there was common ground that the joint venture could create a profit or surplus value.

However, because capital has bought the labour and the property, capitalism gives the profit not to the joint venture, but to the capital that funds it.

Following on from Smith's description of the economy, Marx argues that ultimately it is labour that creates surplus value.

There would be no profit or capital without the labour that originally created the product or commodity.

If the worker whose labour created the original product had received the whole of the profit, the capitalist would have obtained no capital.

In the absence of capital, the capitalist would have had no money with which to purchase labour or property.

Instead, labour contributes to the capitalist’s wealth, which then, like a snake, turns around and consumes itself, starting with the tail or labour.

Marx believed that, only by chopping the snake in half and giving labour the benefit of surplus value, could real equity be achieved.

Since labour is the foundation of all surplus value, it should own the surplus value.

To achieve this, Marx believed we had to abolish private property.

A Chinese Diversion

Incidentally, in the Communist China of today, the replacement of private capital is not the worker, but public capital in the form of the State (the representative of the workers and other people).

By employing or exploiting Chinese workers, the Chinese State now makes so much surplus value, that, like a snake, it can turn around and start consuming or buying the capitalist economies of the world.

These economies are totally dependent on China for their continued existence.

What’s So Wrong with Private Property?

By rejecting the other available options, Marx rejected any suggestion that the inequity was purely about remuneration. (Even if the poor subsequently got richer under capitalism, the rich would get disproportionately richer, therefore “relative poverty” would increase.)

It’s precisely at this point that Marx becomes most philosophical in his approach to political economy.

He had to solve the problem of political economy in a way that satisfied the political philosophy that had begun to emerge in his mind.

The issue was so fundamental to Marx, because in his eyes it was the cause of the estrangement or alienation of mankind.

Alienation

For me, what follows is the essence of Marx, even if most Marxists or Communists before 1932 (or 1959) would have been relatively unaware of its significance (except to the extent that some of these ideas emerged, possibly slightly changed in detail or emphasis, in the later works of Marx like “Capital”).

In contrast to Hegel, Marx did not see the correct subject matter of philosophy as contemplation or idealism, but practice or “human sensuous activity”.

Man doesn’t just think, he acts, he does things, he interacts with objects in the material world, he makes things, he produces things. (For this reason, Hannah Arendt calls man “homo faber”.)

These objects and the products of his interaction have a material existence outside the mind.

During the process of labour, a worker creates a product or commodity that “stands opposed to [him] as something alien, as a power independent of the [worker or] producer”:

"The product of labour is labour embodied and made material in an object, it is the objectification of the labour. The realization of labour is its objectification. In the sphere of political economy this realization of labour appears as a loss of reality for the worker, objectification as loss of and bondage to the object, and appropriation [by capital and the capitalist]as estrangement, as alienation."

In return for his labour, the worker receives work and remuneration, the means of subsistence.

This turns him into a slave. “The activity of the worker is not his own spontaneous activity. It belongs to another, it is a loss of self”:

"The result is that man (the worker) feels that he is acting freely only in his animal functions – eating, drinking and procreating, or at most in his dwelling and adornment – while in his human functions he is nothing more than an animal."

Man becomes alienated, not just from his labour and the product of his labour, but from the human race (his species) as a whole and from other individual humans.

And private property is at the root of this alienation: it is “the product, result and necessary consequence of alienated labour, of the external relation of the worker to nature and to himself”:

"Private property thus derives from an analysis of the concept of alienated labour, i.e., alienated man, estranged labour, estranged life, estranged man."

Private property is both the product of alienation and the means of realizing alienation.

Marx’ Communism

Marx describes as "crude communism" the initial abolition of private property in favour of "universal private property".

At this stage, crude communism (now usually called "socialism") still preserves some form of alienation and is a political state, whether "democratic or despotic".

Stage 2 is true Communism, which he describes as follows:

"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...

"This communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature, and between man and man, the true resolution of the conflict between existence and being, between objectification and self-affirmation, between freedom and necessity, between individual and species.

"It is the solution of the riddle of history and knows itself to be the solution."

So there!

It’s significant that, while Marx was in Paris, he first met Engels (who had just published "The Condition of the Working Class in England") and this was his first statement that he now supported Communism.

Universal Consciousness

But what does it mean? How can this happen?

This is where it starts to become frustrating and unclear. Some of the manuscripts have never been found.

We have outcomes, but not the methodology.

The new relationship of man to man, and individual to society is crucial, but difficult to piece together and understand.

For Marx, "activity and consumption, both in their content and in their mode of existence, are social activity and social consumption."

He doesn’t mean that we solely act, produce and consume communally (as opposed to individually).

He means that what man creates for himself, he creates for society, conscious of himself as a social being.

The individual and society are two sides of the one coin:

"[My] universal consciousness is only a theoretical form of that whose living form is the real community, society...the activity of my universal consciousness – as activity – is my theoretical existence as a social being...

"It is above all necessary to avoid once more establishing ‘society’ as an abstraction over against the individual. The individual is the social being.

"His vital expression – even when it does not appear in the direct form of a communal expression, conceived in association with other men – is therefore an expression and confirmation of social life. Man’s individual and species-life are not two distinct things..."

In a way, a fully realised man is good for society, and society is good for the fully realised man, but they are one and the same thing:

"Man, however much he may therefore be a particular individual – and it is just this particularity which makes him an individual and a real individual communal being – is just as much the totality, the ideal totality, the subjective existence of thought and experienced society for itself; he also exists in reality as the contemplation and true enjoyment of social existence and as a totality of vital human expression."

Humanisation

Only when this happens, whatever it is, whatever it takes, can man "humanize" nature and the objects around him.

Only then do all objects become for man the objectification of himself, objects that confirm and realise his individuality:

"Only through the objectively unfolded wealth of human nature can the wealth of subjective human sensitivity - a musical ear, an eye for the beauty of form, in short senses capable of human gratification – be either cultivated or created. For not only the five senses, but also the so-called spiritual senses, the practical senses (will, love, etc.), in a word, the human senses, the humanity of the senses – all these come into being only through the existence of their objects, through humanized nature."

Marx sees history as the inevitable progress of man towards the realization of his true, complete and unalienated humanity:

"It can now be seen how the history of industry and the objective existence of industry as it has developed is the open book of the essential powers of man, man’s psychology present in tangible form."

Instead of the objectified powers of the human essence manifesting themselves in sensuous, useful objects to which we relate, capitalism confronts us with the alien nature of our objects and we are alienated.

In contrast, communism represents "a fresh confirmation of human powers and a fresh enrichment of human nature."

My Own Private Property

There is some question as to whether private property will cease altogether under Communism.

However, Marx suggests that “the meaning of private property, freed from its estrangement, is the existence of essential objects for man, both as objects of enjoyment and of activity.”

It’s possible that money might also continue to exist, as a vehicle to acquire objects of enjoyment and activity.

However, his analysis of money is very derogatory, and this interpretation might be wrong.

The Road Ahead

I hesitate to call Marx an idealist or a romantic, because he was determined to integrate theory and practice, and extend philosophy into the politics of action.

After all, just a few years later, he wrote, "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it."

However, it seems to me that he had a clear definition of the nature and potential of humanity, and he shaped his political philosophy to achieve that potential.

He saw private property in the form of capital as the chief obstacle to the achievement of this potential.

He considered that it had to be abolished, and that the only means was a revolution of the working class.

He opposed other options that might have ameliorated the misery of the working class, in the hope that the severity of their condition would lead inevitably to revolution.

Many people joined the revolutionary cause, because for whatever reason they wanted to negate the negative that they felt capitalism embodied.

Few have ever been able to define the positive that they were trying to achieve.

Few who actually participated in the Russian Revolution even knew the true positive nature of what Marx hoped to achieve.

It is very easy to get caught in the enthusiasm of the 25 year old Marx, even easier to believe that many of the problems still exist, particularly in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis.

However, the physical description of the diagnosis is something as old as Adam Smith.

Marx might well have been right in identifying the causes.

However, it’s the treatment that needs to be worked on.

We need to do something that doesn’t end up killing the patient.

[Turbulent_Architect · Rating 3 out of 5]

When the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts were finally published almost fifty years after their composition, a lot of the Western Marxists took it as a vindication of their views as against those of their Orthodox Marxist opponents. Here was a Marx whose critique of capitalism rested on a theory of human nature and a picture of a flourishing human life! Under the capitalist mode of production, the younger Marx argued, human beings were alienated or estranged from the activity of labour, from its product, from other human beings, and, most of all, from themselves. The Manuscripts are a bit of a frustrating read. Marx's prose here is often impenetrable and his theses are often saddled with unnecessary metaphysical baggage. There's certainly something to his eudaimonistic critique of capitalism, though I do wish it had been laid out a bit more clearly and incorporated into a more sensible liberal framework.

[Siavash Mazdapour · Rating 5 out of 5]

این کتاب (یا بهتر بگم دستنوشته‌ها) تقریبا صد سال بعد از نوشتنش منتشر شد و مربوط به دوران جوونی مارکسه و همونطور که از اسمش پیدا علاوه بر بحث روی مباحث اقتصادی در مورد موضوعات فلسفی هم بحث شده.
در مورد بخش اقتصادی اون (که شامل مزدِ کار سود سرمایه و اجاره بهای زمین و ...) نظر خاصی ندارم چون خیلی در مورد اقتصاد چیزی نمی‌دونم ولی توی بخش فلسفی اون در مورد «کار بیگانه شده» و یا «ازخودبیگانگی» بحث میکنه که به نظر من خیلی جالب بود. در کل میگه که کارگر وقتی در حال کار و تولیده، شیئی که تولید میکنه رو به عنوان چیزی بیگانه و قدرتی مستقل میبینه یعنی رابطه کارگر با محصول خودش رابطه با یک شیء بیگانه‌ست، چون کار نسبت به کارگر عنصری خارجیه یعنی به وجود ذاتی کارگر تعلق نداره پس در حین کار به جای اثبات خود، خودش رو نفی میکنه به جای حس خرسندی، احساس رنج میکنه هنگام کار احساس آسایش نداره در نتیجه کار از سر اختیارش نیست و صرفا به اون تحمیل شده و فقط ابزاریه برای برآورده ساختن نیازهای اولیه انسان. کار بیگانه شده انسان رو از طبیعت و از خودش بیگانه میکنه.
بعد در مورد ماهیت پول بحث میکنه که پول نیازیه که نظام اقتصادی جدید اون رو به وجود آورده و تنها نیازیه که این نظام ایجاد کرده:
"هر چه کمتر بخوری، کمتر بیاشامی، کمتر کتاب بخری، کمتر به تئاتر، مجلس رقص و سالن تفریح بروی، کمتر فکر کنی، عشق بورزی، نظریه ببافی، آواز بخوانی، نقاشی کنی و تفریح داشته باشی، بیشتر می‌توانی پس‌انداز کنی و گنجت که نه بید و نه زنگ بر آن کارگر نخواخد بود، بیشتر به سرمایه‌ات تبدیل خواهد شد."

"هر چه کمتر باشی و کمتر از زندگی بهره بگیری، زندگی از خودبیگانه‌ات بیشتر خواهد بود؛ هر چه بیشتر داشته باشی، اندوخته وجود از خودبیگانه‌ات بیشتر خواهد بود. به همان میزان اقتصاددان سیاسی از زندگی و انسانیت تو برمیدارد، به همان میزان پول و ثروت رو جایگزین آن میکند"

بعد به این نکته اشاره می‌کنه که پول میتونه توانایی‌هایی رو به انسان بده که ذات فرد اون رو نداره. در واقع یعنی مثلا فردی که انسانی رذل و دغل‌کاره با پول می‌تونه برای خودش احترام و عزت بخره فردی که زشته می‌تونه با پول کاری کنه که دیگران زشتی اون رو بی‌اهمیت جلوه بدن. در واقع با پول میشه کاری که به عنوان یک انسان قادر نیستم و نیروهای ذاتی اون درونمون وجود نداره رو انجام بدیم یعنی پول نیروهای ذاتی وجود انسان رو به ضد خودش تبدیل میکنه:
"اگر انسان، انسان باشد و روابطش با دنیا روابطی انسانی، آنگاه می‌توان عشق را فقط با عشق، اعتماد را با اعتماد و غیره معاوضه کرد. اگر بخواهیم از هنر لذت ببریم، باید هنرمندانه پرورش یافته باشیم؛ اگر می‌خواهیم بر دیگران تاثیر بگذاریم، باید قادر به برانگیختن و تشویق دیگران باشیم. هر کدام از روابط ما با بشر و طبیعت نمود ویژه‌ای دارد که با عین‌ها و ابژه‌های اراده و زندگی فردی واقعی‌مان منطبق باشد. اگر عشق می‌ورزی ولی ناتوان از برانگیختن عشق هستی یعنی اگر عشقت، عشقی متقابل نمی‌آفریند، اگر با نمود زنده خود به عنوان آدمی عاشق، محبوب دیگری نمی‌شوی، آنگاه عشقت ناتوان است و این عین بدبختی است."

در کل به نظرم جامعه‌یی ایده‌آله که استعدادها و توانایی‌های ذاتی انسان رو پرورش بده. در جامعه سرمایه‌داری که زندگی می‌کنیم حرف اول رو سود میزنه هر چیزی که سرمایه رو افزایش نده محکوم به نابودیه. اگر شما شعر بگید ولی کسی اون رو نخره اگر شما نمایشنامه‌ تئاتری رو بنویسید که بازار نداشته باشه اگه نقاشی‌ای بکشید که خریدار نداشته باشه، همه و همه محکوم به نابودین و استعدادهای درونیه انسان و خلاقیت اون رو زیر پا له می‌کنن. اینجا حرف اول رو سود در بازار میزنه در واقع هر چیزی که سرمایه‌داران بزرگ اراده بکنند!
اوج خلاقیت و ابتکار ما الان شده زدن استارت‌آپ‌های جورواجور و تمام دغدغه و فکر و ذکر ما اینه که چجوریه محصولی تولید کنیم که سرمایه‌داری پیدا بشه و روی اون سرمایه‌گذاری کنه و بعد هم خیلی به خودمون افتخار می‌کنیم که چقدر ما بااستعدادیم و چه کار بزرگی کردیم. هویت ما شده هویتی که کار ما تعریف میکنه و کار ما رو بازاری که تعیین میکنه که به دنبال سود بیشتر و افزایش سرمایه سرمایه‌داران بزرگه! هویت وجودی هر فرد به خودش به علایقش به استعدادها و نیروهای درونی اونه نه به کاری که انجام میده. شاید به راه‌حل مارکس برای تغییر این جامعه اعتقاد نداشته باشم ولی به آرمان‌شهری که توصیف کرد باور دارم:

"تصور کنید صبح به شکار برویم، بعدازظهر ماهی‌گیری کنیم، عصر گله را به چرا ببریم و بعد از شام به نقد بپردازیم ..."

https://mazdapour.ir/economic-and-phi...

[xenia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Guys, I can't stress how much the chapter on alienation changed the trajectory of my whole fucking life. It was like Marx had pulled back the veil to the machinery of Oz, that magical land of horror and splendour and homesick oneirism, blasted apart at the sight of that little homunculus man, pulling levers and pulleys and asking profusely for me to look away. Suddenly, the world regaled itself as dead labour, all the buildings and roads and commodities the ossified acts of a billion proletarians, who'd been taught to look away in disgust at their own power, made to serve the little man behind the veil. How smart he was, to make us toil until we lost joy in our own activity, to make us yearn for leisures produced by others equally alienated, and therefore resentful of our demands, unto petty rivalries that rend us apart. Our creativity twisted into cynicism and misanthropy. Our bodies held captive so long we believe they themselves to be prisons.

Thomas Edison didn't invent the lightbulb, the engineers staffed at his laboratory did. Steve Jobs didn't invent the iPhone, he merely patented the collection of state funded technologies in it. Entrepreneurs steal the labour of those less fortunate than them, and sell it back at exorbitant prices. They get away with it because they own the means to the veil of production. Smoke and hellish fire. Ghostly light that flickers beneath your skull, dreaming the latest commodity unbidden. Endless stairs to heaven so narrow you begin to push aside the other wretches beside you.

This is what the little man behind the veil does to you. Turns you first against yourself, then against others. Makes you dream of your own labour in the guise of his commodities. But he is smoke and emptiness and terror in the face of revelation and the march of multitudes. All you have to do is return to you.

[Paul Haspel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Economics and philosophy engrossed the attention of Karl Marx – so much so that it would be more than understandable if Mrs. Karl Marx sometimes felt a bit jealous. Yet these early writings of Marx, collected under the title of Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, provide valuable clues to what factors drew people, in the mid-19th-century and afterward, to Marxian philosophy – along with indicators of why Marxist ideology, in practical terms, has never worked as the basis for a form of government.

The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 can be divided into three manuscripts, plus an appendix. The First Manuscript provides an early setting-forth of Marx’s ideas regarding what he saw as the fundamental antagonism between capital and labour. In “Wages of Labour,” Marx writes that“Wages are determined through the antagonistic struggle between capitalist and worker,” and adds that “The lowest and the only necessary wage-rate is that providing for the subsistence of the worker for the duration of his work and as much more as is necessary for him to support a family and for the race of laborers not to die out.”

While I disagree with Marx, and always have, I must say, in fairness, that I can see where his ideas about a supposed eternal enmity between capital and labour must have come from. In 1844, the Industrial Revolution was still a relatively new thing, and we all know that factory conditions in Western Europe and North America were brutal. And let’s be honest: who among us would want to work in a factory in Sheffield or Pittsburgh in the year 1844?

Marx feels that, for the capitalist, “The demand for men necessarily governs the production of men, as of every other commodity. Should supply greatly exceed demand, a section of the workers sinks into beggary or starvation. The worker’s existence is thus brought under the same condition as the existence of every other commodity. The worker has become a commodity, and it is a bit of luck for him if he can find a buyer.”

In Marx’s ideology, the system is always hopelessly stacked against the labourer: “The worker need not necessarily gain when the capitalist does, but he necessarily loses when the latter loses.” Industrial labour, in a capitalist system, is for Marx dehumanizing: “While the division of labour raises the productive power of labour and increases the wealth and refinement of society, it impoverishes the worker and reduces him to a machine.”

And it is here (among other places) that I found myself taking issue with Marx. I appreciate the energy and passion with which he writes that “Political economy can therefore advance the proposition that the proletarian, the same as any horse, must get as much as will enable him to work. It does not consider him when he is not working, as a human being, but leaves such considerations to criminal law, to doctors, to religion, to the statistical tables, to politics, and to the workhouse beadle.”

And yet, at the same time, I find myself taking issue with Marx. The following is strictly anecdotal and non-scientific, but for what it’s worth: I have known a lot of people who have worked for a lot of companies over the course of my 63 years of life. There are companies that I have heard described as absolutely terrible employers: I won’t share their names here. But there are companies that I have heard described as good employers that offer generous employee benefits and work to build a positive spirit of esprit de corps among the work force.

Marx’s generalizations seem to me to be overbroad and unfair – but I realize that, in 2025, I am writing from a very different place from where Marx was writing in 1844.

In “Rent of Land,” the reader gets an early expression of Marx’s idea that societies must begin in a feudal stage, before they develop into industrial capitalism that will eventually be supplanted, via revolution, by socialist societies that can then march toward communism. In this essay, Marx sets forth his belief in the eventual “abolishment of the distinction between capitalist and landowner, so that there remain altogether only two classes of the population – the working class and the class of capitalists.”

As in “Wages of Labour,” Marx hammer(and sickle)s home his belief that the capitalist system is fundamentally immoral: “The only wheels which political economy sets in motion are avarice and the war among the avaricious – competition” (33%). He re-emphasizes his ideas of how the capitalist system leaves the labourer alienated and helpless: “labour is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his essential being.” The system, for Marx, gives objects inflated value, whilst taking away the immeasurable value of each human being: “The worker puts his life into the object; but now his life no longer belongs to him but to the object”, and furthermore “The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates”.

Reading the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, one gets a sense of Marx’s ideas taking shape, four years before he and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto. In “Private Property and Communism, from the Third Manuscript, ” Marx seeks to discriminate between “Crude, Equalitarian Communism and Communism as Socialism Coinciding with Humaneness.” Marx assures us that “Communism is…the actual phase necessary for the next stage of historical development in the process of human emancipation and recovery. Communism [meaning Marx’s kind of communism] is the necessary pattern and the dynamic principle of the immediate future, but communism as such [by which, the editor tells us, Marx means “crude, equalitarian communism”] is not the goal of human development”.

This is the sort of thinking that has always seemed to be utopian and unrealistic. In Marx’s system, the whole world must progress to socialism before it can move toward the perfect state of human freedom and peace that will (supposedly) be communism. Marx seems most anxious to define his kind of communism on his terms.

An appendix, titled “Phenomenology,” is in the main an analysis of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind (1807), with a considerable focus on how Marx is correcting what he sees as Hegel’s errors. This part of the book may be of greatest interest to students of philosophy, but there is plenty here for the reader who wants to think about how Marx’s ideas affected the political life of later times, as when Marx writes that

atheism, being the annulment of God, is the advent of theoretic humanism, and communism, as the annulment of private property, is the justification of real human life as man’s possession and thus the advent of practical humanism (or just as atheism is humanism mediated with itself through the annulment of religion, while communism is humanism mediated with itself through the annulment of private property).

Throughout the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844< the alert reader will notice editorial notes about where a manuscript is missing part of a page, or where a manuscript begins or ends unexpectedly – that sort of thing. And if you find yourself wondering why there is such a focus on the manuscripts of the Manuscripts, there’s a good possible clue as to why. At the end of the Appendix on “Phenomenology,” there is this note: “First published in part by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism in Russian, and complete in German in 1932.”

Suddenly, it all makes sense. As the leaders of the U.S.S.R. has overthrown a czar and founded their own new, revolutionary nation, built in large part upon Marx’s ideas, it makes sense that Soviet researchers would be delving as deeply as possible into every writing of Marx that could possible be found, treating every Marxian phrase as holy writ.

I still disagree with Marx, and I always will. Yet I recognize that the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 provide the student of philosophy with the opportunity to track the evolution of the thinking of this important philosopher – even if his philosophic ideas ended up doing a great deal of harm.

I mean, think about it: if your only choices of a place to live were West Germany or East Germany, which country would you choose? I submit that not many people, if they were being honest with themselves, would really want to be back in the D.D.R., where the city of Chemnitz became Karl-Marx-Stadt before the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended and it was Chemnitz again.

[Heather Schwartz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I single this out (but I like most of Marx's writings)because it still gives me shivers. It isn't dry and tedious or in the realm of pure philosophy. It is what it is...an emotional (maybe dumbed down), political tract that has no fear. I don't care where in the political spectrum/circle you are...it's a good read.

[Amin · Rating 3 out of 5]

یادداشت های پراکنده ای که شاید به لحاظ تاریخی مقدماتی بر کارهای بزرگتر مارکس باشند اما به نظرم در نهایت بهترین نقطه شروع مطالعه مارکس نیستند. یعنی بسیاری از مفاهیم کلیدی مثل ازخودبیگانگی در نیمه اول و نقد هگل در نیمه دوم محوریت دارند اما پیوستگی مطالب به خوبی حفظ نمیشود. در بعضی مواقع مطالب جاافتاده یا از دست رفته اند و دست نوشته ها ناقص است و البته ترجمه فارسی هم مخصوصا در نیمه دوم بسیار سخت خوان به نظر میرسد

با این حال مهمترین نکته ای که بدان به خوبی پرداخته شده شروع از مبحث خودبیگانگی و سپس از خودبیگانگی است که مناسبات سرمایه دار و کارگر را فراتر از سایر مناسبات - مثلا با زمین دار - قرار میدهد و مخصوصا اگر در شرایط خاص مکانی و زمانی خودش یعنی انگلستان آغاز صنعتی شدن قرار داده شود فهم بسیاری از گزاره ها را ساده تر میکند. برای من هم نکته مثبت همزمانی مطالعه این مقالات با ژرمینال زولا بود که دریافت نسبت بین شرایط زندگی کارگر و ارتباطش با مناسبات تولیدی را تسهیل میکند

[Mahnam · Rating 4 out of 5]

این دست‌نوشته را مارکس در سال‌های جوانی نوشته و متأسفانه بخش‌هایی از آن یا گم شده یا ناخواناست یا تکمیل نشده. بنابراین نمی‌تواند تصویری کلی و آشکار از اندیشه مارکس به دست بدهد. با این‌همه خواندنش برای من بسیار مفید بود و بار دیگر تلنگری زد که چرا باید اهتمام ورزید و هر اندیشه را از دریچه نگاه خود اندیشمند واکاوید.
در مقدمه آمده که مارکس همیشه با این انتقاد روبه‌رو بوده که وجوه فلسفی بینش خود را به‌صورت منسجم ارائه نکرده و این بار را در عوض انگلس به‌د‌وش کشیده. این دست‌نوشته نشان می‌دهد که چرا. گسست مارکس از فلسفه و گذار از هگل و حتی فویرباخ که در زمان نگارش این اثر هم‌چنان مارکس تأثیرپذیرفته‌ی اوست، لابه‌لای همین دست‌نوشته آشکار می‌شود.
بخش‌های نخست به مقولات ارزش، مزد کار، سود سرمایه و رانت ارضی می‌پردازد که با نقب‌زدن به تعاریف اقتصاد سیاسی از منظر اندیشمندان بزرگ آن تضادهای درونی و بیرونی‌شان را تاحدی بیان می‌کند. البته این مسایل در کتاب سرمایه کامل‌تر بررسی می‌گردند و پخته‌تر می‌شوند.
جذابیت این کتاب برای من از فصول بعدی شروع شد چرا که انسان امروز تقریبا تمامی خطوطش را زندگی کرده و چشیده. کار بیگانه‌شده و بررسی همه‌جانبه‌ی مالکیت خصوصی (به صورت کلی، در رابطه با کار، و بعد، کمونیسم که در آن کمونیسم تخیلی و غیرعملی نقد شده) و نیازهای انسانی از منظر فلسفی. مارکس کوشیده که نشان بدهد روابط مقلوب کار و تولید چطور انسان را از هویت انسانی‌اش محروم می‌کند ( فارغ از نقشی که در این معادله دارد) و مالکیت خصوصی در تمامیت خود چطور بر همه‌ی افکار و احساسات انسانی سلطه دارد تاحدی که حتی مدعیان کمونسیم فقط مالکیتی می‌خواهند همگانی و پر از بغض و‌کینه. چه حیف که برخی از این فصول تکمیل نشده‌اند اما تا همین اندازه هم که مکتوب شده‌اند می‌توانند ذهن را به چالش بکشند و خوراک تازه‌ای برایش فراهم کنند.

[Andrew]

So this is the much-vaunted humanist Marx... he's definitely a different Marx than the strict economic thinker of Capital. Rather, this is a guy who thinks that capitalism destroys the soul of the worker, alienating him from his labors and alienating humanity from history.

And given that a lot of Marx's specific economic theories are now pretty suspect while his social theories remain strong, this seems to be the Marx we should be paying attention to. Check it out!

[lucía linares · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutamente brutal!!!

Nunca había leído a Marx ni en general nada marxista y me ha parecido buena introducción, aunque no he entendido nada del Primer manuscrito hasta “El trabajo enajenado” porque se ve no tengo ni idea de economía (ni falta que hace I fucking hate her) ni tampoco nada de la critica a Hegel porque se ve que no he leído a Hegel 😆

Pero todo lo que he entendido, que al final ha sido más de lo que esperaba, ha sido increíble, life changing!!!!!! Destaco los capítulos de “El trabajo enajenado”, “Propiedad privada y comunismo” (precioso!!!!) y “Dinero”.

"El trabajador se relaciona con el producto de su trabajo como un objeto extraño. Partiendo de este supuesto, es evidente que cuanto más se vuelca el trabajador en su trabajo, tanto más poderoso es el mundo extraño, objetivo que crea frente a sí y tanto más pobres son él mismo y su mundo interior, tanto menos dueño de sí mismo es. Lo mismo sucede en la religión. Cuanto más pone el hombre en Dios, tanto menos guarda para sí mismo. El trabajador pone su vida en el objeto, pero a partir de entonces ya no le pertenece a él, sino al objeto"

"El trabajo es externo al trabajador, es decir, no pertenece a su ser; en su trabajo, el trabajador no se afirma, sino que se niega; no se siente feliz, sino desgraciado; no desarrolla una libre energía física y espiritual, sino que mortifica su cuerpo y arruina su espíritu. Por eso el trabajador solo se siente en sí fuera del trabajo, y en el trabajo fuera de sí. Está en lo suyo cuando no trabaja y cuando trabaja no está en lo suyo. Su trabajo no es así voluntario sino trabajo forzado. Por eso no es la satisfacción de una necesidad sino solamente un medio para satisfacer las necesidades fuera del trabajo"

"La vida productiva es, sin embargo, la vida genérica. Es la vida que crea vida. En la forma de la actividad vital reside el carácter dado de una especie, su carácter genérico, y la actividad libre, consciente, es el carácter genérico del hombre. La vida misma aparece solo como medio de vida" !!!!!! / "El trabajo enajenado invierte la relación de manera que el hombre, precisamente por ser un ser consciente, hace de su actividad vital, de su esencia, un simple medio para su existencia"

"El comunismo como superación positiva de la propiedad privada en cuanto que autoextrañamiento del hombre, y por ello como apropiación real de la esencia humana por y para el hombre; por ello como retorno del hombre para sí en cuanto hombre social, es decir, humano; retorno pleno, consciente y efectuado dentro de la riqueza de la evolución humana hasta el presente. Este comunismo es, como completo naturalismo = humanismo, como completo humanismo = naturalismo; es la verdadera solución del conflicto entre el hombre y la naturaleza, entre el hombre y el hombre" Qué bonito!!!!!

"Cuanto menos eres, cuanto menos exteriorizas tu vida, tanto más tienes, tanto mayor es tu vida enajenada y tanto más almacenas de tu esencia. Todo lo que el economista te quita en vida y en humanidad te lo restituyen en dinero y en riqueza, todo lo que no puedes lo puede tu dinero. Él puede comer y beber, ir al teatro y el baile; conoce el arte, la sabiduría, las rarezas históricas, el poder político; puede viajar; puede hacerte dueño de todo esto, puede comprar todo esto, es la verdadera opulencia. Pero siendo todo esto, el dinero no puede más que crearse a sí mismo, comprarse a sí mismo, pues todo lo demás es siervo suyo y cuando se tiene al señor se tiene al siervo y no se le necesita. Todas las pasiones y toda actividad deben, pues, disolverse en la avaricia. El obrero solo debe tener lo suficiente para querer vivir y solo debe querer vivir para tener"

"Si el dinero es el vínculo que me liga a la vida humana, que liga a la sociedad, que me liga con la naturaleza y con el hombre, ¿no es el dinero el vínculo de todos los vínculos? ¿No puede él atar y desatar todas las desataduras? ¿No es también por esto el medio general de separación?

"Como el dinero, en cuanto concepto existente y activo del valor, confude y cambia todas las cosas, es la confusión y el trueque de todas las cualidades naturales y humanas. Aunque sea cobarde, es valiente quien puede comprar la valentía. Como el dinero no se cambia por una cualidad determinada, ni por una cosa o una fuerza esencial human determinadas, sino por la totalidad del mundo objetivo natural y humano, desde el punto de vista de su poseedor puede cambiar cualquier propiedad por cualquier otra propiedad y cualquier otro objeto, incluso de los contradictorios (...) Cada una de las relaciones con el hombre - y con la naturaleza - ha de ser una exteriorización determinada de la vida individual real que se corresponda con el objeto de la voluntad"

[Alejo López Ortiz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mucho se ha especulado sobre las disyuntivas de un Marx Joven y un Marx adulto. Y ello surge, probablemente, de entender las obras del profesor Carlos Marx como islas disgragadas de su selecta investigación científica y económica.

Yo entiendo los Manuscritos de 1844 como el inicio del planteamiento mas disruptivo de Marx respecto a la escuela escocesa: su concepción antropológica. El resto de obras de Marx verán no un hombre distinto, sino un hombre madurado a partir de las ideas que acá se exponen.

Esta obra es pues, obligatoria cuando menos, y enormemente interesante, para recorrer el camino del esfuerzo teórico que generó Marx y que finalizó con el Capital (¿finalizó?)

Es un buen texto para rayar, devolverse, consultar referencias y palabras y en todo caso: leer detenidamente para entender el hombre que luego Marx puso en El Capital

[Pablo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un joven Marx de 26 años. En este libro esta ese supuesto humanismo perdido en sus trabajos posteriores. Como en todo lo que escribe Marx, se superponen distintos análisis, en este caso, la filosofía quizás está más presente que en otras de sus obras. Un texto para introducirse en el estudio de Marx, y mejor aun, para comprender la totalidad de su proyecto.

[Shayan · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتابی بود بسی سخت ، بیشتر فلسفی تا اقتصادی ، باید با پس زمینه فلسفی قوی خوند .

[Marcel Santos · Rating 4 out of 5]

ENGLISH

This book is made of manuscripts recovered and published after Marx’s death. Also called The Paris Manuscripts, the work predates Marx and Engels’ collaboration, and already presents the genesis of powerful, polemic ideas, considered heretic by many. A few passages are barely legible, erased, scratched and torn, though without prejudice to general comprehension.

The work presents in its first third part very clear ideas about Political Economy (or “National Economy”, as Marx calls the discipline), working on concepts and ideas of Adam Smith, J.-B. Say and James Mill. From there until the last third part of the book he follows a purely philosophical path, quite dedicated to analyzing and refuting Hegel to a large extent, and Feuerbach to a lesser extent, philosophers who notably influenced him, with greater emphasis on the former. In the final part, Marx returns to the discussion of economic issues, aiming his artillery against some conclusions of said economists.

In short, central ideas in his economic thought already appear in these manuscripts, such as the one that work and the worker are commodities; that the more the worker works, the more he is devalued, and the cheaper a commodity he becomes. Marx makes reference to Adam Smith’s idea that while workers’ unions formed to raise bargaining power are always condemned, capitalists’ ones are always allowed even though they might be considered a conspiracy against the public.

An important philosophical concept developed by Marx in this work is the idea of ​​“worker estrangement”: working to survive dehumanizes workers and the product of labour is something for others. He becomes unhappy from not fulfilling himself, and earns a salary, which is a sacrifice of production, just to satisfy his needs outside work. Work is, therefore, an activity that belongs to others — it is the loss of oneself. This, in a market dynamics in which each human being acts to produce needs in each other. Furthermore, the specialization of production, as Smith and Say described the division of production leading to higher productivity, is also an individual limitation.

Experts point to Marx's mention in this work to the abolition of private property. In fact, he refers to the “suppression” (aufhebung) of property, as a historic movement that should be harsh and long in the real world. However, it is a very short passage and it is not possible to say that he worked this idea in depth.

Marx ends the book with a short analysis of the omnipotent power of money, using poems by Goethe and Shakespeare. Money has this ability to transform opposites: a coward becomes brave, an ugly becomes beautiful, etc.

This is a short book, giving the impression that some ideas hadn’t been fully developed, like the last part about money. The transition between the approach of ideas about economics and philosophy is not very clear, which gives the impression that Marx abandoned the manuscripts before developing such transition better. In any case, the work is quite interesting for those who are new to Marx's thought, as is my case.

PORTUGUÊS

Este livro é feito de manuscritos recuperados e publicados após a morte de Marx. Também chamada de Manuscritos de Paris, a obra é anterior à colaboração de Marx e Engels e já apresenta a gênese de ideias poderosas e polêmicas, consideradas heréticas por muitos. Alguns trechos estão pouco legíveis, rasurados, riscados e rasgados, mas sem prejuízo para a compreensão geral.

A obra apresenta em sua primeira terça parte ideias bastante claras sobre a visão de Marx sobre Economia Política (ou “Economia Nacional”, como ele se refere à disciplina), trabalhando sobre conceitos e ideias de Adam Smith, J.-B. Say e James Mill. A partir daí até a última terça parte do livro, ele segue um caminho puramente filosófico, bastante dedicado a analisar e, em boa medida, refutar Hegel e, em menor medida, Feuerbach, filósofos que notadamente o influenciaram, com maior destaque para o primeiro. Na parte final, retorna a discussão de temas econômicos, voltando Marx a mirar sua artilharia contra conclusões dos economistas mencionados.

Em suma, ideias centrais em seu pensamento econômico já aparecem nestes manuscritos, como a ideia de que o trabalho e o trabalhador são mercadorias, que quanto mais o trabalhador trabalha, mais ele se desvaloriza, se torna a mercadoria mais barata. Marx faz referência à ideia de Adam Smith de que enquanto os sindicatos dos trabalhadores para aumentar o poder de barganha são sempre condenados, os dos capitalistas são sempre permitidos, mesmo que possam ser considerados uma conspiração contra o público.

Conceito filosófico importante trabalhado por Marx nesta obra é a ideia de “estranhamento do trabalhador”. Para Marx, o trabalhador se desumaniza ao trabalhar para sobreviver e produzir algo que é para outros. Ele se torna infeliz por não se realizar e ganha um salário, que é um sacrifício da produção, apenas para satisfazer necessidades fora do trabalho. O trabalho é, portanto, atividade que pertence a outro, é a perda de si mesmo do trabalhador. Isto, numa dinâmica de mercado em que cada ser humano atua para produzir carências um no outro. Além disso, a especialização da produção, como descrita por Smith e Say na descrição do fenômeno da divisão da produção como fenômeno que leva à maior produtividade, também é uma limitação individual.

Especialistas apontam para a menção de Marx nesta obra à abolição da propriedade privada. Na verdade, ele se refere à “suprassunção” (aufhebung) da propriedade, como um movimento histórico que no mundo real deverá ocorrer de modo áspero e longo. Porém, trata-se de um trecho bastante curto e não é possível dizer que ele trabalhou essa ideia com profundidade.

Marx finaliza o livro com uma curta análise do poder onipotente do dinheiro, usando poemas de Goethe e Shakespeare. O dinheiro tem essa capacidade de transformar contrários. Um covarde se torna valente, um feio se torna belo…

Trata-se de um livro curto, dando a impressão de que algumas ideias de fato não foram totalmente desenvolvidas, como a última parte sobre o dinheiro. A transição entre a abordagem de ideias sobre economia e filosofia se dá de modo não muito claro, dando a impressão de que Marx abandonou os manuscritos antes de desenvolver melhor tal transição. De todo modo, a obra é bastante interessante para quem se inicia no pensamento de Marx, como é o meu caso.

[Gabrielle Cunha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Não sei nem como classificar esse tipo de livro ahahaha. Foi uma experiência peculiar, mas muito enriquecedora. Aprendi muito, sem dúvidas. Você lê, assimila, reflete. Foi muito interessante e fiz um fichamento extenso, que vai ser muito útil.

(tenham amigas que incentivam você a sair da sua zona de conforto literária hehe obrigada, Letícia pelo empréstimo)

[Miguel Rodríguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Al tratarse de unos manuscritos y no un libro al uso, nos encontramos con un texto fragmentario e incompleto que nunca fue pensado para ser publicado. Es común encontrarse con cortes a mitad de párrafo, saltos de un tema a otro sin un hilo conductor o indicaciones de “posteriormente veremos en mayor detalle [inserte tema]” que no se materializan. Sin embargo, me parece un texto muy lúcido y de gran importancia, ya que sin una jerga excesivamente farragosa, establece ya desde muy temprano temas centrales de la teoría marxista, como es la ley de la tasa de beneficio decreciente.

Marx desarrolla temas como son las crisis cíclicas del capitalismo y su consecuencia nefasta para lxs obrerxs, la tendencia inevitable al monopolio en el capitalismo, el poder del gran capital sobre el pequeño, el concepto de trabajo enajenado, la esencia de la propiedad privada y la necesidad del comunismo. Gran parte del contenido es una crítica a Adam Smith, a Ricardo y otros economistas. Critica con mucha certeza las fábulas falaces que usaban (y usan) los economistas para “explicar” el origen de la propiedad privada o de la división del trabajo. Practican el “picapedrismo”, que consiste en inventarte una sociedad pasada que posee la misma estructura que la nuestra (modelo de familia celular, ausencia de economía social o común, especialización laboral, propiedad privada) pero más rudimentaria. Partiendo de esta sociedad “rudimentaria” con una estructura capitalista prueban las premisas (la propiedad privada y la división de trabajo es natural) a través de las consecuencias, ya que fue la propiedad privada (trabajo enajenado acumulado) quien generó la estructura capitalista, y no al revés.

Los manuscritos son considerados el texto más “humanista” de Marx, ya que da gran importancia a la realización del individuo en su vida (el “hombre” genérico), y discute ampliamente las consecuencias psicológicas y vitales del trabajo enajenado, de producir bienes que no poseemos y de la no-participación de lx obrerx en su propia vida. Encuentro un gran paralelismo entre el concepto de “hombre” genérico de Marx (ser humano autoconsciente que se realiza mediante el trabajo creativo, creando para saciar sus neesidades tanto inmediatas como más “elevadas”) y el concepto de übermensch nietzscheano. En ambos filósofos la autorealización es un pilar de sus doctrinas, aunque en Marx no esté tan visiblemente presente en el resto de sus obras, ya que van más en la línea de analizar los mecanismos del capitalismo y conseguir la emancipación.

[Nathan Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Difficult to really assess due to its incompletion and what reads to me as a mediocre translation -- like much late-discovered Marx, this reaches us in roundabout, allusive ways, both historically and theoretically, but it's worth sinking your teeth into him at his most philosophically impassioned. [In reference to the 1844 manuscripts; the Manifesto, also included here, it should go without saying is obviously great.]

[Cool_guy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The parts about Hegel went over my head and at this point in my life I'm just going to have to accept that.

[Domhnall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well worth reading. I used a free online edition provided by Marxists.org.

Highlights include discussions of the alienation of labour, the power of money, the nature of private property and the role of capital. Marx expresses in various ways the belief that the division of labour causes a fundamental separation of the whole human being from his own nature and from nature itself. Yet he also suggests that our social and even our natural world is a product of countless generations of human labour; we live in a world that we have built for ourselves. His concept of communism (which he several times suggests is itself only a stage and not our final goal) is aspirational. He clearly sees a need to balance his very gloomy evaluation of modern conditions under capitalism with a positive and even utopian vision of what lies in the future. As a result these writings are more humane and ethical than what would soon follow in collaboration with Engels, starting from the Holy Family and the German Ideologies, but these ideas remain present even as he changes his emphasis and it is helpful to have these papers to refer to.

Also interesting are Marx's reactions to Hegel and, specifically, his remarks on Hegel's dialectic, which are inevitably influential as he develops his own methodology in contrast to Hegel and to the Young Hegelians.

Quotes

It goes without saying that the proletarian, i.e., the man who, being without capital and rent, lives purely by labour, and by a one-sided, abstract labour, is considered by political economy only as a worker. Political economy can therefore advance the proposition that the proletarian, the same as any horse, must get as much as will enable him to work. It does not consider him when he is not working, as a human being; but leaves such consideration to criminal law, to doctors, to religion, to the statistical tables, to politics and to the poor-house overseer.

The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labor becomes an object, an external existence, but that it exists outside him, independently, as something alien to him, and that it becomes a power on its own confronting him. It means that the life which he has conferred on the object confronts him as something hostile and alien.

It is true that labor produces for the rich wonderful things – but for the worker it produces privation. It produces palaces – but for the worker, hovels. It produces beauty – but for the worker, deformity. It replaces labor by machines, but it throws one section of the workers back into barbarous types of labor and it turns the other section into a machine. It produces intelligence – but for the worker, stupidity, cretinism.

What, then, constitutes the alienation of labor? First, the fact that labor is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his intrinsic nature; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself. He feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home. His labor is therefore not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labor. It is therefore not the satisfaction of a need; it is merely a means to satisfy needs external to it. Its alien character emerges clearly in the fact that as soon as no physical or other compulsion exists, labor is shunned like the plague. External labor, labor in which man alienates himself, is a labor of self-sacrifice, of mortification. Lastly, the external character of labor for the worker appears in the fact that it is not his own, but someone else’s, that it does not belong to him, that in it he belongs, not to himself, but to another. Just as in religion the spontaneous activity of the human imagination, of the human brain and the human heart, operates on the individual independently of him – that is, operates as an alien, divine or diabolical activity – so is the worker’s activity not his spontaneous activity. It belongs to another; it is the loss of his self.

As a result, therefore, man (the worker) only feels himself freely active in his animal functions – eating, drinking, procreating, or at most in his dwelling and in dressing-up, etc.; and in his human functions he no longer feels himself to be anything but an animal. What is animal becomes human and what is human becomes animal.

Man lives on nature – means that nature is his body, with which he must remain in continuous interchange if he is not to die. That man’s physical and spiritual life is linked to nature means simply that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of nature.

Every self-estrangement of man, from himself and from nature, appears in the relation in which he places himself and nature to men other than and differentiated from himself. For this reason religious self-estrangement necessarily appears in the relationship of the layman to the priest, or again to a mediator, etc., since we are here dealing with the intellectual world. In the real practical world self-estrangement can only become manifest through the real practical relationship to other men. The medium through which estrangement takes place is itself practical. Thus through estranged labor man not only creates his relationship to the object and to the act of production as to powers that are alien and hostile to him; he also creates the relationship in which other men stand to his production and to his product, and the relationship in which he stands to these other men. Just as he creates his own production as the loss of his reality, as his punishment; his own product as a loss, as a product not belonging to him; so he creates the domination of the person who does not produce over production and over the product. Just as he estranges his own activity from himself, so he confers upon the stranger an activity which is not his own.

Private property thus results by analysis from the concept of alienated labor, i.e., of alienated man, of estranged labor, of estranged life, of estranged man.

The need for money is therefore the true need produced by the economic system, and it is the only need which the latter produces..... Subjectively, this appears partly in the fact that the extension of products and needs becomes a contriving and ever-calculating subservience to inhuman, sophisticated, unnatural and imaginary appetites.... Thus political economy – despite its worldly and voluptuous appearance – is a true moral science, the most moral of all the sciences. Self-renunciation, the renunciation of life and of all human needs, is its principal thesis. The less you eat, drink and buy books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorise, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save – the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor rust will devour – your capital. The less you are, the less you express your own life, the more you have, i.e., the greater is your alienated life, the greater is the store of your estranged being. Everything which the political economist takes from you in life and in humanity, he replaces for you in money and in wealth; and all the things which you cannot do, your money can do. It can eat and, drink, go to the dance hall and the theatre; it can travel, it can appropriate art, learning, the treasures of the past, political power – all this it can appropriate for you – it can buy all this: it is true endowment. Yet being all this, it wants to do nothing but create itself, buy itself...

Above all we must avoid postulating “society” again as an abstraction vis-à-vis the individual. The individual is the social being. His manifestations of life – even if they may not appear in the direct form of communal manifestations of life carried out in association with others – are therefore an expression and confirmation of social life.

... the relation of man to woman is the most natural relation of human being to human being. It therefore reveals the extent to which man’s natural behaviour has become human, or the extent to which the human essence in him has become a natural essence – the extent to which his human nature has come to be natural to him. This relationship also reveals the extent to which man’s need has become a human need; the extent to which, therefore, the other person as a person has become for him a need – the extent to which he in his individual existence is at the same time a social being.

...communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution.

Man appropriates his comprehensive essence in a comprehensive manner, that is to say, as a whole man. Each of his human relations to the world – seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, thinking, observing, experiencing, wanting, acting, loving – in short, all the organs of his individual being, like those organs which are directly social in their form, are in their objective orientation, or in their orientation to the object, the appropriation of the object, the appropriation of human reality. ...

But since for the socialist man the entire so-called history of the world is nothing but the creation of man through human labour, nothing but the emergence of nature for man, so he has the visible, irrefutable proof of his birth through himself, of his genesis. Since the real existence of man and nature has become evident in practice, through sense experience, because man has thus become evident for man as the being of nature, and nature for man as the being of man, the question about an alien being, about a being above nature and man – a question which implies the admission of the unreality of nature and of man – has become impossible in practice. Atheism, as the denial of this unreality, has no longer any meaning, for atheism is a negation of God, and postulates the existence of man through this negation; but socialism as socialism no longer stands in any need of such a mediation. It proceeds from the theoretically and practically sensuous consciousness of man and of nature as the essence. Socialism is man’s positive self-consciousness, no longer mediated through the abolition of religion, just as real life is man’s positive reality, no longer mediated through the abolition of private property, through communism. Communism is the position as the negation of the negation, and is hence the actual phase necessary for the next stage of historical development in the process of human emancipation and rehabilitation. Communism is the necessary form and the dynamic principle of the immediate future, but communism as such is not the goal of human development, the form of human society.

In order to abolish the idea of private property, the idea of communism is quite sufficient. It takes actual communist action to abolish actual private property. History will lead to it; and this movement, which in theory we already know to be a self-transcending movement, will constitute in actual fact a very rough and protracted process. But we must regard it as a real advance to have at the outset gained a consciousness of the limited character as well as of the goal of this historical movement – and a consciousness which reaches out beyond it....

Assume man to be man and his relationship to the world to be a human one: then you can exchange love only for love, trust for trust, etc. If you want to enjoy art, you must be an artistically cultivated person; if you want to exercise influence over other people, you must be a person with a stimulating and encouraging effect on other people. Every one of your relations to man and to nature must be a specific expression, corresponding to the object of your will, of your real individual life. If you love without evoking love in return – that is, if your loving as loving does not produce reciprocal love; if through a living expression of yourself as a loving person you do not make yourself a beloved one, then your love is impotent – a misfortune.

The outstanding achievement of Hegel’s Phänomenologie and of its final outcome, the dialectic of negativity as the moving and generating principle, is thus first that Hegel conceives the self-creation of man as a process, conceives objectification as loss of the object, as alienation and as transcendence of this alienation; that he thus grasps the essence of labour and comprehends objective man – true, because real man – as the outcome of man’s own labour. The real, active orientation of man to himself as a species-being, or his manifestation as a real species-being (i.e., as a human being), is only possible if he really brings out all his species-powers – something which in turn is only possible through the cooperative action of all of mankind, only as the result of history – and treats these powers as objects: and this, to begin with, is again only possible in the form of estrangement.

[Gerald Sigmund · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book. I'd like to read more on alienation and "species-being".

[Helena Ibañez · Rating 5 out of 5]

solo quería apuntar que quiero releerlo en verano

[J]

This is kind of a mixed bag. It's seems more like a peek into Marx's private notebook than a fully formed treatiste per se, he's just starting here to pin down things like capital, labor, money, and the individual, and to give some basic analysis with regards to how they interact. But by the end, I was surprised at just how humanistic it turned out to be. This isn't the often cold, polemical materialism that he would develop later on, but something which is deep down concerned with the problems that capital et al. has for basic human dignity and value. Maybe I'm telgraphing too much of Heidegger into it, but it seems that what this gets at is the ways in which capitalism alienates us not just in our day to day lives, but on a more metaphysical level, from our sense of Being itself. It's a very sensitive, musing piece of writing which, for it being Marx, I found refreshing

[Sohan · Rating 3 out of 5]

কার্ল মার্ক্স ১৮৪৩ সালের জুন মাসে জেনি ফন ওয়েস্টফালেনের সাথে বিবাহ বন্ধনে আবদ্ধ হন। একই বছরের নভেম্বরে তারা প্যারিসে গমন করেন এবং সেখানে ১৮৪৫ পর্যন্ত বসবাস করেন।
প্রশ্ন হল, জার্মান থেকে তারা প্যারিস কেন গেলেন?
আসলে ততদিনে মার্ক্সের নিকট স্পষ্ট হয়ে গিয়েছিল যে জার্মান সেন্সরশিপ এবং প্রতিক্রিয়াশীল রাজনীতি তাঁকে বাক-প্রতিবন্ধী করে দেবে। প্যারিসে আগমনের তাঁর আরেকটি উদ্দেশ্য ছিল। আর্নল্ড রুজ নামক এক Young Hegelian তাঁকে প্রস্তাব করেছিলেন প্যারিসে এসে তাঁর জারমান-ফ্রেঞ্চ অ্যানাল নামক একটি পত্রিকার সম্পাদক হিসেবে যোগদান করতে রুজ জার্মানী এবং ফ্রান্সের র‍্যাডিক্যাল লেখকদের লেখা ছাপাতে চেয়েছিলেন। মার্ক্সও তার প্রস্তাবে রাজি হয়ে যান।

প্যারিসে ১৮৪৩ থেকে ১৮৪৫ সন ছিল মার্ক্সের বুদ্ধিবৃত্তিক বিকাশের জন্য অত্যন্ত গুরুত্বপূর্ণ সময়। এসময়ে তিনি বিশ্ব সমাজতান্ত্রিক এবং কমিউনিস্ট তত্ত্বের সূত্রবদ্ধকরণে এবং রাজনৈতিক কর্মকাণ্ডে নিজেকে সম্পূর্ণরূপে নিয়োজিত করেন।
এ সময়ে তিনি যেমন প্রচুর অধ্যয়ন করতেন আবার বিভিন্ন ফরাসি সমাজতাত্ত্বিকের সাথে সংযোগ রক্ষা করে চলতেন। এরকম একজন ছিলেন পিয়েরে প্রুঁধো। প্রুঁধোর সাথে শুরুতে সখ্যতা গড়ে উঠলেও পরবর্তীতে দুজন দুজনের শত্রুতে পরিণত হন। মজার ব্যাপার, প্রুঁধো একটি বই লিখেছিলেন The Philosophy of Proverty নামে। মার্ক্স এই বইয়ের 'ক্রিটিক' করে একটি বই লিখেছিলেন The Proverty of Philosophy নামে।
মার্ক্স এই সকল র‍্যাডিক্যালদের 'ইউটোপীয়' বলে গালমন্দ করতেন। অর্থাৎ—এরা সমাজের অগ্রগতির জন্য নানা উপাদানের সমন্বয় করে একটা বানোয়াট তত্ত্ব তৈরি করছেন যা মহিমান্বিত ভবিষ্যৎ গড়ার শুধু স্বপ্নই দেখাবে, বাস্তবে তা কখনই প্রয়োগ করা সম্ভব হবে না।

প্যারির বছরগুলোতে মার্ক্স দুটি সম্পাদ্য নিয়ে কাজ করেন যা র‍্যাডিক্যাল সমাজতন্ত্রিরা উত্থাপন করতেই ব্যর্থ হয়েছিলেন।

প্রথম সম্পাদ্যঃ ফরাসি বিপ্লব ব্যর্থ হল কেন? বিপ্লব সংগঠিত হবার পরেও কেন ইউরোপ মুক্তির নিকটবর্তী নয়?
(ক) শিক্ষা, বিজ্ঞান, এবং যুক্তিবিচারের দ্বারা জগতকে পরিবর্তিত করার বিষয়ে এনলাইটমেন্ট যুগের চিন্তাভাবনা ছিল বড্ড সরলতা দোষে দুষ্ট।
(খ) র‍্যাডিক্যাল পার্টিগুলোও ভ্রান্ত প্রমাণিত হয়েছিল।
(গ) এ ব্যাপারে হেগেলের মতেরও তেমন কোন মুল্য নেই। হেগেল বলেছিলেন বিপ্লবের উপযুক্ত সময় এখনও হয়নি।

দ্বিতীয় সম্পাদ্যঃ নয়া শিল্প বিপ্লবের তাৎপর্য কি? কারখানায়, মিলে, খনিতে, কৃষিতে, এবং পরিবহনে মহাপ্রযুক্তিগত বিপ্লবের অর্থ কি? যা বিশ্বের সমাজ, অর্থনীতি, রাজনীতিতে ব্যাপক পরিবর্তন আনছিল। সেই সাথে কিছু লোকের কাছে সম্পদের পুঞ্জিভবন ঘটছিল আবার কিছু লোকের মধ্যে ব্যাপক দারিদ্র আর Alienation [পরকীকরণ] সৃষ্টি হচ্ছিল।

এই সমস্ত প্রশ্নের উত্তর খুঁজতে মার্ক্সকে প্যারিসে প্রচুর অধ্যয়ণ করতে হয়। প্রথমত, মানবীয় সমস্যা অনুধাবনের জন্য হেগেলের দৃষ্টিভঙ্গি অনুযায়ী ফ্রান্স এবং জার্মানের ইতিহাস পাঠ করেন।
দ্বিতীয়ত, শিল্পবিপ্লবের সঙ্গে সংশ্লিষ্ট অর্থনৈতিক সমস্যা সঠিকভাবে বোঝার জন্য তাঁর নিজ সময়কাল পর্যন্ত অর্থনীতি বিষয়ে সকল প্রধান প্রধান তাত্ত্বিকদের লেখা গ্রন্থ পাঠ করেন। তিনি যা পড়তেন তার বিস্তারিত নোট করে নিতেন এবং সেখান থেকে কিছু কিছু তার পাণ্ডুলিপিতে সংযুক্ত করতেন।

১৮৪৪ সালের প্যারিসের গ্রীষ্ম এবং বসন্তে তিনি যে সব নিবন্ধ রচনা করেছেন তাকে সম্মিলিতভাবে বলা হয়—The Economic & Philosophic Manuscript 1844 কিংবা সংক্ষেপে—Paris Manuscript.
এই বইয়ের প্রথম কয়েকটি পাতা উল্টালেই বোঝা যায় অর্থনীতি নিয়ে সে সময়ে মার্ক্স কি পরিমান আগ্রহী হয়ে উঠেছিলেন। অ্যাডাম স্মিথ থেকে শুরু করে ডেভিড রিকার্ডো এবং অন্যান্য তাত্ত্বিকের রচনা যে তিনি গোগ্রাসে গিলেছেন তার নজির পাওয়া যায় এই পাণ্ডুলিপিতে।
এই পাণ্ডুলিপি নিয়ে কয়েকটা সমস্যা রয়েছে। প্রথমত, এই গ্রন্থটি প্রায় একশ বছর দৃষ্টির আড়ালে ছিল। মার্ক্স তাঁর জীবদ্দশায় এই গ্রন্থ প্রকাশ করেননি এবং এর কথা স্বীকার করেননি। এই পাণ্ডুলিপি প্রকাশিত হয় দ্বিতীয় বিশ্বযুদ্ধের পর। আমি কিছুদিন আগে মার্ক্সের সাহিত্য সমগ্র পড়েছিলাম এবং সেটা নিয়ে একটু মশকরা করবার লোভ সামলাইনি কেননা সেটা ছিল তরুণ মার্ক্সের প্রেমের কবিতা দিয়ে ঠাঁসা। প্রায় ঠিক একই সমস্যা হয়েছে এই পাণ্ডুলিপি নিয়ে। ১৮৪৫ সালে তিনি 'দ্য জার্মান আইডিওলজি' গ্রন্থ প্রকাশ করেন যার সাথে ১৮৪৪ সালের পাণ্ডুলিপির একটা বড় দার্শনিক ফারাক আছে।

এই পাণ্ডুলিপি আবিষ্কার ও প্রকাশের পূর্বে যে মার্ক্সবাদের কথা ভাবা হত সেই পরিনত মার্ক্সের রচনা যাকে মার্ক্স এবং এঙ্গেলেস বৈজ্ঞানিক সমাজতন্ত্র বলা অভিহিত করতেন, পাণ্ডুলিপি আবিষ্কারের পরে মার্ক্স সম্পর্কে এক নতুন দৃষ্টিভঙ্গির সন্ধান পাওয়া যায়, যেখানে মার্ক্সবাদকে একটা মানবিক চিন্তাপ্রনালী হিসেবে দেখানো হয়, যার মৌলিক থিম ছিল বিশ্ববিপ্লবের মাধ্যমে মানবসমাজের নৈতিক পুনরুজ্জীবন।
সোজা কোথায় পশ্চিমা বুদ্ধিজীবীরা বিশেষ করে অ-কমিউনিস্ট মার্ক্স পণ্ডিতেরা নিজেদের মতো করে মার্ক্সকে ব্যাখ্যা করবার একটা বড় সুযোগ পেয়ে যায়। তরুণ মার্ক্সের প্রতি এই ঝোঁকের ব্যাপারে সোভিয়েত পণ্ডিত মহলের অফিশিয়াল অবস্থান ছিল কঠোর, তাঁদের কাছে এটা ছিল ভর্ৎসনীয় এবং সাম্যবাদের তাত্ত্বিক ভিত্তির উপর বুর্জোয়া আক্রমণের তুল্য।

এখানে একটা বড় প্রশ্নের সম্মুখীন হতে হয়—তবে কি দুইটি মার্ক্সবাদ আছে?
১৮৪৪ সালের প্যারির পাণ্ডুলিপির সাথে ১৮৪৫ সালের ‘দ্য জার্মান আইডিওলজি’ গ্রন্থের তুলনা করলে দেখা যায় দুটো গ্রন্থের মূল থিম আলাদা। আমার প্রশ্ন হল মার্ক্সের এই দ্রুত উৎক্রান্তির প্রভাবক হিসেবে কি কাজ করেছে?
মানুষকে বিচ্ছিন্নতা (alienaion) বা তার সত্তার অন্তদ্বন্দ্বের সাহায্যে উপলব্ধির চাইতে তাকে বাহ্যিক অর্থনৈতিক শ্রেনিদ্বন্দ্বের মাধ্যমে উপলব্ধি করবার জন্য মার্ক্সের যে দৃষ্টিভঙ্গির পরিবর্তন তার একাধিক ব্যাখ্যা থাকতে পারে।
আমার কাছে মনে হয় ১৮৪৪ এর পাণ্ডুলিপি লেখবার পর একজন ব্যাক্তি বিশেষভাবে মার্ক্সকে প্রভাবিত করেন। আর তিনি হলেন—এঙ্গেলেস!

১৮৪৪ সালের গ্রীষ্মে মার্ক্সের স্ত্রী জেনি শিশু সন্তান নিয়ে প্যারিস থেকে ট্রাইয়ারে চলে যান। সেখানে তিনি তাঁর মা এবং শাশুড়ির সাথে সাক্ষাৎ করেন। সেই বছরের সেপ্টেম্বরে যখন প্যারিস প্রত্যাবর্তন করেন তখন দেখতে পান তাঁর স্বামীর একজন নতুন বন্ধু জুটেছে। মা��্ক্সকে কারও সাথে এতো ঘনিষ্ঠ বন্ধুত্ব পাতাতে জেনি কখনও দেখেনি।
এঙ্গেলসের শিল্প পুঁজিতন্ত্রের অর্থনীতি সম্পর্কে সুগভীর জ্ঞান ছিল। তিনি দাবি করতেনঃ যখন একটি অর্থনৈতিক ব্যাবস্থা কার্যকর হয় তখন তা ব্যাক্তিমানুষের নিয়ন্ত্রণ বহির্ভূত হয়ে যায়। হতে পারে এঙ্গেলসের অর্থনৈতিক ব্যাখ্যা মার্ক্সকে দার্শনিক ব্যাখ্যা থেকে সরে আসতে উদ্বুদ্ধ করে।

এরপর ‘দ্য জার্মান আইডিওলজি’ গ্রন্থের আলোচনা দিয়ে পরিণত মার্ক্সবাদের আলোচনা শুরু করা যেতে পারে।

[graceofgod · Rating 4 out of 5]

GOOD SHIT JUST A REMINDER

[Luc A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Turn up

[Yamal · Rating 4 out of 5]

" El alza de los salarios conduce a un exceso de trabajo de los obreros. Cuanto más quieren ganar, tanto más de su tiempo deben sacrificar y, enajenándose de toda libertad, han de realizar, en aras de la codicia, un trabajo de esclavos. Con ello acortan su vida."

" Como el obrero ha sido degradado a la condición de máquina, la máquina puede oponérsela como competidor."

" El economista nos dice que todos se compra con trabajo y que el capital no es otra cosa que trabajo acumulado, pero al mismo tiempo nos dice que el obrero, muy lejos de poder comprarlo todo, tiene que venderse a sí mismo y a su humanidad. [...] En tanto que las rentas del perezoso terrateniente ascienden por lo general a la tercera parte del producto de la tierra, y el beneficio del atareado capitalista llega incluso al doble del interés del dinero [...] El terreteniente y el capitalista son simplemente dioses privilegiados y ociosos, están en todas partes por encima del obrero y le dictan leyes "

"...la Economía Política sólo reconoce al obrero en cuanto a animal de trabajo, como una bestia reducida a las más estrictas necesidades vitales. [...] Para cultivarse espiritualmente con mayor libertad, un pueblo necesita estar exento de la esclavitud de sus propias necesidades corporales, no ser ya siervo del cuerpo. Se necesita, pues, que ante todo, que quede tiempo para poder crear y gozar espiritualmente."

"Si antes, para cubrir una determinada cantidad de necesidades materiales, se requería un gasto de tiempo y energía humana, que más tarde se ha reducido la mitad, se ha ampliado en esta misma medida el ámbito para la creación y el goce espiritual sin ningún atentado contra el bienestar material. Pero [...] la duración del trabajo esclavo no ha hecho sino aumentar para una numerosa población."

" Llamamiento de Lord Broughan a los obreros: ¡Haceos capitalistas!... lo malo es que millones sólo logran ganar su modesto vivir gracias a un fatigoso trabajo que los arruina corporalmente y los deforma mental y moralmente; que incluso tienen que considerar como una suerte la desgracia de haber encontrado tal trabajo."

"Esta constitución económica condena a los hombres a oficios tan abyectos, a una degradación tan sumamente desoladora y amarga que, en comparación con ella, el estado salvaje parece una condición real. [...] La prostitución de la clase no propietaria en todas sus formas."

" Frente a quien lo emplea, el trabajador no está en posición de un libre vendedor... el capitalista es siempre libre de comprar el trabajo, y el trabajador está siempre obligado a venderlo. El trabajo es vida , y si la vida no se entrega cada día a cambio de alimentos, sufre y no tarda en perecer. Para que la vida del hombre sea una mercancía hay que admitir, pues, la esclavitud."

" Cuanto más largo, penoso y desagradable sea el trabajo que se les asigna, tanto menos se les paga; se ven algunos que con un trabajo de 16 horas diarias de continua fatiga apenas pueden comprar el derecho de no morir".

" ...una gran parte de la propiedad territorial cae en manos de capitalistas y éstos se convierten así, al mismo tiempo, en terratenientes [...] Esta comercialización de la propiedad territorial, la transformación de la propiedad de la tierra en una mercancía, es el derrocamiento definitivo de la vieja aristocracia y la definitiva instauración de la aristocracia del dinero"

"Las únicas ruedas que la Economía Política pone en movimiento son la codicia y la guerra entre los codiciosos; la competencia."

"¿En qué consiste la enajenación del trabajo? Primeramente, en que el trabajo es externo al trabajador, es decir, no pertenece a su ser; en que en su trabajo, el trabajador no se afirma sino que se niega; no se siente feliz, sino desgraciado; no desarrolla una libre energía física y espiritual, sino que mortifica su cuerpo y arruina su espíritu. Por eso el trabajador solo se siente en sí fuera del trabajo, y en el trabajo fuera de sí. Su trabajo no es, así, voluntario, sino forzado, trabajo forzado. Por eso no es la satisfacción de una necesidad, sino solamente un medio para satisfacer las necesidades fuera del trabajo. [...] tan pronto como no existe una coacción física o de cualquier otro tipo se huye del trabajo como de la peste. [...] es un trabajo de autosacrificio. [...] En último término, para el trabajador se muestra la exterioridad del trabajo en que este no es suyo, sino de otro, [...] en que cuando está en él no se pertenece a sí mismo, sino a otro [...] es la pérdida de sí mismo."

"Las naciones son sólo talleres de producción, el hombre es una máquina de consumir y producir; la vida humana un capital; las leyes económicas rigen ciegamente al mundo."

"La producción produce al hombre no sólo como mercancía, mercancía humana, [...] lo produce como un ser deshumanizado tanto física como espiritualmente."

"Un ser solo se considera independiente en cuanto es dueño de sí , y solo es dueño de sí en cuanto debe a sí mismo su existencia. Un hombre que vive por gracia de otro se considera a sí mismo un ser dependiente. Vivo [...] totalmente por gracia de otro cuando le debo [...] el mantenimiento de mi vida..."

"La economía es una verdadera ciencia moral, la más moral de las ciencias. La autorenuncia, la renuncia a la vida y a toda humana necesidad, es su dogma fundamental."

" [La] División del trabajo y el intercambio son los dos fenómenos que hacen que el economista presuma del carácter social de su ciencia y, al mismo tiempo, exprese inconscientemente la contradicción de esta ciencia: la fundamentación de la sociedad mediante el interés particular antisocial."

[mohab samir · Rating 4 out of 5]

ان الشبه الأول بين هذا الكتاب وكتابىّ العائلة المقدسة والإيديولوچية الألمانية هو أنه يبدأ بدراسة أساسية لماركس ويختتم بمقالة او بحث مختصر بقلم فريدريك إنجلز عن مواضيع مشابهة لما تتناولته دراسة ماركس .
لكن فى حين يتناولان فى الكتابين الأخيرين مواضيع فلسفية بنقدهم للمثالية الالمانية نراهم يهتمون بمواضيع اقتصادية واجتماعية ذات طابع نقدى كذلك مما يجعل هذا الكتاب مماثلاً للآخرين من حيث كونه تمهيداً لفكرهم الثورى بنقدهم لكل فكر محافظ فلسفى عموما واقتصادى . اجتماعى . سياسي على وجه الخصوص .
وهم يهتمون بشكل اساسى فى هذه المجموعة من المقالات بتحليل التناقض القائم فى الواقع الاقتصادى بين العمل ورأس المال وكذلك الانفصال بين العوامل الاقتصادية من أرض ورأس مال وعمل . بحيث يقوم التحليل على نقد المدارس الاقتصادية السابقة وخصوصاً الاقتصاد السياسى الحديث ذو الاتجاه الليبرالى والذى يمثل فى اعتبارهم مجرد فكر تجريدى ولذلك فهو يترك الكثير من المشاكل والتناقضات العملية دون حل فعال . وكذلك يمثل الفكر الاقتصادى الليبرالى الوعاء الذى يحوى كل لا أخلاقية وأنانية الاقتصاد القديم ولكن فى صورة أكثر زيفاً من واقعها .
ويتوغل مسار البحث بهم الى نقد المقولات الرئيسية لدى مختلف الاقتصاديين ومختلف مدارسهم وازمانهم كمقولات القيمة والربح والثمن والريع والأجر والميزان التجارى والمنافسة و......... ولكن كل المسارات عندهم تؤدى الى نقد مقولة الملكية الخاصة التى تمثل العقدة الرئيسة والعقبة الأساسية فى طريق حل تناقضات الأقتصاد الحديث الآخذة فى الإحتداد .
فيما عدا هذه الدراسات الإقتصادية المحورية - والتى ستتبلور فى أعمالهم اللاحقة كمنهج متكامل - نجد بحث نقدى لماركس ضد أساس الفلسفة الهيجلية الذى يتمثل فى المنطق والفينومينولوچيا ولكنه يقر أن هيجل نفسه يدرك مادية جدله والذى بإلباسه ثوب النفى ونفى النفى او بإدخال مقولة سلب السلب الإيجابية على مقولة السلب يكون قد توائم بمثاليته مع تناقضات الواقع والتى تجد أهم تمثلاتها فى إغتراب العامل عن ناتج عمله و إنسلابه عن واقعه او بمقولة أخرى لا إنسانية العمل وكذلك فى إغتراب الإنسان عن ذاته فى الدين وهى المشكلة التى يرى ماركس ان فويرباخ قد تجاوزها بنجاح فى نقده لمثالية هيجل التى وصفها باللاهوتية وهو الأمر الذى يدرك أى متأنى وغير متحيز فى قراءته لهيجل نقول أنه يدرك خطأ فويرباخ او مبالغته فهو لم يزد كثيرا عن التصريح بما لم يجرؤ هيجل على التصريح به فى زمنه نظرا لاختلاف السياسات الالمانية الداخلية .
اخيرا لا استطيع كعادتى أن اتغافل عن اسلوب الكاتبين الذى يمكن ان يوصف بالنقدى الساخر والفكه والأدبى والعلمى كذلك وهو ما يجعل الكتابات -رغم جدية وتركيبية مواضيعها وطابعها الفلسفى- أكثر وضوحا ومتعة .

[Shulamith Farhi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lot of it is faff, but the core is deadly serious. In its best moments, the EPM develops a two-layered theory: money as "the general distorting of individualities" and industry as "the open book of man's essential powers." We also get a first sketch of communism as culminating in a form of autonomy, which is notably different than most of what we today call socialism. If anything, EPM's criticisms of 'crude communism' echo a certain strand of liberal anti-socialism that opposes levelling. It's all quite vague at this stage, but the seeds of Marx's theory do flower later in the Grundrisse and Capital. While the flowers are dazzling, it's still fascinating to study the process of their bloom.

[Ángel M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leer a un jovencísimo Marx (apenas tenía 26 años cuando escribió sus manuscritos) hacer un trabajo filosófico de tal calado, estableciendo las bases de las ideas que desarrollaría en obras posteriores, deja sin palabras. No sorprende que, tras su publicación casi 100 años después de ser escritos, dejará una huella tan honda en pensadores tan fundamentales como Lukács o Marcuse. 5 de 5, evidentemente.

«Todo lo que la economía te quita de vida y de humanidad, todo eso lo reemplaza con dinero y riqueza; y todo lo que tú no puedes, lo puede tu dinero. [...] Todas las pasiones y toda actividad deben, por consiguiente, hundirse en la codicia. El trabajador solo puede tener tanto como para desear vivir, y solo puede desear vivir para tener.»

[Preston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Economic writings ranged from a 2 to a 3 for me, sometimes veering into 4 star territory but rarely. However the chapter on Hegel was a 4, it's pretty good. I think the things Marx took from Feuerbach are in many ways more sound than Feuerbach on his own. Fun book more or less