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Marx's Realms of 'Freedom' and 'Necessity'

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

James C. Klagge
James C. Klagge*
Affiliation:
Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and State University, Blacksburg, VA24061, U.S.A.
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Extract

In 1844 Marx held that labor alienation was wholly eliminable, primarily through the abolition of private property . Work in the context of private property was alienating because it was performed for wages and the production of exchange-value. With such purposes, work was experienced as selfish and forced. With the abolition of private property, work would be performed for the production of use-¥alue, to satisfy human needs. With this human purpose, work would be experienced as a free and fulfilling expression of life.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , December 1986 , pp. 769 - 777
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1986

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References

1 Marx, Karl ‘Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts,’ in David McLellan, ed., Karl Marx: Selected Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1977),Google Scholar especially p. 89.

2 Karl Marx, ‘On James Mill,’ in McLellan, especially pp. 117-22. ‘On James Mill’ is a section from the notebooks Marx kept while he was writing the ‘Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts.’

3 Marx, Karl Capital vol. III (New York: International Publishers 1977), 820;Google Scholar this translation is by Ernest Untermann. The passage is reprinted in McLellan, 496-7.

4 The first quoted phrase is from Cohen, G.A. ‘Marx's Dialectic of Labor,’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 3 (1973-1974) 260;Google Scholar the second quoted phrase is from Marcuse, Herbert‘ The Realm of Freedom and the Realm of Necessity: A Reconsideration,’ Praxis 5 (1969) 22.Google Scholar They have been followed in their pessimistic assessment of this passage by Peter Singer, Marx (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1980) 64-5. It should perhaps be noted that in the closing ‘Obiter Dicta’ of Cohen's book, Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defense (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1978) 323-5, where Cohen analyzes this passage, he does not repeat the phrase ‘dismal perception.’ But his analysis of the passage is otherwise precisely the same as the analysis in ‘Marx's Dialectic of Labor,’ and he is still vulnerable to the criticism I make of him in footnote 9 below. His interpretation remains pessimistic.

5 Marx's term for ‘field’ is Gebiet and his term for ‘realm’ is Reich. These are essentially synonyms, so it is not clear why Marx varied his terminology here. David Fernbach, in his translation of this passage, renders Gebiet as ‘sphere.’ See Capital vol. III (New York: Vintage Books 1981), 959.

6 Karl Marx, ‘Grundrisse,’ in McLellan, footnote on p. 369. All passages I shall cite from the Grundrisse come from a manuscript written in February, 1858.

7 Ibid., 370

8 Ibid., 383

9 Thus I disagree with Cohen's assessment in ‘Marx's Dialectic of Labor,’ 261. Cohen is right that ‘the possibility that Marx swiftly excludes is that economic necessities might be met, at least partly, by “that development of human activity that is an end in itself.”’ But Cohen illegitimately conflates activities that are ends in themselves with activities that offer creative fulfillment. One might find an activity to be creatively fulfilling precisely in virtue of the fact that what one creates is fulfilling the needs of others, and in virtue of no other fact, such as the intrinsic pleasure of the activity itself. Thus Cohen unfairly attributes to Marx the ‘dismal perception’ that economic necessities cannot be met by activities that are creatively fulfilling.

10 Karl Marx, ‘Grundrisse,’ in McLellan, 368

11 Ibid.

12 Contrary to what is claimed by Marcuse, 22.

13 Quoted above. I have inserted the bracketed numbers to indicate the parallel with the passage from the Grundrisse. The parallel between the two second conditions is not perfect. One might hold the second condition in the Grundrisse passage to be stronger than the second condition in the Capital passage. Then, from the fact that satisfaction of the two conditions in the Grundrisse entailed ‘really free labour’ it would not follow that satisfaction of the two conditions in Capital entailed real freedom in the realm of necessity. I find this line of objection unconvincing. If the second condition in Capital is weaker, what grounds are there for holding that Marx thought the stronger second condition could not be satisfied? And if there is a difference between the two second conditions, is it great enough to account for a difference between ‘real freedom’ in the Grundrisse and something less in Capital?

14 See footnote 5.

15 Unfortunately the German, as the English, is ambiguous on this point. The phrase ‘can only consist in’ is kann nur darin bestehen. Nur can mean either ‘solely’ or ‘merely.’ Fernbach translates the German phrase as ‘can consist only in.’

16 The same concern to minimize labor time is present in the passages cited from the Grundrisse. Yet it is clear that, according to the Grundrisse, such labor can be really free.

17 See, respectively, p. 191 and pp. 383-4 in McLellan.

18 For a classic statement of this possibility, see Plato's Republic, 357b-d. There Plato classifies knowledge, sight and health as both ends and means. Later, justice turns out to have the same character. In the passages from German Ideology and Grundrisse, cited in footnote 16, as well as a passage from the Critique of the Gotha Program, to be cited below in footnote 18, Marx acknowledges the possibility that he seems swiftly to exclude in the Capital passage — that, as Cohen explains it (‘Marx's Dialectic of Labor,’ 261), ‘economic necessities might be met, at least partly, by “that development of human activity which is an end in itself.”’

19 Karl Marx, ‘Critique of the Gotha Program,’ in McLellan, 569. The phrase ‘Life's prime want’ is erst Lebensbedürfnis.

20 According to the pessimistic view of the Capital passage, Marx is represented as being optimistic (about labor under communism) in 1844, optimistic in 1858, pessimistic in 1864, and then very optimistic in 1875. What accounts for these two opposite swings in Marx's thinking? According to my view, Marx is equally optimistic in 1844, 1858, and 1864, and then more optimistic in 1875. Cohen and Singer both see an oddity in the contrast, as they see it, between Marx's views in 1864 and 1875. The oddity disappears if we hold, as I suggest, that there is no great contrast.

21 In revising this paper I have benefitted from comments of Richard Arneson and Gerald Cohen.