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Introduction to Marxism
Here we will only concentrate on the Marxian concept of Man, of the Human Being.
What
is the concrete program of Marx? His point of departure is
"Beduerfnis",
need. The interpretation
of the "human being" begins with human need.
In his
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of
1844, he stated:
"Man is first of all a natural being. As
a natural being
and a living natural being, he is endowed
on the one
hand with natural powers, vital powers
. . . ; these powers
exist in him as aptitudes, instincts. On
the other hand,
as an objective, natural, physical, sensitive
being, he is a
suffering, dependent and limited being
. . . , that is, the
objects of his instincts exist outside
him, independent of
him, but are the objects of his need,
indispensable
and
essential for the realization and confirmation
of his
substantial powers".
As can be seen above, Marx confirmed that the
"human being"
is a "living
natural being", which is endowed with
"natural, vital powers".
Scientifically completely correct and stringent!
These "powers"
exist
in him ,
that is, they constitute his Existence.
Philosophically totally precise!
In our philosophical terminology, Marx states
that the Human Being is
Cosmos
(Nature) a
n d it exists
as Einai (Society). Of course, he does not identify this
Being a n d Existence precisely as
Human
Being a n d Human Existence.
in nuce,
as Human Existence.
Furthermore, he only mentions "aptitudes
and instincts"; these are not exactly
synonyms for our understanding of "Intellect
a n d Reason", but at least
they
blaze the trail towards Thinking and Thought.
What Marx explains "on the other hand" is very confusing and jumbled
together,
mixing up natural and social traits, hence no further comments.
Of greater interest are the "objects"
of man's instincts, of his "needs";
they
"exist outside
him", "independent
of him". Well, where? In the objective
external world, in Cosmos, in Nature. We are approximating the crux of
the Marxian definition of Man, of the Human Being. These cosmic, natural
resources are "
the objects of his need, indispensable and essential for the
realization
and confirmation of his substantial powers ".
Human evolution, human history, is identical with
the living Human Being, with MAN, who exploits Nature to satisfy his
primary
human needs. And what does Marx deem to be the "first historical
fact"?
"The production of the means to
satisfy these needs". The very satisfaction of
human needs paves the way for the reproduction of more needs. This
human
productive process is human activity,
"menschliche
Taetigkeit", to satisfy human needs:
eating, drinking, clothing, sheltering, etc. It produces and reproduces
his "powers",
and here "power"
is central, especially when we will speak later about political
power (domination, the State) and economic
power
(exploitation, Capital). Also, this human activity produces and
develops
the intellectual
and artistic human abilities and capabilities.
Human Activity, Labour, humanizes Man
For Marx, human activity is Labour; as a productive
being, Man humanizes himself. Through Labour, in the production
process,
Man
humanizes Nature,
while He, Man,
naturalizes
Himself! Obviously, here we do not have a scientific,
philosophic process, where Man (Society)
humanizes
Nature, and where Nature
naturalizes Man (Society). Human Labour is
defined
as Man socializing Nature,
and as Man naturalizing Society,
naturalizing himself. Here we encounter not a dialogic,
but a one-sided pseudo-dialectic,
which takes place within the framework of the Patria, which never
transcends
its boundaries, which always preserves and conserves the
status quo.
By means of his creative activity, of Labour,
the Human Being identifies itself,
becomes an entity, an identity. According to
Marx, by mastering, an euphemism for exploiting, Nature, Man
realizes
his identity with Nature, that is, he achieves free consciousness, he
develops
his own thinking. Actually Marx argues that
Man who is a Child of Mother Nature, can only
become fully human, fully manly, by opposing Nature. Here the macho,
the masculine Man, becomes the Lord of the Universe, by opposing,
mastering
and exploiting feminine Mother Nature, and all this is called Labour,
Human
Labour! How deep patriarchal ideology is rooted even in Marxism! And,
from
bad to worse, embodied in a fundamental concept of Marxism, Labour,
on which the whole edifice of Marxian Theory and Praxis stands and
falls!
This aurora of "human consciousness", we would
say Human Existence,
cannot
be separated from the dawn of the "human being"
itself, with its "struggle against Nature" (later the "class struggle"
will be added). The consciousness about the struggle against Nature,
being
aware of exploiting Nature, gives Man the powers, the conditions, for
his
self-realization, for the fulfilment of the whole Human Being. What a
natural
disaster! What a human "Crown of Creation", what a
"Highest Blossom of Nature"!
And, how does Marx explain this cruel ecocide? What does the "Human Being" discover?
"all that is called history is nothing else
than the process
of creating man through human labour, the
becoming of
nature for man. Man has thus evident and
irrefutable
proof
of his own creation by himself....for man,
man is the supreme being."
Now we know, who is Man,
who is the Human Being!
For the dominant
ruling classes. they are Man; for them, for Man,
Man is God, Man is the Supreme Being. They need not believe in any God,
they are Gods themselves, Man is God
Himself! If Modern Science wants to
find God, it would be the most simple investigation that was ever
performed
on this planet. In this sense, Marx was very clear about Religion and
God;
he had a famous tutor: Ludwig Andreas
Feuerbach.
The Marxian "Human Being" in Modern Capitalist Society
However, across the historical process, no Man,
no Human Being, had acquired
the fulfilment of his labour dreams, of his human
needs. Few members of the species homo
sapiens had enjoyed heaven on earth, but
this is not what Marx understood by human emancipation. Let us
see
how Marx explains this historical phenomenon.
Marx himself, living in a capitalist society, came to the conclusion that Man is not really free. Adopting the concept of alienation of Hegel and Feuerbach, Marx was convinced that modern Man is estranged, that he is not at home in his earthly labouring world: "Man is made alien to man." But Labour cannot be blamed; it is sacred, it is human. Hence, Labour was alienated across the ages. The central problem is alienated Labour. Urgently Labour must be disalienated! But, how, and why, did Labour become alienated, and consequently, why is Man an alienated Being, an alienated Human Being?
The gives us an excellent summary of Marx's views in The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 :
"In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts
the alienation
of labour is seen to spring from the fact
that the more the worker
produces the less he has to consume, and the
more values he creates
the more he devalues himself, because his
product and his labour
are estranged from him. The life of the worker
depends on things
that he has created but that are not his,
so that, instead of finding
his rightful existence through his labour,
he loses it in this world of
things that are external to him: no work,
no pay. Under these conditions,
labour denies the fullness of concrete man.
"The generic being
(Gattungswesen) of man, nature as well
as his intellectual faculties, is transformed into a being which is
alien
to him, into a means of his
individual existence." Nature, his body, his
spiritual essence become
alien to him. "Man is made alien to man."
When carried to its highest
stage of development, private property becomes
"the product of
alienated labour . . . the means by which
labour alienates itself (and)
the realization of this alienation." It is
also at the same time "the tangible
material expression of alienated human life.""
In brief, Marx saw alienated labour as the historic result of the exploitation and domination of Man by Man, of market production, of the division of labour, into manual and intellectual labour, of the division of society into antagonistic classes. The continues with the Marxian explanation:
"As producers in society, men create goods
only by their labour.
These goods are exchangeable. Their value
is the average amount
of social labour spent to produce them. The
alienation of the worker
takes on its full dimension in that system
of market production in
which part of the value of the goods produced
by the worker is
taken away from him and transformed into surplus
value, which
the capitalist privately appropriates. Market
production also
intensifies the alienation of labour by
encouraging
specialization,
piecework, and the setting up of large
enterprises.
Thus the labour
power of the worker is used along with that
of others in a
combination whose significance he is ignorant
of, both individually
and socially. In thus losing their quality
as human products, the
products of labour become fetishes, that is,
alien and oppressive
realities to which both the man who possesses
them privately and
the man who is deprived of them submit
themselves.
In the market economy, this submission to things is obscured by the
fact
that the exchange of goods is expressed in money."
This
economic alienation causes political, social and human alienation;
this
estrangement results in distorted human relations. The alienated
economic
base
distorts the ideological superstructure,
thus creating perverted religious, metaphysical, philosophical, legal,
political and moral ideas and notions. But let Marx himself explain the
alienation and disalienation process:
"The act of making
representations,
of thinking,
the spiritual intercourse of men, seem to be the
direct emanation of their material relations."
"Men produce their representations and their ideas,
but it is as living men, men acting as they are
determined by a definite development of their powers
of production."
"Men developing their material
production modify together with their real existence
their ways of thinking and the products of their ways
of thinking."
"It is not consciousness
which determines existence,
it is existence which
determines consciousness."
Led
by the International
Proletariat, in
the Class
Struggle, which logically will evolve
into Social Revolution,
which will topple capitalist society, and which will introduce Socialism,
and finally Communism,
Marx saw the
historical
process of disalienating Labour, and
of emancipating the Human Being.
Free Labour,
which freely will exploit Nature, and which will eliminate the
domination
of Man by Man, hence liberating Society, is the solution which Marx
offered
to annihilate all misery and oppression in contemporary capitalist
society.