The term ‘communism’ or ‘communist’ is often thrown around as a kind of pejorative; however Marx has a very specific concept in mind when he uses it. There are a couple passages where Marx discusses communism in the 1844 manuscripts, but this is perhaps one of the most interesting: “If we characterize communism itself because of its character as negation of the negation, as the appropriation of the human essence which mediates itself with itself through the negation of private property – as being not yet the true, self-originating position but rather a position originating from private property, […]” (Marx-Engels 99). There is a foot note attached to the ellipses saying that the rest of the manuscript was torn off. What we get in this passage is the antecedent to a conditional statement. What appears to have been torn off is the consequent to this conditional. What could the consequent of this conditional be? Is he saying that it might be bad to conceive of communism merely as the negation of the negation?
We perhaps get a hint by looking to the next couple paragraphs. Marx alludes to simply looking at the Hegelian conceptual structure when talking about communism. “In order to abolish the idea of private property, the idea of communism is completely sufficient. It takes actual communist action to abolish actual private property” (ibid). Communism, as the transcendence of private property, is not merely the idea of this transcendence. What Marx is saying here is that theorizing will not actually do anything. While he is still using Hegelian language or negation and transcendence, the apparatus he is using is radically different. This difference seems to go beyond Hegel in a way that is not simply ‘turning him on his head’. However, Marx does seem to want to preserve the Hegelian notion of the inevitability of history.
Immediately after the passage above where he seemingly wants to move away from Hegel, he argues that “History will come to it; and this movement, which in theory we already know to be a self-transcending movement, will constitute in actual fact a very severe and protracted process” (ibid). Here Marx wants to continue his distinction between the way private property is transcended in theory and in actuality, or in practice. By saying that in ‘actual fact’ the transition away from private property will be severe and protracted, it seems like Marx wants to say that communism will not simply arise on its own. There isn’t a simple movement of ideas where the desired end result will come about no matter what. It seems like something else is needed, vis. real, actual revolution by the proletariat. However Marx begins the passage with the phrase ‘History will come to it’. This seems to suggest that the revolution will come regardless.
What exactly is Marx arguing for when it comes to the communist revolution? Does he move beyond Hegel’s conception of history, or does he simply inverting it? How exactly is the communist revolution determined by the material conditions of the present?
I don't have answers to your questions, but I do want to take this opportunity to ask questions that might be helpful for the rest of us. It also fits well with the question you pose at the end of your first paragraph. Since you're probably the most well-read in Marx of this class, do you know what sort of positive assertions Marx makes about communism? The only characterizations I recall of it is as something that is not-capitalism, that is a transition stage (dictatoriship of the proletariat) to some enlightened class-less society, and that we should be careful to not mix it up with Stalinism and Maoism. But other than these negative descriptions and the 'transition' characterization, we haven't gotten much of the content of Marx's communism, and it would seem vital that we know it in order to make helpful contributions. Just what is communism to Marx?
ReplyDelete(And yes, this may just be a restatement of your question at the beginning of your last paragraph.)
A restatement of a question can often times be helpful. With Marx (as with a lot of philosophers if you ask me) it is a lot easier to generate questions than it is to generate answers. Two positive characteristics of communism that come to mind are 1) transcendence (meaning abolition) of private property and 2)the disillusion of class structure. Both of these are often formulated as negative characteristics: NO private property and NO classes. What should we replace these with? For the first point, Marx seems to advocate a kind a theory of social, or communal property. By transcending private property, we are not transcending the concept of property all together. This seems to match up with the fact that he wants to emphasize the social nature of the human being rather than the individual nature. The second point is perhaps more tricky. What would a classless society look like? We don't really have any good historical examples (at least on the scale of the nation state). My guess is that this society would be much more egalitarian because it wouldn't have private ownership to create inequality between people. We would not differentiate ourselves based on how much stuff we owned.
ReplyDeleteYour question (what is communism to Marx?) is actually one that I'm going to look at for my senior seminar paper, so if anyone has any thoughts about this, I'd love to talk to them about it.
Ben: You write that transcending private property does not equate to the transcendence of property altogether. I'm not sure that I agree. Doesn't the very notion of property immutably imply some amount of ownership thereof? Can property exist in isolation or is unowned property simply a "thing"?
ReplyDeleteAdam: I agree (and I would argue that Marx would agree too) that property does not exist qua property apart from its relation to one or more human beings. Stuff without reference to us is merely stuff. Marx, in his critique of private property, is not getting rid of the concept of property or ownership. I agree that a notion of property implies a concept of ownership. Marx stresses importance of labor to the concept of property. At the heart of his analysis of political economy, Marx shows that our relations to property and to each other concerning property are essentially (regardless of of economic system) social relations. Property has the kind of power it does because of the way we interact with other potential owners. Under a system of private property, one can only own property in society. Private property is essentially a right against other potential users of that property. In the absence of other people to exclude, a concept of private property no longer has any meaning.
ReplyDeleteMarx, insofar as he wants to transcend private property, wants to begin to think property being owned by an entire society as a collective rather than by particular individuals. I agree that this conception of property is a radical departure from our current notions of property generally, but thinking about property in this new way seems possible to me. At the very least, can you agree that there is a difference between private property and collective property? If so, then the transcendence of private property is not the transcendence of the concept of property generally, because an alternate concept (i.e. collective) of property remains.