Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts Karl Marx (1818-1883) Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts

Marx offers us: 1. an account of historical progress 2. a critique of capitalism and an account of human well-being 3. a program for revolution (this is for Mon.)

Historical materialism Economic structures determine our ideas about the world. Tensions in one economic structure gives rise to a new economic structure.

A key marxist term: exploitation Workers are exploited when they labour for the profit of the capitalist. Exploitation is descriptive, not moral (it generates “surplus-value”).

(Moral) critique of capitalism The workers (the proletariat) are alienated by their labour in capitalism. Alienation is the moral problem in need of remedy: workers become commodities who can effectively be bought and sold.

Freedom and equality In what sense are workers in capitalism free? In what sense does capitalism protect equality? (These are merely shams in capitalism!)

Alienation 1/4: Alienation from products of labour. Commodities are “objectification” of labour. “The worker puts his life into the object; but now his life no longer belongs to him.”

Alienation 1/4 “It is true that labour 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 produces intelligence – but for the worker idiocy, cretinism.”

Alienation 2/4 Alienation from the activity of labouring. Men must treat their labour as a commodity. “In his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself…in his work [he] feels outside himself.”

Alienation 2/4 “He is at home when he is not working, and when he is working he is not at home. His labour is therefore not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labour.” (labour is a “torrent” not a “delight”

Alienation 3/4 Man as distinct from animal, through labour. “Free, conscious activity is man’s species character.” “Man makes his life activity itself the object of his will and of his consciousness.”

Alienation 3/4 An animal “produces only under the dominion of immediate physical need, whilst man produces even when he is free from physical need and only truly produces in freedom therefrom.” In capitalism, man is thus (3) alienated from himself.

Alienation 4/4 Man is alienated from other men. Men believe they are in competition with others. The revolution depends on overcoming this form of alienation.

Therefore, in capitalism: “Light, air, etc. – the simplest animal cleanliness – ceases to be a need for man. The Irishman no longer knows any need now but the need to eat, and indeed only the need to eat potatoes – and scabby potatoes at that, the worst kind of potatoes…”