Saturday, March 14, 2015

What Marx said about the individual in "The German Ideology"

I've been discussing, mainly with Peter, and thinking about the concept of the individual. What is an individual? One avenue has been to clarify what Marx said about this. What follows is a summary of part of his writings. There will be other posts about Marx and other authors to follow, on this topic.

The German Ideology was written in 1845-6, when Marx was 27 or 28 yo. I mention this because some argue there are significant differences between the young Marx and the older Marx.

Part of the Feuerbach section of The German Ideology
D. PROLETARIANS AND COMMUNISM
Individuals, Class and Community

Here is my summary:

The context is a discussion of the rise of the trading or mercantile class (burghers) in antagonism to the feudal class. Over time the trading class develops into the bourgeoisie or propertied class. Traders and bourgeois compete intensely with each other but are also compelled to unite with each other in their struggle to overthrow the feudal class.

Marx says clearly that individuals arise historically before classes. In footnote 2 Marx specifically rejects the formulations that "each is all", "that bourgeois is only a specimen of the bourgeois species" and "that the class of bourgeois existed before the individuals constituting it".

Individuals act as individuals, including competing with each other, but as classes develop they discover they are members of a class.
"The separate individuals form a class only insofar as they have to carry on a common battle against another class; otherwise they are on hostile terms with each other as competitors. On the other hand, the class in its turn achieves an independent existence over against the individuals, so that the latter find their conditions of existence predestined, and hence have their position in life and their personal development assigned to them by their class, become subsumed under it."
As class society develops individuals become "subsumed" to their class. Subsume means to be incorporated into something more comprehensive. Social classes are more comprehensive than individuals. This process includes being subjected to all sorts of (bad) ideas. Marx's words here are, "We have already indicated several times how this subsuming of individuals under the class brings with it their subjection to all kinds of ideas, etc."

Marx is clear about the sort of society (communism, a society without a ruling class) we would need for this process of individuals being subsumed to classes to come to an end:
"This subsuming of individuals under definite classes cannot be abolished until a class has taken shape, which has no longer any particular class interest to assert against the ruling class"
As capitalism develops one of the main things denying individual freedom is the division of labour which develops as part of the capitalist system

To abolish division of labour and to make personal freedom possible requires a true community where an individual has the means of cultivating his gifts in all direction through free association with others in the community.

But community under capitalism is illusory except for the privileged. For the majority it becomes a new fetter because of capitalist social relations, which includes barriers arising from wealth disparity and the above mentioned division of labour.

Consequently, under capitalism within individual life there appears a division between the personal, on the one hand, and that which is determined by the division of labour, arising from the needs of the capitalist system, on the other hand. Persons are still persons but their personality is largely determined by their position in class society.

Under capitalism where individuals end up is largely "accidental" (random). You don't develop as a fully free individual because to survive under capitalism means you have to slot yourself somewhere into the capitalist inspired division of labour.

Individuals might think they are free because where they end up is accidental but in reality they are less free (than under earlier social systems) because they are subject to "the violence of things". Perhaps this anticipates Marx's later analysis of commodity relations, which describes the replacement of human relationships with the relationship between things.

Proletarians have no control over their social destiny, they are sacrificed from youth and their condition of life is forced upon them

Only revolutionary proletarians are free individuals since they understand the need to overthrow capitalism

What is called personal freedom is controlled by the existing productive forces and forms of intercourse at any particular time

My comment on this summary:

Today, in a relatively wealthy society such as Australia, people who fit the Marxist description of "proletarians", eg. teachers who don't own the means of production, have all sorts of freedoms that were not present when this was written, 170 years ago. People can work hard in a profession they choose, pay off the mortage (20+ years), have a family, send their kids to elite Private schools if they can afford it, choose their entertainment, donate to charities or volunteer to help the poor, travel the world and retire at 60 or younger to relax in their declining years. Such a life is lived by many. It is the best that capitalism can offer the proletarians of today.

People usually feel that they choose their profession as free individuals. However, I feel that Marx is right and that this feeling is at best only partly true. People find a niche, a "good job" (engineer, maths professor, social worker) within the capitalist system that meets their needs for money (can't live without it), social status / satisfaction. But this division of labour is largely determined by social and educational background. Not many lawyers come out of government schools. Once they are in a good job then people rationalise their position. "My job is socially useful and of benefit to others". Alternatively, "I have worked hard all my life and will enjoy the benefits of my hard work". In the meantime the capitalists do what they do best, find ways to invest and accumulate more capital (James Packer casinos, Twiggy Forest mining, Bill Gates computing etc.). They live in a totally different world. The class division is very real but over time most of us just come to accept it, that is the way things are, get on with your life. But why should we accept it? A better society can be imagined and was imagined by Marx, even though there have been all sorts of problems when revolutions try to go there.

So, we don't have the true community that Marx envisaged. James Packer isn't going to invite me over to his mansion for a cuppa tea and give me advice about how to earn my next million so I can retire early too. I don't have the same sort of freedom that he has to choose my developmental path. This did come about accidentally. He was Frank Packer's son and I wasn't. There was something more involved here than a free choice to become filthy rich. The ability of people to do their own creative and rewarding thing, whatever it is, is severely constrained by their income.

However, it appears to be exaggerated rhetoric to claim that community under capitalism is illusory. People join various clubs (footy, book, chess, Facebook etc.) and enjoy themselves with friends. This is not an illusion. I think Marx is suggesting we can do better, much better, that we need to open our eyes wider and see the injustice and exploitation in society as a whole and get to the root of that.

In capitalist society, we all have to live parallel lives as Marx suggests, one personal (private family, friendship circle, personal introspection) and one public (our life at work where we earn the money to continue or standing in a queue at Centre Link)

One common criticism of Marx centres around his alleged lack of recognition of the individual, the lack of individual freedom in the Soviet Union during the Stalin years, for example.

What I notice here about the text is that Marx does provide quite a bit of wriggle room for the bourgeoisie to be individuals both through competition (which can't be avoided within capitalism) and choice. He specifically rejects the formulation "that bourgeois is only a specimen of the bourgeois species".

It is true, however, that proletarians, in relatively wealthy Australia, have more wriggle room and some, although limited, freedom of choice, than is suggested in Marx's writing of 170 years ago.

4 comments:

Peter Green said...

I have prepared a longer reply - this is my main point of dissension.

BK Marx says clearly that individuals arise historically before classes. In footnote 2 Marx specifically rejects the formulations that "each is all", "that bourgeois is only a specimen of the bourgeois species" and "that the class of bourgeois existed before the individuals constituting it".

PG In footnote 2 Marx disagrees with Max Stirner and others, who presuppose “that the class of bourgeois existed before the individuals constituting it.” It is true that Marx rejects the ‘statement’ to the effect that ‘classes arise before individuals’. But that does not mean, as you say (and, you add “clearly”), that the opposite is true – “that individuals arise historically before classes”]
Individuals act as individuals, including competing with each other, but as classes develop they discover they are members of a class.

BK "The separate individuals form a class only insofar as they have to carry on a common battle against another class; otherwise they are on hostile terms with each other as competitors."

PG Marx seems to be saying if we don’t form a class, we are separate individuals, but this contradicts his Sixth Thesis on Feuerbach (which he wrote a few months before “The German Ideology”):
“Human nature,… is no abstraction inherent in each separate individual. In its reality it is the ensemble of social relationships.”
I argue that what Marx is most interested is how classes form in historical periods in the “ensemble of social relationships”. And that classes, as he tries to explain, but not clearly, in “The German Ideology”, are a way to overcome, to transcend, the “hostile terms” of individuals as “competitors” (because of market - “exchange of property” – relations) in which a gang, and later the state) provide an ‘individual-as-owner’ the power to lock up, and keep any kind of wealth as private property. This is the power to keep anything good, from others, including those who need it more than him. Class relations are a distortion of social relations, and are justified, rationalised, and disguised today by claims that the abstraction that is the competitive and hostile individual is a fact – it is “human nature”. We are all just too greedy.]

Bill Kerr said...

hi Peter,

In theses VI Marx is criticising Feuerbach's attempt to transform religious essence into human essence. In contrast to the image of the ideal, abstract, isolated human individual internalising secular religious values Marx points out that internalising social relations is closer to the mark. But is that the whole story?

To suggest that human nature is only the ensemble of social relations would be a deterministic stance. ie. it is possible to take an isolated quotation from Marx and then depict him as a determinist. But there is more to him than that.

Are we determinists who deny that humans have choice? This would seem to be a self contradictory position an easily parodied given that we have the imagination to reject determinism ("I am not a determinist. I am an individual. We are all individuals" Lone voice: "I'm not" Monty Python) Doesn't that imply that our minds have transcended determinism? But perhaps we are deceiving ourselves? Everything we do is determined even the predictable but futile human resistance to it.

We are going no where unless we have some insight into resolving the contradiction between a determinist stance and a free will or self conscious stance, that we have genuine choice.

This is addressed by Marx in his third thesis about Feuerbach. There he says it is "essential to educate the educator" and that this "divides society into two parts, one of which is superior to society" and that "self changing can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice".

So there has to be something more dynamic than humans as mere reflections of social relations. Otherwise how would it be possible to educate the educators and participate in revolutionary practice? I don't think it is clear from the Theses how this something more comes about. But it is clear that Marx believes in its existence, that revolutionary practice by some individuals who are re-educated and "superior" is possible. And of course in reality we proceed as though we are individuals who reflect, learn and make improved choices.

(My reference for this is Christopher Arthur's Introduction to The German Ideology, pp. 21-3)

Peter Green said...

Part 1
PG: Yes, the Sixth thesis can be read to mean the “ideal, abstract, isolated human individual” is “internalising social relations”.
More directly, that “social relations” are internalised – meaning incorporated, into one's 'self. My reasons for doing my thesis is that I have a different reading of the Sixth Thesis. I don’t believe that the self can be put before social relations, but that the Sixth Thesis supports, or at least allows, that the individual (ie. any “ideal, abstract, isolated individual” thing) is (like both the “religious essence” and “human essence”) is an abstraction from, or of, what is real – and that is “the ensemble of the social relations”.
My thesis topic is pretty much that. That all “abstraction in Marx” has its “foundation in material, universal, human interaction”.
A related point, which can be pursued later, is that such a reading “unlocks” the real meaning of the Eleventh Thesis.
Talk of the real material world being internalised into the individual is simply reinterpretation of one abstract essence into another. We can only change the world when we are aware that social relations are crippling our social existence by making each of us into an “ideal, abstract, isolated human”.
BK … To suggest that human nature is only the ensemble of social relations would be a deterministic stance. …
PG: Whatever is said to be “human nature”, or human essence, is a reflection of some aspect, some particular part, of the massive complexity, the universality, that is the ensemble of “social relations” (which I call “living material universal human interactions”).
Determinism is built on the abstraction (the reification) of both “human nature” (with bourgeois ideals about freedom of choice”) and “social relations” (with the injustices of oppression and exploitation of one class by another), as if there is any (it rests on the assumption that there is a) material or meaningful difference between the two.
BK: We are going no where unless we have some insight into resolving the contradiction between a determinist stance and a free will or self conscious stance, that we have genuine choice.
BK: This is addressed by Marx in his third thesis about Feuerbach. There he says it is "essential to educate the educator" and that this "divides society into two parts, one of which is superior to society" and that "self changing can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice".

Peter Green said...

Part 2
PG: If we understand that there is no such thing as fixed human nature, no human essence, and that the abstraction that is “free will” flows from that, then there can be no separation of “human activity” from our “circumstances”. To the extent that our educators teach us that human nature is fixed, and that revolution can only be destructive of that, then we (who understand that the fixed nature of an “ideal, abstract, isolated human individual” comes solely from capitalist social relations) must (we will, even if we don't want to) educate those educators.
BK: So there has to be something more dynamic than humans as mere reflections of social relations.
PG: There is nothing that is more dynamic than social relations –“living material universal human interactions”.
Market, property and class relations (human social relations) create the abstraction (the idea in each of our individual heads) that there is something real (that is prior to, or more fundamental) than social relations – it used to be God, now it is the “ideal, abstract, isolated human individual”]
BK: Otherwise how would it be possible to educate the educators and participate in revolutionary practice? I don't think it is clear from the Theses how this something more comes about. But it is clear that Marx believes in its existence, that revolutionary practice is possible.
PG: I understand that Lenin’s view of the vanguard party was a kind of “educating the educators”. We, in concert with others, can, through our conscious human activity, change what appears to non-revolutionaries as circumstances beyond our control. The most likely explanation of the revolutionary impotence of the bourgeoisie is their conviction that we can’t change human nature, because that would threaten their class nature, arising only from their legal freedom to be autonomous owners of private property.
BK: And of course in reality we proceed as though we are individuals who reflect, learn and make improved choices.
PG: The biggest obstacle to revolutionary practice is to “proceed as though we are individuals who reflect, learn and make improved choices”, instead of tackling abuses in human interaction.