Marx on the Jews

[Mahatma Gandhi]

Karl Marx's famous (or should I say notorious?) quote on the Jews: What is the object of the Jew's worship in this world? Usury. What is his worldly god? Money.

I don't want to start a controversy, nor do I want people to fight. Marx has made many, many comments on the Jews like this. Thing is, I don't believe someone of Marx's caliber could have made such comments without a reason. But I can't at the same time believe racism could have been one of those reasons.

So how to interpret these things in light of Marxist analysis? Do we simply assume that Marx was referring to the rich folks, bankers and all those people? His so-called attack on the Jews was therefore an attack on capitalism, is that it?

I'd like to hear more on this.

Mahatma

[Dimentio]

I'm no authority on Marx, but we should remember three things, 1) he himself came from an originally Jewish family, 2) antisemitism on religious basis was a given in the 19th century, 3) he was advocating emancipation of the Jews on the basis of the abolishment of feudal privileges and discrimination in that pamphlet.

[Dean]

Can you actually cite that quote? I've heard nothing of this "famous" quote before.

EDIT: a site search reveals no such quotes on marxists.org: site:marxists.org jew worship usury: http://www.google.com/search?&q=site%3Amarxists.org+jews+worship+money+usury

Your apparent source, with good rebuttal: http://www.worldsocialism.org/canada/marx.and.antisemitism.1960.v27n214.htm (http://www.worldsocialism.org/canada/marx.and.antisemitism.1960.v27n214.htm)



"What is the object of the Jew's worship in this world? Usury. What is his worldly god? Money.
"Very well then; emancipation from usury and money, that is, from practical, real Judaism, would constitute the emancipation of our time." ("A World Without Jews," p. 37)


And as the World Socialism editor points out, as I do above:

But Runes combines it with something that can be found nowhere in the works of Marx. Anything can be proved in this way. The anti-Marxism of Runes, for example, could be combined with papal pronouncements to solidly establish Runes as a Roman Catholic!


I'm interested to know why you keep post race-baiting articles, "Gandhi"

[Jazzhands]

That essay is usually one of the things right-wingers usually take completely out of context and splice together with a few completely-made-up quotes and some that were just intentionally translated poorly, and then you have Glenn Beck's two-hour special.

Anyway, the essay is written as a refutation of Bruno Bauer's essay on the Jews. He argued that Jewish people could not achieve emancipation without giving up their religious identities as Jews since political emancipation requires a secular state. Marx argued that the secular state is not sufficient to eliminate religion from its current place in social life. For instance, the United States is more fanatically religious than most other countries in the world and they have a secular state. In the footnotes of the edition on MIA, it says that Marx was using this sort of language as an extended pun mocking Bauer's language in the original work. It also says that "Judentum" had the colloquial German meaning of "commerce." Howard Zinn makes a different argument in Marx in Soho. He says that he wasn't singling out the Jews at all, just using them as an example. Zinn and Marx were both Jewish, by the way.

[Conquer or Die]

Bauer was a legitimate anti semite for a different reason than somebody like Hitler. Marx was not an anti semite, just politically incorrect.

The closest Philosophical justification for radical anti semitism and ethnic cleansing that Hitler achieved was not from Schopenhaur or even Nietsche but Martin Luther. Not even the Catholic Church can compare.

[scarletghoul]

I agree with Marx.

Oh and look up what Gandhi said about the Jews.

[eclipse]

Oh and look up what Gandhi said about the Jews.

You mean things like mass suicide to escape the holocaust? Civil disobedience against the Waffen - SS?
I am quite glad they had some machine guns in the warsaw ghetto, at least they took some nazis with them. =_=

[Nolan]

This is one of those things where I can explain clearly to a cappie what Marx means but it just goes right over their head and they say "well he said it" and repeat themselves.

[Mahatma Gandhi]

I'm interested to know why you keep post race-baiting articles, "Gandhi"

I am sorry you feel that way. I was simply trying to understand whether anti-Semitism could have been anti-capitalism (rather than racism), considering the disproportionate wealth and political power that the Jews have always enjoyed. Was Marx hinting at that?

[Nolan]

I am sorry you feel that way. I was simply trying to understand whether anti-Semitism could have been anti-capitalism (rather than racism), considering the disproportionate wealth and political power that the Jews have always enjoyed. Was Marx hinting at that?

So you're saying Jews are a dominant ethnic group that control modern politics and the economy?

[Mahatma Gandhi]

So you're saying Jews are a dominant ethnic group that control modern politics and the economy?

No, I am not saying that at all. I am only saying that Jews have always outperformed others in everything, so I wouldn't be surprised if they actually did. And because of that, some people may become anti-semitic, not realizing that it is capitalism they should be attacking. Hitler, for instance, hated the bankers, so that hate could have eventually translated into anti-Semitism.

[Dean]

I am sorry you feel that way. I was simply trying to understand whether anti-Semitism could have been anti-capitalism (rather than racism), considering the disproportionate wealth and political power that the Jews have always enjoyed. Was Marx hinting at that?

This is also dead-wrong. Jews experienced cultural and political ostracism throughout the centuries they lived in European nations. I'm not sure where you get this stuff from.

[ZeroNowhere]

Anti-Semitism is the opposition to the 'Jewish race'. Marx never even mentions a Jewish race, as far as I recall. Ergo, not an anti-Semite. Any questions?

[Mahatma Gandhi]

This is also dead-wrong. Jews experienced cultural and political ostracism throughout the centuries they lived in European nations. I'm not sure where you get this stuff from.

Didn't they experience it because they were richer than most people? Weren't they mostly into commerce and banking?

[Bud Struggle]

Didn't they experience it because they were richer than most people? Weren't they mostly into commerce and banking?

No they experienced it because they weren't Christian (they killed Christ, etc.) Also, they were into banking because the Christian religion at the time prohibited Christians from loaning money to one another with interest--while the Jewish religion had no such rules.

[Dean]

Didn't they experience it because they were richer than most people? Weren't they mostly into commerce and banking?

Bud Struggle is right - Jews were also sanctioned against entering a lot of other industries as well. They largely lived in ghettos during that time period, as well.

[Hiero]

Are you talking about this work, On the Jewish Question? (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/index.htm)

Have you even read it?

It is the structural anti-semetism of European states that created the "Jew" as we know it, literally as mentioned that Jewish people were forced out of other industries and took up the role of commerce. And also the image of the Jew was created out of anti-seminism through it's carictures (in the similar way of E.Said's Orientalism works).

In the European notioned of the nation there is the fantasy of the totality of the nation. A total community of people who are the nation by birth alone and act as French, Australian, American (U.S) within a defined border. It is a fantasy of a cooperative community where class antagonism is foreign. The Jews in the European setting were the spec of dirt, the matter out of place, that was/is the obstacle to this totality. If we apply this concept to the Balkan war, the nationalist of the various nations of Serbs, Bosnians, Croatians reinturpted this fantasy and actively went out to cleanse a predifined territory of the "dirt" that blocks this totality, a concept of a historical ethnic community with ties to land. Hitler did the same with the Jews. The "Jews" while really existing in various complexities, are also in the European Imaginary as the obstacle.

Anyway check out Sartre's Jew and anti-Semite as well.

Also if you are a troll that is trying to race bait and get some official copfession that Marxism and the left in general are really anti-semites and racists, it isn't going to work so you might as well stop.

[this is an invasion]

Gandhi actually said the Jews should willingly hand themselves over to the Nazis instead of fighting back.

Higher moral ground or some shit. Glad that asshole is dead.

[Mahatma Gandhi]

Gandhi actually said the Jews should willingly hand themselves over to the Nazis instead of fighting back.

Higher moral ground or some shit. Glad that asshole is dead.

Gandhi is not dead. He is posting on revleft.:laugh:

[Raúl Duke]

I'm interested to know why you keep post race-baiting articles, "Gandhi"

I'm interested to know why he ain't banned yet.

Concerning Jews, Bud Struggle is right.


anti-Semitism could have been anti-capitalism (rather than racism), considering the disproportionate wealth and political power that the Jews have always enjoyed.

That's out-right ridiculous since being a capitalist is not an exclusive domain to Jews ever since capitalism existed. Only a nazi (or nazi sympathizer) would ever think that antisemitism is anything else ("anti-capitalism") but racism.

[Mahatma Gandhi]

I'm interested to know why he ain't banned yet.


Maybe, it is because he hasn't done anything wrong. He hasn't abused anybody, which most of you regularly do to one another. He doesn't call anyone names; he doesn't attack people even for asking questions.


That's out-right ridiculous since being a capitalist is not an exclusive domain to Jews

Being a warmonger is not an exclusive domain of the Israelis either, yet for a Palestinian boy who has lost his home and loved ones, it is only the Israelis who can do all the wrong in the world, not the genocidal maniacs of Darfur or whoever. Get what I am saying? Experiences shape your attitude.

[RGacky3]

Being a warmonger is not an exclusive domain of the Israelis either, yet for a Palestinian boy who has lost his home and loved ones, it is only the Israelis who can do all the wrong in the world, not the genocidal maniacs of Darfur or whoever. Get what I am saying? Experiences shape your attitude.

Whos experiences would equate capitalists with jews?

Also what your talking about with the palestinians is rediculous, most palestinians realize that the only reason isreal can do what they do is because of the United States unconditional support.

[Publius]

Karl Marx's famous (or should I say notorious?) quote on the Jews: What is the object of the Jew's worship in this world? Usury. What is his worldly god? Money.

I don't want to start a controversy, nor do I want people to fight. Marx has made many, many comments on the Jews like this. Thing is, I don't believe someone of Marx's caliber could have made such comments without a reason. But I can't at the same time believe racism could have been one of those reasons.

So how to interpret these things in light of Marxist analysis? Do we simply assume that Marx was referring to the rich folks, bankers and all those people? His so-called attack on the Jews was therefore an attack on capitalism, is that it?

I'd like to hear more on this.

Mahatma

Karl Marx was Jewish...

[Hit The North]

Most of the historical evidence is that modern capitalism emerged most fully within the Protestant areas of Western Europe: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/weber/protestant-ethic/index.htm

Unlike Catholics, Protestants did not view usury as a sin - in fact, making more money out of an initial sum of money is considered to be a virtue!

Engels was born into one such Protestant bourgeois family, whilst Marx's father converted to Protestantism so he could practice law, as Jews were forbidden to.

So it is unlikely that either of them would have identified capitalism as a product of the Jews.

[ChrisK]

Most of the historical evidence is that modern capitalism emerged most fully within the Protestant areas of Western Europe: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/weber/protestant-ethic/index.htm

Unlike Catholics, Protestants did not view usury as a sin - in fact, making more money out of an initial sum of money is considered to be a virtue!

Engels was born into one such Protestant bourgeois family, whilst Marx's father converted to Protestantism so he could practice law, as Jews were forbidden to.

So it is unlikely that either of them would have identified capitalism as a product of the Jews.

The protestant ethic was written to be anti-Marxist. Weber makes a mistake in assuming that Protestantism came first. Modern capitalism began emerging (but did not fully develop) before protestantism. Protestantism most likely began as a religion that fit in with the emerging economic system.

Nothing wrong with what you wrote, just a point on Weber.