Dunavevskaya and the 1844 Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts

[cantwealljustgetalong]

So, I'm part of the Marxist-Humanist Initiative's reading group of Raya Dunayevskaya's Marxism and Freedom. In it, she stresses that for Marx 'private property' does not disappear until alienated labor disappears, and that 'vulgar communism' or the collectivization of property is really a form of 'collective private property'.

According to her, she was the first to publish an English translation of some of the Marx's 1844 Philosophical-Economic Manuscripts, and as part of the group we are taking a look at those. It really does appear that Marx takes this line, and that private property and collectivized property (whether cooperative or state-owned) are not mutually exclusive.

How do traditional Marxists respond to this? Is there any evidence that Marx changed his mind later on? Or have the vast majority of communist intellectuals totally misunderstood what Marx was getting at? This seems to implicate not just Leninists and social-democrats, but many anarchists and left-coms too. And if this is truly Marx's position, what the hell does he expect a socialist transformation to look like? How else are you supposed to get to the abolition of alienated labor (emancipation of labor) than through some kind of 'collectivized private property' form?

[Blake's Baby]

What's the problem? You can't have a classless society without the abolition of property. Not its nationalisation, its abolition. Property and classes still exist in the revolutionary dictatorship, and they disappear when the working class has generalised productive labour among the entire population and collectivised the entirety of property.

So, no property, no classes, no alienated labour. Communist society.

I don't see the issue.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

What's the problem? You can't have a classless Property and classes still exist in the revolutionary dictatorship, and they disappear when the working class has generalised productive labour among the entire population and collectivised the entirety of property.


the issue is that a collectivized property form would not actually be considered the abolition of property, and if we take this reading literally, not even the abolition of private property (hence the notion of 'collective private property'). any imposition, according to this reading, from society onto the individual in terms of commanding labor (even collectivized state property in an ideal dictatorship of the proletariat) would be considered a type of 'private property'.

honestly, I think Dunayevskaya's reading is a very contestable one. when one analyzes the 'Private Property and Communism' section of the 1844 manuscripts further, it appears to simply say that 'vulgar' communism as a form is necessary but not sufficient for human liberation.

[Blake's Baby]

Of course collectivised property in the revolutionary dictatorship is a form of property. How can that be contested? If you have a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat then you have a class society. If you have a class society, then property exists, as classes are an expression of different property relations.

I really can't see where the problem lies. You seem to be saying 'but property is property'.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

Her argument is not that collectivized property is property, but that it is private property, and that Marx held it to be so as well. It all rides on Dunaveyskaya's attachment to Marx's assertion that slaves in Ancient Greece were "communal private property."

Also, this is not my problem. This is Dunaveyskaya's problem. I find this to be a questionable move and am trying to make sense of it. Of course collective property is property; but it's not private property. At least not if we think of the property form as strictly legal. (Edit: Ok, I guess this is my problem. And it should trouble a lot of Marxists, I think)

When Marx is calling for the abolition of private property in the Manifesto, he's calling for the abolition of property as alienated labor in general and not for a mere change in the property form. This is about economically basic power relationships and not legal property deeds. It's confusing, at least to me, that Marx refers to economic relationships in legal terminology.

[Sea]

What's the problem? You can't have a classless society without the abolition of property. Not its nationalisation, its abolition. Property and classes still exist in the revolutionary dictatorship, and they disappear when the working class has generalised productive labour among the entire population and collectivised the entirety of property.How do you reconcile these 2 things -- abolishing something by collectivizing it? Something to do with quality into quantity? You certainly appear to contradict yourself.

[Blake's Baby]

When all property has been collectivised then everyone has the same relationship to all property. Therefore, there aren't special categories. It's the generalisation (really, universalisation) that's the key. In the same way that the working class generalising its condition means the end of classes - there are no longer separate categories of the population as everyone is a producer - then the generalisation of collective property arrives at a condition where there is no property at all - no separate categories of property.

[Sea]

When all property has been collectivised then everyone has the same relationship to all property. Therefore, there aren't special categories. It's the generalisation (really, universalisation) that's the key. In the same way that the working class generalising its condition means the end of classes - there are no longer separate categories of the population as everyone is a producer - then the generalisation of collective property arrives at a condition where there is no property at all - no separate categories of property.I see what you mean. It's nice to see someone making proper use of the term "collectivised"...

[cantwealljustgetalong]

[Communism,] In its first form [is] only a generalisation and consummation of [private property].…The category of the worker is not done away with, but extended to all men. The relationship of private property persists as the relationship of the community to the world of things. Finally, this movement of opposing universal private property to private property finds expression in the brutish form of opposing to marriage (certainly a form of exclusive private property) the community of women, in which a woman becomes a piece of communal and common property. It may be said that this idea of the community of women gives away the secret of this as yet completely crude and thoughtless communism. Just as woman passes from marriage to general prostitution, so the entire world of wealth (that is, of man’s objective substance) passes from the relationship of exclusive marriage with the owner of private property to a state of universal prostitution with the community. This type of communism – since it negates the personality of man in every sphere – is but the logical expression of private property, which is this negation.

Blake, the issue is that giving everyone the same relationship to all property is not enough to abolish what Marx calls "private property", what we might call alienated labor. Marx contrasts this to the communism that he prefers, a 'humanist' communism that does away with the condition of alienated labor altogether.

"Private Property and Communism" (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm)

[Blake's Baby]

Sure. 'True' communism (what Marx would 30 years after the 1844 manuscipts refer to as a 'higher phase' of communist society) is a society of abundance in which there is no property (private or anything else) because our labour is purely creative. Until then we have collective property and there are no more classes but it is still a society ruled by 'necessity' and therefore we aren't free creative beings (our labour is still alienated).

[RedMaterialist]

How else are you supposed to get to the abolition of alienated labor (emancipation of labor) than through some kind of 'collectivized private property' form?

Well, that is the problem. Dunaveysykya in 1941 wrote that the Soviet Union was "state capitalism," arguing that the relationship between the Russian worker and the Soviet state was essentially the same as that between a worker and a capitalist. Thus, for her, it was not possible to eliminate classes, abolish alienated labor or establish socialism, by collectivizing property.

I'm not sure she ever explained how you can go from private property to social ownership of the means of production without some sort of intermediate state ownership.

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

I'd like to add something here from 'On The Jewish Question' by Marx. In it, he looks at the difference between political emancipation and human emancipation (in terms of religion). He states that:


To be politically emancipated from religion is not to be finally and completely emancipated from religion, because political emancipation is not the final and absolute form of human emancipation.

...

The state as a state annuls, for instance, private property, man declares by political means that private property is abolished as soon as the property qualification for the right to elect or be elected is abolished, as has occurred in many states of North America.

...

Is not private property abolished in idea if the non-property owner has become the legislator for the property owner? The property qualification for the suffrage is the last political form of giving recognition to private property.

Nevertheless, the political annulment of private property not only fails to abolish private property but even presupposes it. The state abolishes, in its own way, distinctions of birth, social rank, education, occupation, when it declares that birth, social rank, education, occupation, are non-political distinctions, when it proclaims, without regard to these distinction, that every member of the nation is an equal participant in national sovereignty, when it treats all elements of the real life of the nation from the standpoint of the state. Nevertheless, the state allows private property, education, occupation, to act in their way – i.e., as private property, as education, as occupation, and to exert the influence of their special nature. Far from abolishing these real distinctions, the state only exists on the presupposition of their existence; it feels itself to be a political state and asserts its universality only in opposition to these elements of its being.


In the same way, collectivisation of land will only produce a political change and counter social change via presupposition. The social relationships will still remain roughly the same. A partial form of emancipation, merely political in nature, keeps private interest, domination, exploitation etc. alive. The state establishes a sense of universality and takes away the differences between members of society only in an abstract way. The differences really haven't changed. This is why a "state" (such as the USSR and satellite states) that does not have the whole set of working men and women commanding and inverting it will simply maintain the conditions of oppression. Communism needs to be set as the task immediately, then there will be social and political change.