Old Marx Vs Young Marx

[spartafc]

My first exposure to Marx as a teenager was via the 'Philosophical and Economic manuscripts' - and to some extent - these paved the way for the development of much of my thought on topics surrounding Marx and Marxism and my understanding of it. These are essencially the early writings of Marx (identified by some as spanning the period up until the publication of the German Ideology). The great deal of theory on early and late Marx seems to have grown exponentially with time. It may perhaps be said that this point relates to the relatively more recent publication of a lot of Marx's earlier writings.

Comments that have been made with regards to the early 'humanistic' Marx - attributable here to Easton in his 'Alienation and the Early Marx' - are an important reference point for how we understand the development of Marxist thought. Reading Hayek's "Road to Serfdom" it becomes clearly apparent the entirely unproblematic reading of 'Socialism' or indeed 'Marxism' that have been utilised by opponents (as though such a homogenous entity ever existed).

There are - unsurprisingly - discernable differences within the work of 'early and late' Marx, the suggestion found within the 'Philosophical and Economic Manuscripts' that Man himself becomes a commodity is quite a contrast to a later Marxist conception of man's exploitation on the basis of the nature of his ability to sell his labour a valorisation of capital (i.e the production of surplus value in conflict with the interests of the owners of the means of production). While, in other sections of the Manuscripts Marx describes briefly the "palaces" capitalism produces, alongside the worker's "hovels" - hinting at the later work of Engels's 'Condition of the Working Class in England'. The concepts of alienation, an inherent 'human nature' (or species-being) and the commodification of this human nature are some of the key characteristic features of the work.

The point Easton makes - that we may distinguish two distinct Marxs) relates to an understanding of a later deterministic Marx (as expressed by Capital and Theories of Surplus Labour) betraying the early humanistic Marx. It is noted, for example, that the topic of alienation is not something to which Marx does not returns in detail in later works [2]. While it may be said that we find within works such as 'Theories of Surplus Value' a scope for later deterministicly inevitable relationship to capitalist crisis - with millennial overtones of future joy, serenity, prosperity, and justice - in which development seems intrinstictly caotic and prone to dramatic crisis.

I remember once being asked quite good-naturedly by a fellow student which was the 'right' Marx - the early or the late: I gave a fairly perfunctory reply and then went away and had a good think. While The Economic & Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 were I believe published posthumously, it seems clear that we should not view any of the formative writings of the period as 'fixed' in stone, expressing rigidly unchanging thought. At the risk of providing a cop-out, In much the same way that Marx adapted to the changing political situation within which he was writing, and responded to this fact - so should we, illustrating the dialogical and dialectical nature of any application of this thought.


[1]http://www.marxists.org/archive/kun-bela/pamphlets/1932/12.htm
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx's_theory_of_alienation


http://redleftreview.blogspot.com/

[Alf]

These two chapters from our book on communism go into this question, arguing against any rigid separation between the young and old Marx, who never abandoned the concept of alienation in his later work.

http://en.internationalism.org/ir/070_commy_03

http://en.internationalism.org/ir/075_commy_07.html

[JazzRemington]

I think "Old Marx" is the material basis for "Young Marx," if you will.

For example, "Young Marx" described alienation pretty well and "Old Marx" traced the history of it with the history of Capitalism and described the material process that is going on to make it happen and keep happening.

[mikelepore]

If we were to make an outline of the basic principles that define Marxism, we would have major line items for the class struggle, the materialist conception of history, and the law of value and its corollary of surplus value. These essential concepts don't appear in the manuscripts of 1844. We see there a person who had recently outgrown the Young Hegelian trend of criticizing religion and monarchy almost exclusively, and now going through a phase where money is the root of all evil. There is material to be learned there, but it doesn't come close to covering the fundamentals that a student of Marxism needs to learn about.

[black magick hustla]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 07:54 am
If we were to make an outline of the basic principles that define Marxism, we would have major line items for the class struggle, the materialist conception of history, and the law of value and its corollary of surplus value. These essential concepts don't appear in the manuscripts of 1844. We see there a person who had recently outgrown the Young Hegelian trend of criticizing religion and monarchy almost exclusively, and now going through a phase where money is the root of all evil. There is material to be learned there, but it doesn't come close to covering the fundamentals that a student of Marxism needs to learn about.
lol that is a simplifcation of the young marx.

young marx spoke mostly about alienation, but this marx had already realized that the "root of all evil" is not money, but class society.

[RedCat]

The articles written by Marx in his youth contained in nuce many of his later accomplishments

[ComradeOm]

To be honest I've always been very wary of the very concept of "Young Marx". While its obvious that there are differences between his early and later writings, itself a natural result of his maturing thought, I can't help but feel that the classification of Young and Mature owes a great deal to political bias and trends in the 20th C. To my mind the stressing of Marx's humanistic tendencies by Althusser et al was motivated at least in part by an draw back from the more "empirical" doctrine espoused by Moscow.

I suspect that many of the French and European philosophers who readily ascribe to Young Marx are drawn somewhat to the influence of the 19th C German and French philosophers on Marx at the time. Perhaps they are more comfortable with these works than the "colder" philosophy of Marx's later economic works. That last point also bears noting - the degree to which Marx increasingly substituted economics for pure philosophical constructs as his life went on.

[YSR]

I don't think ComradeOm is correct here. I think if you actually read the works, a "political bias" isn't needed to identify the difference. The early Marx just reads very differently from the later Marx. My two favorite Marxian pieces, the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts and Capital have two different approaches (as you indicated, philosophical vs. economic) and almost sound like two different writers.

[ComradeOm]

Originally posted by Young Stupid [email protected] 22, 2007 07:41 pm
I don't think ComradeOm is correct here. I think if you actually read the works, a "political bias" isn't needed to identify the difference. The early Marx just reads very differently from the later Marx. My two favorite Marxian pieces, the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts and Capital have two different approaches (as you indicated, philosophical vs. economic) and almost sound like two different writers.
I'm not denying that there are differences between early and late Marx - this is only natural and to be expected. What I treat with extreme mistrust are those who claim to have "rediscovered" Marx in his early writings. Its often an attempt to recast the man in a more humanist light. To my mind a lot of the literature about Young Marx, especially that from the Western European communist current, is merely another form of the periodical Marxist divisions between "Orthodox" and "revisionists".