Marx-Engles Reader

Although the discussion begins Saturday, I'll bet the rest of you are breaking your brains, as I have, attempting to read "On The Jewish Question. I had always avoided this work of the early Marx, and my instincts were good.

So I thought I'd offer this evaluation of "OTJQ" from Francis Wheen's Karl Marx: A Life (1999). Wheen is not of the left.

Wheen lists some of the more seemingly repellent comments on Judaism Marx makes, ending with, "The emancipation of the Jews is, in the last analysis, the emancipation of mankind from Judaism." Wheen then writes:

"Those critics who see this as a foretaste of Mein Kampf overlook one essential point: in spite of the clumsy phraseology and crude stereotyping, the essay was actually written as a defence of the Jews. It was a retort to Bruno Bauer, who had argued that Jews should not be granted full civic rights and freedoms unless they were babtised as Christians ....

"This perverse justification for official bigotry, which allied Bauer with the most reactionary boobies in Prussian, was demolished with characteristic brutality. True, Marx seemed to accept the caricature of Jews as inveterate moneylenders--but then so did almost everyone else. (The German word 'Judentum' was commonly used at the time as a synonym for 'commerce'.) More significantly, he didn[t blame or accuse them; if they were forbidden to participate in political insititutions, was it any wonder that they exercised the one power permitted to them, that of making money? Cash and religion both estranged humanity from itself, and so 'the emancipation of the Jews is, in the last analysism the emancipation of mankind from Judaism'."

As the into to this essay in the Reader notes, Marx uses "Judaism" in this essay as a synonym for economics or commerce.

Ouch! I have promised myself to never dive into "On The Jewish Question" again.

I agree that he did spend much of that article floating around what he really meant to say. I'll have a more comprehensive analysis ready tomorrow though.

I had to really work to get to the gist of this week's difficult readings. I'll post my comments on them after I shower.

I did want to note that I find the Introduction to the Marx-Engels Reader to be of great worth in understanding these and all of our readings. It's a fine "cheat sheet." It cuts to the chase, and I highly recommend readers visit it if you haven't already done so. It might also make for a excellent final discussion for our reading group when that time comes.

I also want to note that these readings are of the very early Marx. They are of the time when he had already encountered Hegel and, in my opinion, internalized Hegelian dialectical relations as his worldview. However, he had just made his intellectual acquaintance with Feuerbach and was just beginning to study political economy, and he wouldn't meet Engels for the second time and establish their lifelong collaboration until the next year.

I got hung up in another thread yesterday and didn't remark on this week's readings after my shower. Apparently the rest of you are still in your showers, so I'll make a few pre-shower comments today.

Firstly, the readings were difficult and mostly serve to show steps in the development of Marx's mind, hence Marxism.

"On The Jewish Question" is not really about Jews; it discusses religious and political, state forms of alienation. In the second section, Marx begins to view economic relations (civil society) as the basis for this alienation. I didn't get anything else from this first of our readings, although more might be there.

I found the "Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Introduction" to be much more valuable. Here we find Marx merging Hegelian idealism and its dialectic with Feuerbachian materialism. Here Marx begins to base his dialectical understanding of life and society in material organizational relations.

Thus this "Introduction" reveals the embryo of Marxism. This is the birth of Marx's radical vision of "nature, human society, and thought" (Anti-Duhring) arising from dialectical, material relations. The new sciences I continually try to promote then affirm Marx's (and Engels') view on this most essential of all matters.

Coincidentally, this "Introduction" was introduced into the other post I engaged yesterday. It was part of a post that denies Marxism is a philosophy or wordview. This sterile, stagnant position--a mainstay of Western Marxism--is clearly wrong, despite its general acceptance. This dogma opposes Marx and Engels and takes the life out of Marxism.

Here is what the "Introduction" actually says about this matter (page 65): "Just as philosophy finds its material weapons in the proletariat, so the proletariat finds its intellectual weapons in philosophy." And: "Philosophy is the head of this emancipation and the proletariat is its heart. Philosophy can only be realized by the abolition of the proletariat, and the proletariat can only be abolished by the realization of philosophy."

Should any readers want to follow or join this other discussion (it's comradely so far), it's in the Theory Forum, "Georg Lukacs" thread.

I'll just shoot in that I'll try and join this thread. I don't have the Marx-Engels reader, but I have most of the texts you discuss at hand. I'll re-read some of them and see if I can contribute with anything.

Apoi Viitor, Thanks for the question. It gave me a workout and strengthened my understanding of Marxism. I'm a self-taught Marxist, by the way, and I find trusted secondary sources to be of great value, for they unpack difficult Marxist classics for the rest of us to understand and use. The Introduction to the Marx-Engels Reader is of this nature for me.

I find the gist of the quotation you referenced is that a valid materialist dialectic is to provide the revolutionary agency of the proletariat with the intellectual weapons that will transform society into communist relations and thereby realize human nature.

The quotation has to do with Marx's (and Engels') synthesis of Hegelian dialectic and Hegelian idealism (idea or spirit or God as the foundation of life and society) with Feuerbachian materialism (world and thought arise from a material base and relations). Marx is fusing the living relations of Hegel's abstracted dialectic with Feuerbach's passive, rather mechanical materiality.

This revolutionary Marxist synthesis puts the life in life. The new sciences of organizational relations reveal that all of nature's living systems--cells to Gaia--are created by matter that self-organizes in a living, dialectical process, and that this process and its hidden organization are the manner in which people must learn to organize their lives. Well, are we not life?

Back to the quotation. Marx was evolving intellectually and had just "discovered" the proletariat and political economy in last week's readings. In the first part of the quotation, "Just as philosophy finds its material weapons in the proletariat, so the proletariat finds its intellectual weapons in philosophy," Marx is saying that the proletariat is the active agent of human emancipation and realization, and that a dialectical, materialist philosophy provides the proletariat with the intellectual means to accomplish its task. Marxism is to provide those "intellectual means."

The next sentence of the quotation is "Philosophy is the head of this emancipation and the proletariat is its heart." This expresses Marx's synthesis of Hegel and Feuerbach again. It seems to mean that the proletarian as the agent of revolution will gain "head" (revolutionary intelligence and theory) and "heart" (revolutionary practice) from the materially-based but philosophically derived materialist dialectic.

Finally, there is "Philosophy can only be realized by the abolition of the proletariat, and the proletariat can only be a abolished by the realization of philosophy." I believe this means that our humanity can only be realized when class divisions (forms of alienation) disappear, and that they will only disappear when the proletariat comprehends natural relations (dialectical philosophy) and employs the materialist dialectic to bring humanity to natural (communist) forms of life.

A final "Finally": There is the famous eleventh thesis on Feuerbach, "The philosphers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it. Here Marx is again synthesizing Hegel and Feuerbach. He is bringing materialism to idealism and an idealistic dialectic to materialism, and the result is the materialist dialectic and, it is hoped, praxis.

Damn, Apoi Viitor, my brain is hurting, and I'll bet I've brought pain to you, too. My red-green best

LiquidState, Did you score someone or something and are indisposed? C'mon back and resume your leadership role.

What are our readings? Do we need to move past the very difficult early Marx into later readings? The Manifesto, etc?

Apoi Viitor, now I'll get to your important question.

Apoi Viitor, Thanks for the question. I answer some of my questions in answering yours.

I'm self-taught and use a lot of reliable secondary sources to unpack the difficulties of Marxism for me. Otherwise, I would be stuck within a modern "Marxism" that is stagnant and dogmatic and opposes much of what informed Marx and Engels and from which they developed a materialist, dialectical, integral worldview. Consider this integral worldview a scientific philosophy. They did.

Note that our earliest reading was Marx's "To Make The World Philosophical." But this was not a passive, idealist philosophy as with Hegel. Note now Marx's famous "Eleventh Thesis On Feuerbach": "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it."

Here is my dictionary's definition of philosophy" "The study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence." Note that my dictionary says "study," while Marx and Engels would say, "study to know in order to change as necessary."

Marx's philosophy was active and material, as is life. Marx's philosophy is a synthesis of Hegel's idealist philosophy of internal relations and dialectics with Feuerbach's materialism. Marx brought Hegel's lofty abstractions down to the earth of Feuerbach's materiality, and the materialist, dialectical view of life and society he developed has now been confirmed by the new sciences of the organization of life.

Most current Marxists deny Marxism is a philosophy, a worldview, or a science. Their truncated, dead "Marxism" has the proletariat organizing in some manner and assuming its revolutionary role somehow, and this is a mechanical, lifeless Marxism that cannot succeed and hasn't.

A major question is: What is the modern working class? We're a bit short of industrial workers in the US these days.

Its modern composition aside, how would the proletariat wake up an assume its historic role to replace capitalism with socialism/communism? Last week's reading (page 65) answers: "Just as philosophy finds its material weapons in the proletariat, so the proletariat finds its intellectual weapons in philosophy."

Marx and Engels developed an organic, integral view of life and society as systemic process. Their project--Marxism--was to uncover the nature and organization of life and society so humans could learn to live naturally. This is communism.

My red-green best.

- I hate to interrupt but I have some basic questions

- What exactly are we reading now?
- Where can I find our current readings ?

I'm reading Capital right now if you would like to read with me. I could also review my notes on The German Ideology with you if you like.

I would like to read Capital with you, though with my time I could only do parts, I read the first parts this summer. Tell me where are you in Capital?

I would be delighted if you could review your German Ideology notes, Thankyou!

I'm only on the third chapter of Capital. Just let me know what parts that you get to so that we can discuss. Sound good to you?

Okay, I'll start reading the third chapter