Secondly, Hobsbawm says that in "the Formen (Marx) seek (s) to formulate the content of history in its most general form. This
32
content is progress," By progress, Hobsbawm continues, Marx means "something objectively definable, and at the same time pointing to
33
what is d e s i r a b l e , I t would appear that Hobsbawm, taking Marx’s general description of progress at its broadest, interprets him as
34
meaning "the triumph of the free development of all men,"^ According to Hobsbawm, Marx takes it as axiomatic that the phenomenon of "progress" (or emancipation), will be objectively seen and recognized as such,
Hobsbawm notes, "Progress of course is observable in the growing
emancipation of man from nature and his growing control over n a t u r e . " ^ Moreover, that the "triumph" is not only desirable but inevitable, is not a matter of abstract, ideological hope and longing, but a matter
of the empirical accuracy of Marx’s analysis. Hobsbawm puts it thus: The strength of the Marxist belief in the triumph of the free development of all men, depends not on the strength of Marx’s hope for it, but on the assumed correctness of the analysis that this is indeed where historical development eventually leads mankind, 36
In the period described as "pre-capitalist" Marx distinguishes four principal historical periods directly related to the socio
economic "progress" of society. These are the "Asiatic, ancient, feudal
37
followed in a natural progression from one to the other, "beginning with the Asiatic, which gave rise to the ancient, which gave rise to
the feudal out of which the m o d e m bourgeois society finally emerged. Marx himself admits that there were periods in which different societies were in differing socio-economic stages. However, he was more convinced
that the so-called "Germanic system" - a particular manifestation in feudalism - was "the direct ancestor of bourgeois society" than of any other connection between any two of the other forms of society.
Admitting to the difficulty in ascertaining from Marx’ s notes an accurate schematization of the historical stages, Hobsbawm suggests the following summary interpretation:
The oriental (and Slavonic) forms are historically closest to man's origins; since they conserve the functioning primitive (village) community in the midst of the more elaborate social super structure, and have an insufficiently developed class system,,,. The ancient and Germanic systems, though also primary - i.e. not derived from the oriental - represents a somewhat more articulated form of evolution out of primitive communalism; but the "Germanic system" as such does not form a special socio economic formation. It forms the socio-economic formation of feudalism in conjunction with the medieval town (the locus of the emergence of the autonomous craft production). This combination then, which emerges during the Middle Ages, forms the third phase. Bourgeois Society, emerging out of feudalism, forms the fourth, 39
Being aware of the ambiguity of the foregoing summary in terms of leaving the erroneous impression of a "unilinear view of history", Hobsbawm immediately adds the cautionary word:
The statement that the Asiatic, ancient, feudal and bourgeois formations are ’progressive* does not therefore imply any simple unilinear view of history, not a simple view that all history is progress. It merely states that each of these systems is in crucial respects further removed from the primi tive state of man. 40
Hobsbawm concludes that for Marx, the relevance of his (Marx's) analysis of "particular socio-economic formations" is in the light it throws on
41
Marx conceives of it, is to embrace centuries and continents in a 42
broad sweep of thought.
Our repeated assertion of Ma r x ’s thesis that history has always been the history of alienation, leads us to ask: what picture of man does Marx give us here? The "progress" which Marx argues occurs in history, the growing emancipation of man which Marx sees arising out
of the changing productive forces, is one of "human individualization,"^ Beginning with the time of man in his original natural conditions
down through the centuries until the eruption of m o d e m bourgeois society, man has suffered the paradoxical experience of increasing isolation and alienation (from communal ownership, etc.) even while at the same time he was gradually moving closer to "the ideal of free individual development" until in bourgeois society that ideal is closer
to its realisation "than it ever was in all previous phases of h i s t o r y " . ^ Reflecting upon the error of imagining primeval m a n ’s subservience to man as a natural condition, Marx tells us,
It is of course easy to imagine a powerful, physically superior person, who first captures animals and then captures men in order to make them catch animals for him; in brief, one who uses man as a naturally occurring condition for his reproduc
tion like any other living natural thing; his own labour being exhausted in the act of domination. But such a view is stupid, though it may be correct from the point of view of a given tribal or communal entity; for it takes the isolated man as its starting point. 45
Note that Marx is positively attracted, to this perspective on primitive society because it makes isolated man "its starting point".
In support of his argument that individualism was more characters tic of
of man in bourgeois political economy, than/man at any other stage in history (and certainly not of man at the "beginning" of "pre-history"), Marx boldly asserts, once again (using the strong adversive "But") that
Marx continues, "He originally appears as a generic being, a tribal being, a herd animal - though by no means as a ’political animal' in
the political sense. Exchange itself is a major agent of this individuali- 47
sation. It makes the herd animal superfluous and dissolves it," ' We are left in no doubt that Marx intends us to understand that the social relations in which man originally functioned were transformed for the communal relations eventually gave way to individualism and separation,
Hobsbawm states that Marx was convinced that in this state of total 48
alienation, there are "immense possibilities for humanity." In support of this conclusion, Hobsbawm points to a passage which he describes as
49
"full of hope and splendour." Marx writes:
Thus the ancient conception in which man always appears (in however narrowly national, religious or political a defini tion) as the aim of production, seems very much more exalted than the m o d e m world, in which production is the aim of man and wealth the aim of production,... In bourgeois political economy - and in the epoch of production to which it corres ponds - this complete elaboration of what lies within man appears as the total alienation, and the destruction of all fixed, one-sided purposes as the sacrifice of the end in itself to a wholly external compulsion, 50
Here Marx argues that despite the fact that man in bourgeois society experiences "the universality of needs, capacities, enjoyments, produc tive powers, etc.," as "total alienation", nevertheless, these powers are still latently hidden within bourgeois society. This is the occasion for hope in the future transcendence of alienation, Maine concludes that the future is dialectically present.
c.
"Crude Communism" to"Final Communism": De-alienation through History We have already noted that, for Marx, abolition of one or more
but not all of the forms of alienation - for example, economic, political, social, religious, or ideological alienation - still leaves alienation intact with man the victim of all dehumanizing activities. However, to treat all forms of alienation as being equal in relation to the ' source of alienation is misleading and ultimately unfruitful for the total transcendence of alienation. What needs to be recognized is that alienation is at the base socio-economically determined, and to begin from there. Consequently this leads to an attack on private property which is of the very nucleus of capitalism. This process is a historical one just as the process of pre-capitalist economic formations was.
Therefore the movement from capitalism to "final communism ^ the
movement for the total transcendence of alienation and the de-alienation of man, and the birth of real, "human" history — covers a path of
inauthentic or crude communism to begin with. In other words, the process does not occur over-night; it takes time. There is a gradual
51
humanization of man and society. With the parallel between the process of pre-capitalist formations that finally led to capitalism, and the movement from capitalism through "crude communism" to "final communism",
in mind, we now turn our attention to the development of communism which Marx discussed at some length in the 1844 Manuscripts. In describing
this development, Marx refers to three stages or forms of communism. To begin with, "crude communism", in its attack on private property,
52
appears "first of all as generalized property."^ As Marx himself goes on to explain, "In its original form (it is} only a generalization and
completion of private property," Marx explains that at this stage its appearance has
a dual forms firstly, it is faced with such a great domina tion of material property that it wishes to destroy every thing that cannot be possessed by everybody as private property it wishes to abstract forcibly from talent, etc. It considers immediate physical ownership as the sole aim of life and being. The category of worker is not abolished but extended to all men. The relationship of the community to the world of things remains that of private property, 54
In the stage of "crude communism", private property is taken to its logical conclusion, Marx calls the stage "only community property". The primary difference between this state and the previous one which it has negated, is not that alienation has ended; rather, as Axelos- points out, it is in fact "that the community continues to maintain a
55 relationship of ownership with the world of things.""^
Proceeding with his description of the "nature" of this form of communism, Marx considers the degeneration of women in marriage to a universal state of prostitution as analogous to the universalization
of private property. He says:
this process of opposing general private property to private property is expressed in the animal form of opposing to marriage (which is of course a form of exclusive private
property) the community of women where the woman becomes the common property of the community. One might say that the idea of the community of women reveals the open secret of this completely crude and unthinkable type of communism. Just as women pass from marriage to universal prostitution, so the whole world of wealth, that is the objective essence of man, passes from the relationship of exclusive marriage to the private property owner to the relationship of universal prostitution with the community, 56
Private property is the crystallized "essence" of the worker* s labour which is in the hands of the non-worker. By universalizing this "essence" man gains control over his property, thereby ending aliena tion, Before this stage occurs, however, in the intermediate state of "crude communism", the phenomenon of private property in the hands of
a few becomes widespread everywhere, and is therefore no longer confined to a few select societies. The meaning of Marx's analogy of prostitution to explain this development in the development of private property is not clear. It appears that Marx sees the parallel in terms of the relative increase in freedom: the woman in marriage, by becoming the property of the community, is freed from her husband who had hitherto had exclusive rights over her, Marx infers that this change in the
status of the woman is parallel to community-ownership of the means of production. The ambiguity of this freedom is seen in the .fact that the woman is reduced to prostitution. Freedom from the single capitalist
(husband) leads to enslavement to the whole community. Prostitution is therefore not a final stage. The woman must eventually be freed
from the community. Interpreted this way, Marx’ s analogy of prostitution supports his argument that "crude communism" is only a transitional stage which must be overcome by "final communism".
Under "crude communism", the alienated "essence" of man - his needs, desires, etc. - are also universalized. Marx writes:
Universal envy setting itself up as a power is the concealed form of greed which merely asserts itself and satisfies itself in another way. The thoughts of every private property owner as such are at least turned against those richer than they as an envious desire to level down. This envious desire is precisely the essence of competition. 57
He explains further that this process of competition must run its course before it can be transcended. Thus he states:
Crude communism is only the completion of this envy and levelling down to a preconceived minimum. It has a peculiar and limited standard. How little this abolition of private property constitutes a real appropriation is proved by the abstract negation of the whole world of culture and civiliza tion, a regression to the unnatural simplicity of the poor man without any needs who has not even arrived at the stage
of private property, let alone got beyond it, 58
its principal intention is towards universalized private property. "
It is to be noted that everything that "cannot be possessed by all as
60
private property" will be abolished. Furthermore, since "crude communism" is characterized by a real degeneracy, it is therefore limited in scope and should not be confused with "final", positive communism which will usher in the age of de-alienation, of real and not "sham universality", where man "is the -universality and power of
61
society" and not capital, as is definitely the case in the former. In summing up his description, then, Marx declares;
The first positive abolition of private property, crude
communism, is thus the only form in which appears the ignominy of private property that wishes to establish itself as the positive essence of the community. 62
Should transcendence end with "crude communism", alienation will still continue to plague man and society. This is a sober warning to those who optimistically argue that the fundamental problems of man will be
(almost) solved if private property is abolished through a radical programme of state nationalization in society. It is an un-Marxian optimism, which, it must be stressed, however, is not unrelated to the ambiguity in Marx' s thought concerning the relation between the abolition of private property and the transcendence of alienation. It is helpful to see nationalization of all property and industry as a form of
"generalized capitalism" under "crude communism", for, in doing so, we are able to maintain the dynamic of this process which is certainly the way in which Marx's thought of it.
The second form of communism which he points out is political in 65
nature and it is either democratic or despotic. He claims that though the state may be subsequently abolished, political communism still remains incomplete and is "still under the influence of private
6/1
property, i.e. the alienation of man." In spite of these deficiencies, 59
however, communism with or without the state, "knows itself already to be the reintegration or return of man into himself, the abolition
66
of m a n ’s self-alienation.” J There is certainly a most decisive and significant difference between the first two forms of communism. Yet, Marx warns, as we have just noted, optimism must not run so high that
the transitory and limited nature of this second stage is forgotten or consciously overlooked. The inveterate enemy is private property whose
alienating influence persists almost irrevocably. As Marx explains! "But since it has not yet grasped the positive essence of private property or the human nature of needs, it is still imprisoned and contaminated by private property. It has understood its concept, but
66
not yet its essence.” The point is that, at the- stage of political communism, proletarian awareness of the situation has not as yet matched the revolutionary praxis which is explicitly and implicitly being called for. Theoria and praxis do not as yet constitute that dialectical and revolutionary unity which is necessary for total human emancipation.
It is therefore the third form of communism that will finally achieve this. Here, "final communism” is the solution to the riddle of history and knows itself to be this solution,” Private property is abolished, and alienation is transcended. We have already discussed this above,
D.
The Class Struggle and the Proletarian sense of Messianic Mission to 'Idberate humanity and create authentic, unalienated human history. In his critique of Hegel’s conception of reality as the self-
of consciousness, Marx argues that it is the socio-economic conditions that determine consciousness, and not consci’ousness that determines the socio-economic conditions. Therefore, to conceive of the trans cendence of alienation simply as an act of consciousness, and not in the real transformative movement of the mode of production leads to further alienation. However, having said this, Marx goes on to assert that consciousness, theoria arising out of and inextricably bound up with praxis is indispensable for the abolition of all forms of aliena
tion, This liberating consciousness is the consciousness of real, living human beings. Such an emphasis safeguards Marx from the accusa tion of being a dialectical materialist who sees the productive process, with man as part of it and not man himself as the centre of it, as the centre of human existence.
We recall that Marx does not subscribe to the view of an independent 67 Nature following its own inherent course of historical development, Man, Nature, and Society are all bound together in a mutually inter-
68
active process. As Marx sees it, history is the product of human activity. In the context of his anthropology, history is therefore