1

Koichi riata: The Intellectual Background of Marx's''Economic-Philosophical Manuscript'' 37

The Historical,Social and Intellectual Backgroundof Marx's“Economic-Philosophical Manuscript''一 With Special Reference to the Three Sources of Marxism-

Koichi Hata

Preface

Karl Marx (1818-83)began,we can consider,the study of civil society in earnest in the 1840s, and after nearly a quarter of a cenury perfected his thought in essence in the first volume of Capi- tal But of course he did not start from nothing. As Lenin pointed out''1,his thought,Marxism? has three sources: English classical political economy,French revolutionary thought-Socialism_ and German classical philosophy_ Marx inherited these traditions,and critically refashioned them in the construction of his own thought. Construction,then does not imply that he made up a mosaic work simply by linking them together,but that he perfected his thought as a coherent system by ordering and organising them. Moreover,as we might expect,he did not simply fuse them again into one body of thought,but rather reformed them into a response to the problem posed by the age,the overcoming of civil society.

To go right to the point,what Marx learned fundamentally from English pc]itical economy was the analysis of the economic structure of civil society,capitalism,while from French social- ism he adopted a viewpoint for the criticism and overthrow of civil society in the denunciation of private property,and from German philosophy a method for the historical understanding of civil society,materialism and dialectic。 That is,Marx formed his theory of lherepiacement of clvt1 soctety by a process of recasting English politi cal economy f rom the i,ieupolvit of French so(1aiism and u ith

methodsborroωed f rom German philosophy And this enterprise,of course,bore fruit in Capital.The Economic-Philosophical Manuscript was the work in which Karl Marx first tackled ail

these three sources of thought,and was the starting-point of his study in which they were all recast into one system,with mutual relationship. Se as for Marxism Itself,and as for the Manuscnpt in particular,in order to understand that,it is obviously useful to survey cach et these three sources and their part in the process of the formation of Marx's thought_

1_ England,'the Factory of the World',and'National Economy'The science of economics,which set out to analyse the economic structure of a modern civil

society,had taken root nowhere except England,because in England civil revolution was first effected and civil society was set up earliest. But it was the huge increase in productive power during the Industrial Revolution and the smooth development of capitalism based on it that facili- tated the formation of civil society.

So civil society had capitalism as its economic structure: it uas therefore formed by capttalisvn and as capitalism. This implied that individuals emancipated by civil revolution were reorganised into a capitalist class and a labour class. Thus there was clearly a contradiction involved;that is, a civil society composed of independent individuals and based on principles of freedom and equali- ty was actually formed as a class society composed of a bourgeoisie and a proletariat.1nEngiand where the setting_up in typical form of such a society was realised ahead of any other country,

2

38 福島大学教育学部論集第42号 1987- 11

ec(m om tcs teas born to seek a theoretica l ttn dersta 1,1dlylg an ana lysis of ca fyita lism , of the econom ic stru c

ture of civ11 sool、ety,se as to make clear at the outset the basls of the independence artd oPulence of cn,t1 society. At first,Marx and Engels called it 'national economy''''.

Adam Smith (1723- 90)had grasped the tdea of t)rodzictitle 1.abour as a source of 1,iealth. This im plied an a,Mlreness of the 'slibj ecti?e essence''21 of zi,ca lf?1,pn ?ate fin perty and so the basis of eco-

nomics・ u,as r、catty settled on this- and thus was economics born. However the labmr which he iin-derstood was labour as 'toil and trouble''1', and involved the alienated labour'(4' identified by Marx;capitalistic wage_labour which produced wealth as capital and as private property,but was subordinate to capital_ There was a limitation in Smith's thought in this regard,for he could,put- ting himself on the position of the capitalist,understand wealth only in the sense of private prop- erty. Marx's appreciating and criticising of Smith in Mamiscnptwere aimed at this point 1°1_

Smith,then,advocated a policy of 'laissez faire'in economic activity,and asserted on this basis that there could be realised 'the system of natural liberty'16' in which free competition, guided by an'invisible hand'17',would bring an increase of wealth to the nation and opulence to society.

Smithconstdered a?ii soczetyasa cowlmerclai soa ety and comprehended that in this society free- dom and equality of independent individuals were realised as free competition and exchange of equal value among independent producers_ This implied that in Smith's analysis of civil society its economic structure was understood as relations of commodity production and exchage. But the economic structure of civil society is not one of simple relations of commodity production and exchange,but a capitalitic one based on class relations_

On this point,Smith held that three classes in civil society,capitalist,labourer and landlord, possessed their own means of production;capital,labour and land respectively,and that they received severally their income,profit,wage and rent in return for the means of production which they contributed to output. This certainly implied a grasp of the bare essentials of capitalism as it then was,at least on the surface,but he regarded labour as a means of production like private property,and consequently the labourer-class offering labour was reckoned a class possessing means of production in the same way as the other two classes- that is,all three classes were con- sidered homogeneous owners of private property and reapers of its rewards. He therefore took all three classes in capitalism to be level and equal producers,and though he perceived the dis- tinctions and heterogeneities among them he did not understand the counter-relationships among them_ Thus hedissolt,ed class_relationship mto commodity_exchangeyelationship and conseq14entiy cm 1 relaf1・ons11if)and did not think of a 'class' as a collective entity such as we would understand by the term;rather he regarded it simply in terms of its component individual citizens.

Smiiii,then,considering civil society as a commercial society dissolved in 1)nnciPle its eco- nomic structure,cat)itaiism,Into a society of cop?m od?かProduction in gevlera1,and therefore did not

understand civil society as capitalism,as a class society;on the contrary?f;2e e9MltedcaPiialism ti?1th c11i1 sociejy_ It was this notion that Marx critcised head-on 181_

David Ricardo(1772-1823),living during the Industrial Revolution,took a capitalism organ- ized by machinery and modern industry as an object of his study,while Smith living before the Industrial Revolution studied a capitalism formed by the manufacture.

Soho;basing his analysis oil Smith's,introduced some order into the confusions and contra- dictions in Smith's theory of value,and from the angle of industrial capital advanced a thoroughly-argued theory of invested labour value. In this he ext)floated the class-r、elationshit)s which Smith had dissolved ultimately into civil relationships,and lalderstood the econo・mic structure of ci?i i society

3

Koichi Hata1 The Intellectual Background of Marx's''Economic-Philosophical Manuscript'' 39

as capitalism,avid coylseqMentryvieued cim1 soaety as a class society But he considered that capital_ ism would last for ever,based his thought on the premise of private property,and took the stand_ point of the capitalist_

Marx,however,taking the standpoint of the labourer against such an analysis of capitalism as Ricardo's political economy,refined and reconstructed Ricardo's theory of labour value in a way that criticised private property itself,and worked out the theory of surplus value。 Based on this,he deepened Ricardo's analysis of class relationships,and exposed their essence as exp1oita_ five relationships.

2. Petit bourgeois Communism and Bourgeois Socialisma) The Realisation and Emasculation of the Civil Principles

The two revolutions,the French Revolution and the Industrial revolution,through which civil society and capitalism were formed,brought at the same time political confusion,and poverty to the masses。 As light was thrown on the darker sides of the new society;.disappointment and doubts about civil society appeared. Originally;a modern civil society was expected to emanci_ pate a person as a free,equal and independent individual,as a modern citizen,liberated from the discrimination and repression concomitant with feudal status. But it became clear that this cluj soaety lMs not ahoays、able to softie the contradtct1o?s in society and to emancipate people. So began criticism against civil society,and thought about ways to overcome it was born_ The very essence of this thought appears in socialism''1.

Socialist criticisms of civil society consisted;first and foremost,in their understanding of civil society as a society of self-contradiction,and the orientation of their criticisms to that point. This self -contradiction resulted f rom a sltttati on uhere civil society ulas formed based (m eat;ttalism,and

consequently as capitalism Originally civil society had been supposed as a society in which indo_ pendent small producers carried on their economic activity unrestricted,as equal and homogeneous individuals;that is,they mutually exchanged their own products - which became their private possessions as the fruit of their own labours- as commodities,freely and on a level footing. This liberty and equality in civil society amounted to liberty from any restrictions and equality of rights based on private property,aiming at freedom of economic activity among these independent small producers,free competition and abolition of economic privilege.

But if it was capitalism that was established on such principles of liberty and equality,it was capitalism itself which in practice smothered these principles,while formally keeping them alive. Thus,based on the initiative of capital motivated by the pursuit of its own interest,there was produced and grew up a class-society where a wage-labourer freely sold his labour-power to the capitalist on the basis that each had an equal right,while in fact the statusof.the two was unequal, and liberty was restricted. Moreover,commodity production became dominant simply by being carried on in a capitalistic way,but as a result of this,when the large majority of people were in- cluded in commodity-exchange relations corresponding to this domination,and thus civil relations were generalised,the civil relations involved class-relations already as part of their very essence_ Therefore u,heyi on,il sociely uas f(ormed and ciz,zl principies established,these princip1,es u,ore already emasculated.

Socialism criticised keenly this contradiction in civil society,and tried to overcome civil society by realising perfectly its principles of liberty and equality. In this sense we could say that socialism was a legitimate son of the thought underlying civil society and,to the extent that politi-cal economy was a mirroring,a self_recognition of civil society,was a llying self_criticism of lt.

4

40 福島大学教育学部論集第42'Ii 1987- 11

b) Petit bourgeois CommunismBecause the development of capitalism had ruined many sman farmers and craftsmen,the「e

appeared a criticism of civil society taking the standpoint of such small producers。 This position is called petit bourgeois communism,and it was born in France where small farmers formed the greater part of the population.

Its champion was Pierre_Joseph Proudhon(1809-65). He violently condemned private proper- ty as theft,and strove to emancipate the worker from its domination.Toeffect this;he advocated the creation,from among the workers,of small producers possessing equally means of production, and the realisation of equal distribution of property based on free competition and exchange of equal value among them. This implied that he grasped the basic cause of poverty of workers brought by unequal distribution of property as unequal distribution of means of production,that is,their possession or not_

Hjs attempt,then,consisted clearly in reviving ruined small producers and rebuilding their 'society'. It was believed strongly that his plan might realize lt. But the logical outcome of his aim would have been to remove capitalist relationship of production and class from real capitalist commodity_production;and to allow commodity-production carried on only by small producers to be independent as such. That is to say,he afto・mp・ted tootlercome civil soaety,which was able to be established originally,and was actually formed,only by capitalism and as capitalism,by recon- structing a pure (1n 1 society divorced from capltalis、m. But this would have been merely 'retrospec- tive legislation',attempting a historical retrogression,and it would have been impossible to realise it in fact and to overcome civil society by this means_

This criticism of civil society made by Proudhon attacked the key point of the substantial inequality which resulted from 'equality of rights',and soho aimed to realise a substantiate(1uality in the area of equality of property_ownership by restricting the ownership itself. That is,he in- tended to overcome civil society through the limitation of private property on the basis of the com- plete establishment of equality_ Already in this thought,then;it was suggested that the thor)ugh estabjjshment of cjm1 e11jlaiitv u,otdd lead to the realis、ation of stibstantial equality breaking lilrmgh the f r a m eu o r k o f cm 1 eq u a l i ty .

However,Proudhon's attack on private property concentrated on the inequalities in its dis-tribution,rather than on the negation of private property itself. In fact,he took private property as his starting_point,and aimed at its equalisation,an equalisation that would still be within civil parameters_ It was this same 'communism of Proudhon in advocating the equality of property- ownership that was strongly criticised by Marx as'crude communism?in the ManustriPt'2'. Petit bourgeois communism,taking the standpoint of the small producer,was based on an awareness or conception of the owner who,though a sma1]owner,was nevertheless a real property-owne「.

In England an integral contradiction of capitalism emerged clearly after the Industrial Revo- lution,in the huge development of social productive force alongside the poverty of the enormous working_masses_ As political economy,in coming to terms with this,had been corrupted into a theory defensive of capitalism、a vulgar political economy which set out a theory to justify profit while concealing class_confrontation,there had appeared to counter it a criticism of capitalism based on Ricardo's theory of labour value,which set out the theory of a relationship of opposed interest between capitalist and labourer,between profit and wage.

This was Rjcardian socialism,and its chief proponents were Thomas Hodgskin (1789-1869), William Thompson(1775_1833)and others。They all held that the poverty of the labourer resulted directly from the exploitation of the capitalist,and emphasised its injustice. Then,they adopted

5

K(・1lchi Ilata1 The Intellectual Background of Marx;s“Economic-Philosophical Manuscript' 41

as a ground for the injustice the idea of 'the right to the whole produce of labour,'that a labourer has the right to possess the whole produce of his labour. But the resulting aim of Ricardian socialism was the realisation of eqaulity of property from the viewpoint of the ruined small producers and skilled craftsmen_ This implied the cooperative security of their position against capitalists,and its essential character was thus the same as that of petit bourgeois communism.

In Germany,a relatively backward nation where capitalism was set up in such a way - with- out any civil revolution being carried through--as to compromise with feudal powers,petit bour- geois communism also appeared in a slightly different from that in more 'advanced'countries, England and France_ The contradictions of capitalism and the evils of feudalism in Germany,the exploitation of capital and domination by feudal power,were compounded,and as a result the overcoming of ci11i1 soclety t.oas being pursued even before it mas set uf).

Because of this,cnticisms of civi1 soctety becamemor,e radical and thorough. These were the radical craftsman_communism of Wilhelm Weitling(1808-71),and the philosophical True-socialism whose leading proponent was Moses Hess (1812-75).

Both Weitling and Hess considered money to be the root of all evil,and advocated the replace- ment of civil society through the abolition of private property and the consequent establishment of a system of common ownership. Titis umdd have meant a radical change of ct・vti soctety and capi ialism through therepudiation of primte prof)ertyby the perfect establishment of libertya11d eqtiality. In this respect we see the thorough character of their criticism of civil society different from other petit bourgeois communisms,and it may be said to be because of this that Marx,in the Preface to the Manttscnpt,estimated them as German socialists ranking with Engelsl31.

Of the two;Hess in particular showed an unorthodoxy and brilliance comparable to Marx tn understanding as Weitling did not,the poverty of iabourer not as szmple ineqttality of Prof)erty but as hliynanist alienation a negation of the human essence of man_It was especially to Hess's criticising the equality of property as materialistic equality by regarding it as htimanist alienatton dominated bymateriali.sticlnwlershipthat Marx referred l41.

Now it was,of course,impossible,and confused the means and result with the end and cause, to realise their intention of changing capitalism through the abolition of mmey,understanding the fundamental contradiction of capitalism in commodity-exchange by means of money. But in this plan was shown the position of the poor masses groaning under the domination of money,and of the ruined petit bourgeois. It was because of this that they considered the private property in capitalism not as capital but as money simply,that is,not as the private ownership of the means of production but as that of money itseff. As a result,they dissolved capitalist class-relationships into relationships of commodity_exchange,and sought to condemn capitalism by restoring it to civil society,in a changed form,i.e.,not as capitalism or a class-based system。

However,it was just because they could not distinguish between these two,capitalism and civil society,that they were able to assert the radical abolition of civil society. This was appro- priate to the German situation where capitalism was set up without civil society and there existed private property only,with neither liberty nor equality_

Moreover,now that they repudiated private property through the perfect establishment of liberty and equality,the result was a negation of the civil principies of liberty and equality which were established simply on the basis of private property_ This demonstrates the self-cotradiction of the cit,ii principles_

But,what they intended to realise through the abolition of private property were,in the final conclusion the equality of distribution,the equality of property (in Weitling)and freedom from

6

42 福島大学教育学部論集第42号 1987- 11

restriction in the denial of all restraints from outside (in fl oss).and both of them remained within the framework of the civil principles. Therefore the perfect establishment of liberty art,dequamy in thetr thought u,as,as a restdt stmply a matter of the thorouglmess m tfzin thisf rameu,orke.and not a genuine 01,ercornlng of cin1 soaeiy. Because of such a petit bourgeois limitation,they would both be criticised later by Marx.

c) Bourgeois SocialismIt was Utopian socialism that quickly penetrated the contradiction in capitalism during the

Industrial Revolution,and that criticised civil society earlier than petit bourgeois communism. It was represented by three men,Robert Owen(1771-1858),Claude Henri de Rouvroy,Comte do Saint-Simon(1760-1825)and Francois Marrie Charles Fourier (1772-1837)_ While criticising a real society,they could not find a practical key to overcoming it in reality,and forced onto it an idealised conceptton f rom outside. This is why their socialism is called 'utopian'_

But they all understood t;、1e slgnifi'canoe of the hugeproducttve forces of capitalism for the oman clpatioy1of men,and]coked for the replacement of civil society based on these forces_ This con-ception could not have sprung from the sense of victimisation among the petit bourgeois who had been ruined by the Industrial Revolution,but from theoptimisticout1ook of people who could be convinced that,as carriers of capitalist productive forces,they could form a lever to ameliorate the poverty of labourer,that is, these people were capitalists before the antagonism between capitalist and labourer grew more intense. So Utopian socialism was capitalistic socialism,or,as we might say,bourgeois socialism from the point of view of the capitalist.

Utoptan soaalism aimed to bring capitalism tmder co?1tyo1,criticising the anarchy of capitalism in order to develop productive forces and;based on this development,to emancipate men. But this implied the restnction of f ree competttion of capital and of thefreedom of lMnership of 1)rit,ate property and in tact the restnction of primte prof)erty ztself_ It involved a self-negation of capitalism,and expressed the self-contradiction of civil principles. Moreover,such a control of capitalism would have resulted in the control,throughout society,of capitali、st 1)rodttcti11e f,crees,large-scale mecha- nised industry,di,vorcedf r.om the capttalist relationsof production and eu?fey・ship which brought them into being.

The Utopian socialists could not understand the inseparable connection between these two and did not see that the control of the former would result in the restriction,even revolution,of the latter. But we could say that,for the same reason,they could justly advocate the overcoming of czびtl soctetybased on theproducti11eforces totthich capitalism ga?e birth. Therein lies the historical importance of Utopian socialism,and the very view of progressive replacement through history which its proponents held was inherited by Marx_

3.'German Misery and Philosophical Greatnessa) The Ideality and Thoroughness of German Thought

Germany,unlike England and France had a firmly feudal system even when the nineteenth century dawned,and was tuff et the'German misery'that Marx and Engels referred to. That is to say,;at the beginning of the nineteenth century,medieval and feudal plunder simply changed its form into a modern and bourgeois kind of exploitation through bourgeois 'emancipation',and the status quo,we may safely say,emerged rather strengthened. An impasse where,though suffering 1mder the double yoke of fte14dal and botlrgeoi、s exploitation,there was still,nevertheless no hope for people toachie?e emancipation either,of couse,through a restoration of feudalism or,even?through bourgeoisification, where tt ?l,as Impossible to move either foru,.ards、 or backioards - this was,

7

Koichi riata: The Intellectual Background of Marx's 'Economic-Philosophical Manuscript 43

indeed,the'German misery'.So civil society,which was already a reality in England and France,did not yet exist at all

in Germany. German thought regaydzng a vi1 soaefy,therefore,could not theonse about a German reality,but rather about t?ie realityof cim1 society in ad't,anced countri.es,it was confined to thetoorld of ideas,inside the head,and thus it was able to conceptualise the formal peyfection of the thottght guiding the ad'mntedcmntries. We can regard this anticipation'in idea'as making up the delay in reality,in the realisation of civil society,and as a response te a call for modernisation in reality. We see then in classical German literature by Goethe and Schiller a humanist image of the modern citizen,and a theoretical understanding of the modern civil society demonstrated in classical German philosophy,from Kant to Hegel;of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

However,it could be argued that this theorising about civil society could be purer,stricter and more thorough than the thought of the advanced countries,Jtistbecause it was in vacua,having no contact with the real situation of a civil society. Since there was to be sure,no real basis for the foundation of civil society in Germany,no real ]lying man could be found to form the subject for practical activity,and so this was to be sought rather in man's self-knowledge and conscious-ness,inner conceptions,and at the same time the thought could not be other than idealistic.More- over,because for the Germans civil society was not a society in which they actually lived,but an 'object;which they observed only from outside,the theory became of necessity abstract and for- mal,lacking any real concrete substance_

But,owing to this nature of the 'object',it was possible to consider it without taking into account a variety of casual factors and particular situations,keeping it separate from the network of relationships of interest within a real society;an object could;therefore,certainly be understood in a strict and pure form。Simply because the theory was abstract and formal,the theorising could be pursued thoroughly. And so the greatness of German philosophy lay in arriving at a d.eef) tmderstandmg of the reat shape of ctvi1 soctety though of course this was all in the world of ideas isolated from reality_

Nevertheless.the closer the ideal world approached the real world the more it was distorted in the direction of a nationalistic'modernization from above'- capitalisation by the initiative of a state in a compromise with feudal powers without the setting-up of civil society.

b) Idealism in Hegel and Materialism in FeuerbachGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831),an accomplisher of classical German philosophy,

understood civil society as 'the system of needs'111. This understanding of Hegel's was,we could say,a reconstruction of Smith's 'the system of natura]liberty;as such;but he intended to expose and to overcome the contradictions in civil society by grasping them on the basis of a more thorough analysis of civil society. That is,according to Hegel,civil society was a society of free competition in which each person became independent and pursued his own needs freely,and relations of interdependence had been formed in it in order to satisfy individual needs,but it was at root an antagonistic community composed of isolated self--cevttred lndividuals,divided and uncon-nected,and because of this it brought about the various 111s of civil disorder,poverty,misery and corruption one after another.Therefore,to overcome these p1oblems,the antagonistic self-interest of individual persons had to be made to correspond with the common interest of society.

But Hegel held that the solution of these problems could be effected by a state,a self-awaken- ing community,and he thus looked for it to be based on an actual state,expecting it,in fact,to be the real absolutist Prussian state. Becasueof this,though,Hegel's philosophy became a theory of German modernisation by state power,through the initiative of Prussia.0n the other hand,the

8

44 福島大学教育学部論集第42号 1987- 11

unrealistic nature of hopes of freedom through absolutism,and the reversed relationship between civil society and the state involved in his thought would later become objects of criticism by the Young Hegelians and Marx_ However,Hegel understood atlil soctety not as an eternal ideal and the goal of mankind,but as a passing reality,f(ormed in history and to beol ercome in tm e and this viewpoint of Hegel's and his dialectic view of history residing in its basis would later be learned from Hegel by Marx.

In Hegel's view of history,the subject of history was a spirit - an absolute spirit or a world_ spirit - and thehistoryof hnman society or u・orld history,was seen as a processof self realisatton of the sPtrit. That is to say;world history was real history to which the world-spirit,the subject, gave birth through externalising and setting itself up as reality,as object,outside it;as the process by which it would grow through the medium of reality- through sublating the antagonism or con_ tradiction with reality - and thus realising itself in fact and developing itself along an inevitable course. The developmental logic in this was a dialectic one. Worldhistory thenf implied a process in ωhich theωorld-sptntreali、sod itself throltghthe act1onsof lndivtduals af ected by their concerns and interest in reality. Hegel called this mechanism 'the cunning of reason'121. Thus,in this analysis, world history developed according to lansof historyon thebasi、sot the zne1,itablegrouthof the u,orld_ splnt. These laws thus appeared as an objecti1.epoωor dominating the actions of men and actmg throughouton thecasua1 activitiesof indi1,iduai、s in society_

This view of history of Hegel's was an idealism which regarded the subject of history as the spirit,and conceived history as its development,and was,in this respect,criticised roundly and overturned by Marx in Manuscript,based on the influence of the materialism of Feuerbachl31. But the ideas of the inevitable development of history based on laws,and of dialectic as the logic of this development,were succeeded to by Marx,with certain amendments. And Marx learned the significance of labour as the self-producing act of man from Hegel,by understanding the act of spirit,which was self-realisation of it,as the act of real man 1'1_ Thus;Hegel's philosophy had a great influence on the formation of his thought.

Now Hegel sph1osophy was,in a sense,a kind of theology,a philosophising of religion,which replaced God with spirit and theons、ed the self_realisation of God. Such a compromising coexistence between phi]osophy and religion was criticised after his death by the Young Hegelians who appreciated a strict distinction between the two,and succeeded to the dialectical methodology of Hegel's philosophy while rejecting his rigid system. These thinkers,and in particular Bruno Bauer (1809-82),replaced Hegel;s absolute spirit with self-consciousness,and advocated a philosophy of self-consciousness aiming at its self-realisation_ Bauer further intended to transcend,through a thorough criticism一'pure'or 'critical criticism'- ,the reality which was hindering the develop_ mont of self-consciousness as the fixed externalisation of it,and violently attacked God,private property,the state and so on. This involved the dissolution,based on Hegel's methodology of the continuous development of the spirit,of Hegel's rigid system,which ultimately brought to an end the development of the spirit by means of an absolutist state_

It was Ludwing Feuerbach (1804-72)who carried further through the theological and roll_ gious criticism practised by the Young Hegelians,and advanced so far as to criticise Hegel's philosophy itself.

First,in this criticism of religion,he held that God teas a st)ecies_essence of man,and was noth_ ing but an objectification of this in conception or idea. So,according to him,God did not create man but,on the contrary,man created god,and thus the fact that in spite of this in religious obser- vances men prayed and knelt to God implied that the essence of man was externalised to become

9

Koichi riata; The Intellectual Background of Marx;s 'Economic-Philosophical Manuscript 45

independent of man and,conversely,dominated man_ This he called tfze self alienation of man Therefore man must,he advocated,recapture his own essence which had been plundered by God, and he considered that this regaining could be achieved through man becoming aware of his own essence by understanding the secret of God and dissolving the products of consciousness through changing the consciousness itself_

Furthermore,in his criticism of liege]'s philosophy,he saw it as 'theology which was made logic'1111;and the absolute spirit in it as the logical form of God. That is,he understood that absolute spirit involved abstract thinking which was divorced from man and nature and was made absolute,and that 'abstraction implied the ]ocationof the essence of nature outside nature of the essence of man outside man,and of the essence of thinking outside the act of thinking'1''. Thus he criticised Hegel s philosophy on the grounds that it alienated man f rom hisown self by basing its whole system on that abstraction. So he opposed any mediated unity and truth through the nega- tion of negation,and proposed to overcome the self-alienation of man by taking the standpoint of immediate unity and truth.

Thus Feuerbach advocated that we should begin from a concrete and real man asa t,hysica1 and sensuous、being,not from an abstract conceptualisation of the self or self-consciousness,and should understand the world as a sensible object. Based on this realistic humanism he adopted a maferi,alist standpoint overturning Hegel's idealism. In Manuscripi Marx estimated this realistic humanism,and criticised Hegel and civil society on the basis of this materialism and its logical theory of the self_alienation of mani''.

But Feuerbach could not fully understand a concrete way of being of man as a real,social and historical being,and looked for the species_essence of man m an abstract co-operative rela- tionship among men,human communicative contact basedon1ove.As to practical actions through which man could recapture his own essence by overcoming his self-alienation,he was ted,as a re- sult of his idea of the alienation of the species-essence of man,into an idealism based on a change of consciousness the acquisition of self-knowledge of man's own essence,and thus his thought lacked both the subject and the logic of real practical action_ In this regard,then,he was later criticised by Marx,who used as a key Hegel's logic of development 18'.

Notes

This essay is an Fnglish translation of the first half of chapter one of ''Marx:Economic-Philosophical Manuscript"(Tokyo,1980),which was published under joint authorship with T.Hosoya,H.Nakagawa and M.Yuda. I wrote the first chapter and a third of the fifth chapter of this book which consists of five chapters.

It was during my stay in England to do some research work at the University of Sussex as an oversea scholar in1981 82that I translated it for the first time. I submitted my translation to professor T.Botto-

more in the University of Sussex and professor H.Gemkow and professor I.Taubert in the Institute of Marxism_Leninism in Berlin.

In the publication of this translation,I made some corrections in Its content and form. But I am afraid that my translation is not complete as one essay because its original essay in Japanese is a part of the book,which has enough significance as a chapter of this book.

In my first translation of it,I obtained good cooperation from Mr.B.Fogden,a young writer and my friend. He helped me in translating my broken English into fluent English through many friendly and

10

福島大学教育学部論集第42号 1987-11

severe discussions between us. Without his help I could have not completed my translation. I owe it to him that this essay is written In good English. I wish to express my hearty thanks to him for his sincere collaboration.

Preface(1) Cf_Lenin,V.I.,The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism,1913;V;1 Lemn Co1-

looted Works vol.19 (Moscow,1963),pp.23- 24,and Karl Marx,1914;ibid_,vol.21(1964)p.50.

1. England,'the Factory of the World',and 'National Economy(1) Marx,K.,Economic_Philosophical Manuscript?1844;Kart Marx-FriedrichEngels-Gesamta? gabe,1ste

Abt.Bd.2(Berlin,1982),p.234(p,363),etc. But 'Nationa1oekonomie'in original text is 'politicaleconomy'in almost all English translation of lt. Cf.e.g.Kar1 Marx: Selected Writivtgs,ed.by D.McLe11an (Oxford,1978),p.77.

(2) Marx,ibid_,p_257(p.383)_(3) Smith,A.,The Wealth of N,attons,1776;Cannan's ed.(New York,19371,p.30.(4) Marx,ibid_,p_239,240,241(p.368,369.370),etc_(5) of_ibid.,pp。257-60 lpp.383一一b)_(6) Smith,ibid.,p.651.(7) Ibid..p.423.(8) Marx,ibid_,pp_248- 56 (pp_376- 82).

2. Petit bourgeois Communism and Bourgeois Socialism(1) This socialism was,of course,one of the three sources of Marxism,but as to whether it was French

socialism only,as Lenin maintained,and in what respects it influenced the formathion of Marx sthought,there have been various opinions,and still no common view has yet emerged.0ur purposenow is therefore tothrow light on the approach and methods of the early socialism prior to Marx - how it endeavoured to criticise and overcome civil society.

(2) Cf.Marx,ibid_,pp.261-63(pp.387-881.(3) Cf.ibid.,p.317(pp.325-261_1.1) Ibid.,p.269(p.393).

3. German Misery'and Philosophical Greatness(1) Hegel,(J_W.F_,Elements of the Philosophy of Right,1821;Gmrg Wilhdm Friedrich Hegei-Saem.

tlidle n,erke,Bd、7(Stuttgart,19281,pp.270- 86 (§.188- 208)_(2) Hegel,Lectures on the Philosophy of IIistory 1837;ibid.,Bd.11,p.63.(3) Cf.Marx,ibid.pp.275-78,284-86,292-306(pp.399-418).(i ) Cf.ibld.,pp.292- 93(p.404- 5)and p.301(pp_413- i41.(、、,) Feuerbach,L.,Prelim inary Theses for the Reform of Philosophy,1842; i udtilig Feul rbalh-Werke

1?1 set,11s 11ae 11??off, l i d .3 (Fra nk fur t am M a in, 1971)1,p.225.

(6) Ibid.,p.227_(7) of_Marx,ibid.,pp。275- 78,284- 86 292- 306 (pp.399- 418)_(8) Cf.Marx;Theses on Feuerb,doh,I845.

11

Koichi ri ata: The lnte11ectual Background of Mar.x's ''Economic_Philosophical Manuscript 47

Summary

As Lenin pointed out,Marxism has three sources of thought: English classical political coo_ nomy,French revolutionary socialism and German classical phi1osophy.The purpose of this essay is to explicate the relationship of Marxism with cach et these three sources in the process of its formation with special reference to “The Economic-Philosophical Manuscript," in which Marx first tackled all these three sources.

It may be considered that Marx inherited the following from these sources: (1)Regarding English pc]itical economy,understanding labour as 'subjective essence'of private property from A_Smith,and considering capitalism,the economic structure of civil society,as a class-society from D.Ricardo;(2)Regarding French socialism,the following point of view from 'petit bourgeois communism',that is,private property caused unequality and restricted liberty practically in the formal liberty and e(1uality as civil principles,and the conception of overcoming civil society based on the productive forces to which capitalism gave birth,from bourgeois socialism,Utopian social- ism;(3)Regarding German philosophy,from G_Hegel the ideas of the inevitable development of history and of dialectic as the logic of this development and the understanding of labour as the essence of man,and from L.Feuerbach,the understanding of concrete and real man as physical and sensuous being and of God and idealism as the alienation of man from his own self.

It may be said to be the concept of alienated labour in Manus、cript that Marx made up first through tackling these three sources and fusing them into one body of thought.