Michael Perelman wrote:
David is correct that the early Marx wrote of an individualistic type
of happiness. Elsewhere his version of human growth and happiness was
more social in nature.
This isn't true. For the early as well as the late Marx, the
"greatest wealth" - the greatest "happiness" - is a social relation
of mutual recognition
"We have seen how on the assumption of positively annulled private
property man produces man – himself and the other man; how the
object, being the direct manifestation of his individuality, is
simultaneously his own existence for the other man, the existence of
the other man, and that existence for him. Likewise, however, both
the material of labour and man as the subject, are the point of
departure as well as the result of the movement (and precisely in
this fact, that they must constitute the point of departure, lies the
historical necessity of private property). Thus the social character
is the general character of the whole movement: just as society
itself produces man as man, so is society produced by him. Activity
and enjoyment, both in their content and in their mode of existence,
are social: social activity and social enjoyment."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm
“It will be seen how in place of the wealth and poverty of political
economy come the rich human being and the rich human need. The rich
human being is simultaneously the human being in need of a totality
of human manifestations of life – the man in whom his own realisation
exists as an inner necessity, as need. Not only wealth, but likewise
the poverty of man – under the assumption of socialism – receives in
equal measure a human and therefore social significance.
“Poverty is the passive bond which causes the human
being to experience the need of the greatest wealth – the other human
being.”
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm
"Let us suppose that we had carried out production as human beings.
Each of us would have in two ways affirmed himself and the other
person. 1) In my production I would have objectified my
individuality, its specific character, and therefore enjoyed not only
an individual manifestation of my life during the activity, but also
when looking at the object I would have the individual pleasure of
knowing my personality to be objective, visible to the senses and
hence a power beyond all doubt. 2) In your enjoyment or use of my
product I would have the direct enjoyment both of being conscious of
having satisfied a human need by my work, that is, of having
objectified man's essential nature, and of having thus created an
object corresponding to the need of another man's essential nature.
3) I would have been for you the mediator between you and the
species, and therefore would become recognized and felt by you
yourself as a completion of your own essential nature and as a
necessary part of yourself, and consequently would know myself to be
confirmed both in your thought and your love. 4) In the individual
expression of my life I would have directly created your expression
of your life, and therefore in my individual activity I would have
directly confirmed and realized my true nature, my human nature, my
communal nature.
"Our products would be so many mirrors in which we saw
reflected our essential nature.
"This relationship would moreover be reciprocal; what
occurs on my side has also to occur on yours.”
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/james-mill/index.htm
"Assume man to be man and his relationship to the world to be a human
one: then you can exchange love only for love, trust for trust, etc.
If you want to enjoy art, you must be an artistically cultivated
person; if you want to exercise influence over other people, you must
be a person with a stimulating and encouraging effect on other
people. Every one of your relations to man and to nature must be a
specific expression, corresponding to the object of your will, of
your real individual life. If you love without evoking love in return
—that is, if your loving as loving does not produce reciprocal love;
if through a living expression of yourself as a loving person you do
not make yourself a beloved one, then your love is impotent—a
misfortune.”
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/power.htm
Marx does not regard him as "bad." The banker is just the "character
mask" of capital, which exploits the working class.
The above conception of the highest form of "happiness" is
inconsistent with moralistic judgments. It does allow, however, for
judgments of relative "impoverishment." David's banker isn't as
"impoverished" as Marx's "capitalist," but he's still relatively
"poor" in terms of Marx's idea of "wealth" and "riches." This means
he's less "happy" than he would be in a society that equipped him
with "the positive power to assert his true individuality."
"The propertied class and the class of the proletariat present the
same human self-estrangement."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/holy-family/ch04.htm
"the labour process itself is no more than the instrument of the
valorization process, just as the use-value of the product is nothing
but a repository of exchange-value. The self-valorization of capital
- the creation of surplus-value - is therefore the determining,
dominating and overriding purpose of the capitalist; it is the
absolute motive and content of his activity. And in fact it is no
more than the rationalized motive and aim of the hoarder - a highly
impoverished and abstract content which makes it plain that the
capitalist is just as enslaved by the relationships of capitalism as
is his opposite pole, the worker, albeit in a quite different
manner." "Results of the Immediate Process of Production" 1863-1866,
Capital vol. 1 [Penguin ed.], pp. 989-90
Ted
