Jim Devine wrote in dialogue with David Shemano::
Now, you say that Marx was not a philosopher who spent a lot of
time on ethical questions, but I view him as a philosopher
concerned with the "best life," and the best life is the one
outlined in the German Ideology: "Whereas in communist society,
where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can
become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the
general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one
thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in
the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner,
just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman,
shepherd or critic." <
yes, I guess it depends on how one defines "ethical questions." My
point is that he criticized the _structure of society_ (and its laws
of motion) rather than individuals. Usually ethics is about
individuals.
The passage from the German Ideology concerns the kind of individual
and the kind of individual activities that would characterize
"communist society." This is the "univeersally developed individual"
with fully developed "capabilities" able to do and actually doing
what others do (an appropriation, among other things, of Hegel's idea
of an "educated person").
So it is about "individuality" and "individuals." As I tried to show
earlier, "individuality" is an essential concept in Marx's philosophy
of history. He conceives the historical process as a process of
"bildung" through which the "true individuality" that defines "human
being" develops and is actualized. This "true individuality" is the
"educated person," the "universally developed individual."
Thus Marx claims the primitive communal form is not the higher form
envisaged in his idea of "communism" as "the true realm of freedom"
because, as James Heartfield once pointed out on this list, "in this
early condition of society, individuality of persons was lost in the
gens" (Marx, Ethnological Notebooks, edited by Lawrence Krader, p. 150)
In contrast, he claimed in 1881 that the private property associated
with the Russian agricultural commune had facilitated the development
of sufficient "individuality" to make possible the "appropriation" of
means of production developed elsewhere and move directly to a higher
communal form without passing through capitalism.
"It is easy to see that the dualism inherent in the 'agricultural
commune' might endow it with a vigorous life, since on the one hand
communal property and all the social relations springing from it make
for its solid foundation, whereas the private house, the cultivation
of arable land in parcels and the private appropriation of its fruits
permit a development of individuality which is incompatible with
conditions in more primitive communities."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/03/zasulich1.htm
A similar role is given to "private property," this time to the
"private property of the laborer in his means of production," in the
development within the "petty mode of production" of "the free
individuality of the labourer himself."
“The private property of the laborer in his means of production is
the foundation of petty industry, whether agricultural,
manufacturing, or both; petty industry, again, is an essential
condition for the development of social production and of the free
individuality of the laborer himself. Of course, this petty mode of
production exists also under slavery, serfdom, and other states of
dependence. But it flourishes, it lets loose its whole energy, it
attains its adequate classical form, only where the laborer is the
private owner of his own means of labor set in action by himself: the
peasant of the land which he cultivates, the artisan of the tool
which he handles as a virtuoso.”
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm
Similar claims are made about the effect of the wage-labourer's
private property in her wage and labour-power on the development of
her "free individuality." Through this private property, the wage-
labourer "learns to master himself" and is made "in principle
receptive to, and ready for, any variation in his labour capacity and
his working activity."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/ch02a.htm
The "end" of such development is "freedom" understood as “ the
positive power to assert his true individuality” as a "universally
developed individual."
"man . . . is free . . . through the positive power to assert his
true individuality"
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/holy-family/ch06_3_d.htm
This "end" is ethical. "Universally developed individuals" know the
"good" and how to actualize it. Relations of mutual recognition (an
idea that appropriates, among other things, Plato on "love" in the
Phaedrus and Aristotle on "friendship" in the Nicomachean Ethics)
constitute the ethical aspect of this "good" and of the activities
that define "the true realm of freedom" where the "good" is
actualized as a good life.
I'm sure that there are people who don't like to be engaged in
communal decision-making. To my mind, they don't have to be involved
with communal life if they don't want to -- unless they make decisions
that have an impact on others. I guess there are people like that. But
if they don't participate in communal decision-making at all, they
must be willing to live with the results of the decisions of others.
I think that it's a fact of life that we are forced to live in society
with others. The only solution is not isolation or markets but
democracy.
But "the positive power to assert his true individuality" is the
"power" required for the truly "ethical" social relation elaborated
in Marx's account of how we would produce if "we had carried out
production as human beings," i.e. as "universally developed
individuals." By definition, such individuals would desire and
actualize such a "communal life."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/james-mill/index.htm
Ted
