Annotations to Karl Marx's Introduction to Grundrisse

1.1 Production
as a starting point, is one of the unimag- gehört zu den phantasielosen Einbildungen
inative fantasies of eighteenth-century ro- der 18.-Jahrhundert-Robinsonaden,
mances à la Robinson Crusoe;
But the same sentence which denounces Smith’s and Ricardo’s point of departure also
criticises the interpretation of this point of departure by social historians:
and despite the assertions of social histori- die keineswegs, wie Kulturhistoriker sich
ans, these by no means signify simply a re- einbilden, bloß einen Rückschlag gegen
action against over-refinement and reversion Überverfeinerung und Rückkehr zu einem
to a misconceived natural life. No more is mißverstandnen Naturleben ausdrücken. So
Rousseau’s contrat social, which by means wenig wie Rousseaus contrat social, der die
of a contract establishes a relationship and von Natur independenten Subjekte durch
connection between subjects that are by na- Vertrag in Verhältnis und Verbindung bringt,
ture independent, based on this kind of nat- auf solchem Naturalismus beruht. Dies
uralism. This is an illusion and nothing but Schein und nur der ästhetische Schein der
the aesthetic illusion of the small and big kleinen und großen Robinsonaden.
Robinsonades.
⇑ “Schein” is here meant in the Hegelian sense of a “shining forth” which does not re-
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