131214840-Carl-Schmitt

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tions. It has already been objected against him that while he hoped to discover the natural
laws of economic and social life, his researches were limited almost exclusively to the
industrial conditions of England as "the classical site" of the capitalist mode of production. 14
Moreover, his discussion remains limited to goods and values, and therefore to the concepts
of bourgeois capitalism; thus he remained trapped in classical, and therefore bourgeois,
political economy. Such accusations would be correct if the specifically scientific character
of Marxism were to rest exclusively on, sharp analysis. But science here means the
consciousness of an evolutionary metaphysics that makes consciousness into the criterion of
progress. The fantastic urgency with which Marx returns again and again to the bourgeois
economy is therefore neither an academic-theoretical fanaticism nor simply a technicaltactical
interest in his opponent. This insistence derives from a thoroughly metaphysical
compulsion. A correct consciousness is the criterion for the beginning of a new stage of
development. So long as this is not the case, so long as a new epoch is not really at hand,
then the previous epoch (that is, the bourgeois epoch) cannot be correctly known, and vice
versa: That the bourgeoisie is correctly understood again provides the evidence that its era is
at an end. The tautology of Hegelian as well as of Marxist certainty moves in such circles,
and provides a "self-guarantee' of its own truth. The scientific certainty that the historical
moment of the proletariat has arrived is first produced, therefore, by a correct understanding
of the process of development. The bourgeoisie cannot grasp the proletariat, but the
proletariat can certainly grasp the bourgeoisie. With this the sun begins to set on the age of
the bourgeoisie; the owl of Minerva begins its flight. But here that does not mean that the arts
and sciences have progressed, but rather that the passing age has become an object of the
historical consciousness of a new epoch.
Perhaps in its final state a Marxist humanity, one that has come into its own, will not be
distinguishable from the final goal envisaged by the rationalist educational dictator for
mankind. We need not
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