KARL MARX

IOO KARL MARX: A BIOGRAPHY
been for you the mediator between you and the species and thus been
felt by you and acknowledged as a completion of your own essence and
a necessary part of yourself, and I would thereby have realized that I
was confirmed both in your thought and in your love; (4) in my
expression of my life I would have fashioned your expression of your
life, and thus in my own activity have realized my own essence, my
human, communal essence. In such a situation our products would be
like so many mirrors, each one reflecting our essence. Thus, in this
relationship what occurred on my side would also occur on yours. My
work would be a free expression of my life, and therefore a free enjoyment
of my life. In work the peculiarity of my individuality would have
been affirmed since it is my individual life. Work would thus be genuine,
active property. Presupposing private property, my individuality is so
far externalised that I hate my activity: it is a torment to me and only
the appearance of an activity and thus also merely a forced activity that
is laid upon me through an external, arbitrary need - not an inner and
necessary one. 147
Marx's basic thesis was thus that man's objectification of himself in capitalist
society denied his species-being instead of confirming it. He asserted
that this was a judgement based purely on a study of economic facts; he
claimed to be using the evidence presented by the classical economists
themselves and only criticising their premisses. Several times he claimed
merely to be giving expression to economic facts; and in the introduction
to the manuscripts as a whole, he wrote: 'I do not need to reassure the
reader who is familiar with political economy that my results have been
obtained through a completely empirical analysis founded on a conscientious
and critical study of political economy.' 148 However, his use of terms
like 'alienation' and 'the realisation of the human essence' plainly show
that Marx's analysis was not a purely scientific one. Nor was it empirical,
if this is taken to mean devoid of value judgements. For Marx's description
was full of dramatically over-simplified pronouncements that bordered on
the epigrammatic. And while the economic analysis was taken over from
classical economics, the moral judgements were inspired by the reading
(noted above) of Schulz, Pecqueur, Sismondi and Buret. In order to
understand Marx's claims, it is important to realise that 'empirical' for
him did not involve a fact-value distinction (an idea he would have
rejected) but merely that the analysis (wherever it might lead) started in
the right place - with man's material needs. 149
The second of Marx's manuscripts provided the kernel to his 1844
writings and it is this one that has aroused most enthusiasm among later
commentators. It is certainly a basic text for anyone interested in 'socialism
with a human face'. In it Marx outlines in vivid and visionary language
his positive counter-proposal to the alienation suffered by man under