Marx's 'Gemeinschaft': Another Interpretation

International Phenomenological Society
Marx's `Gemeinschaft': Another Interpretation Author(s): Mary B. Mahowald Source: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 33, No. 4 (Jun., 1973), pp. 472-488 Published by: International Phenomenological Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2106538 . Accessed: 25/07/2013 13:41
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MARX'S 'GEMEINSCHAFT': ANOTHER INTERPRETATION In an article in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research last March ("The Community in Marx's Philosophy," XXX, 3), Kenneth A. Megill wrote the following footnote:
Not everyone would agree that Gemeinwesen is the principle equivalent for community. Fritz Pappenheim, The Alienation of Modern Man [sic], New York, 1959, for example, clearly identifies Gemeinschaft with community, but community also contains a notion of organization and structure which is lacking in Gemeinschaft. The failure to take community in a broader sense led Pappenheim to mistakenly see a similarity between Tdnnies and Marx. Marx, however, was not content to criticize capitalism because Gemeinschaft had been lost, but instead saw a new form of community growing out of capitalism.'
I am another of those who would not agree with Megill's interpretation of Marx. Moreover, while Pappenheim considers a similarity between T6nnies and Marx, that consideration is based upon Tbnnies' prior claim that his distinction between society and community had been drawn from the writings of Marx. In his now classic work in sociology Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft2 the distinction elaborated by T6nnies shows at least the influence of Marx, whom he had characterized as a "most remarkable and profound social philosopher."3 The purpose of the present article is to offer an interpretive clarification of Marx's notion of community - one drawn from the original texts but differing from both Tbnnies' and Megill's. Hopefully, the interpretation also furnishes insights that may be helpful in approaching problems of "society" and "community" in our day. Like other philosophers of past and present, my concern is that our philosophizing and phenomenological research bear some practical
' 383, n. 3. Cf. Eugene Kamenka, "Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft," Political Science, Vol. 17, No. 1 (March, 1965), 3. The original work of Tonnies has been translated by Charles P. Loomis as Community and Society (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1963). 3 Quoted by Fritz Pappenheim in The Alienation of Modern Man, an Interpretation Based on Marx and Thnnies (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1959), 78. Note subtitle.
2
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MARX'S "GEMEINSCHAFT"
473
fruit. Otherwise Marx might return from the grave to haunt us for using his ideas to perpetuate the sin he so loathed - of merely speculating about without really affecting the world.4 Our purpose seems best served by dividing the textual considerations into three major areas: Marx's concept of man as a social being (the Gattungswesen, or species-being), his description of the different forms of society (Gesellschaft) as means to man's humanization of himself, and his notion of community (Gemeinschaft) as the universal goal for man. The meaning interpreted as Gemeinschaft is somewhat comparable to what Megill describes in section II of his article, without the ascription of its being "democratic."5 The procedure is primarily to let Marx speak for himself through our use of his texts. Since the sources quoted cover the period between 1842 and 1875, we hope thereby to provide a sampling of whatever differences of view or emphasis might have occurred in Marx's thought during that range of time. 1. 'Gattungswesen': Man as Social To appreciate Marx's concept of man as social, recall its background in a critique of Hegel. Looking at Hegel ,through the eyes of Marx we see man as an abstract egoist, a self fixed solely on itself, a "purely abstract egoism raised to the level of thought."6 Man, or human nature, is thus equated with self-consciousness, as a thinking manifestation of the universal idea or spirit. Marx disagreed with Hegel's fundamental starting point. Instead of descending from the spiritual realm of self-consciousness to determine the nature of man, Marx reversed the procedure, ascending "from earth to heaven." He wanted to set out from real, active men
4 Cf. Marx's famous remark in his Theses on Feuerbach (1845): "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in different ways; the point is to change it." Cited in Karl Marx, Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy, trans. by T. B. Bottomore (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1964), 69. (While published translations are utilized throughout the Notes, these have been compared with the original texts; we quote directly from the German only where this assists the clarification.) 5 Cf. Megill, 384. Actually the term "democratic" (demokratische) is little used in texts on community, though it does occur, e.g., as in the text cited in n. 37 below. 6 "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (hereafter EPM)," trans. by Lloyd D. Easton and Kurt H. Guddat in Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1967), 323. (It would be interesting here to examine the validity of Marx's interpretation of Hegel, on the basis of the latter's texts. For the point of the present article, however, this is unnecessary and possibly distracting.)
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PHILOSOPHYAND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH
and their actual life-process in order to demonstrate "the development of ideological reflexes and echoes of that process."' From the very outset, therefore, Marx conceived of human consciousness as a necessarily social product. To abstract man's consciousness from society would be tantamount to separating man from his very nature as a social being. In developing the idea of consciousness as social product Marx mentions three basic relationships of man, no one of which is separable existentially from the other two. First of all, man is necessarily related to nature as to his "inorganic body," i.e., to "nature in so far as it is not the human body."8 Man's consciousness is constantly interacting with his immediate sensuous environment, i.e., with nature. Through that interaction man is so closely linked with his environment as to become a part of nature itself. Hence Marx writes:
Man lives by nature. This means that nature is his body with which he must remain in perpetual process in order not to die. That the physical and spiritual life of man is tied up with nature is another way of saying that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of nature.9
Man is also necessarily related to production and all that production implies. Marx seems to have two senses in which he uses the term "production" (Produktion). A favorable connotation is evident when he speaks of man as an essentially productive being, or when he describes the labor process as
human action with a view to the production of use-values, appropriation of natural substances to human requirements . . . common to every social phase of human existence.'0
Man acts humanly when he produces use-values, since such products serve his social humanistic end. But if and when man's products become an expression of exchange-value, then man's labor itself becomes a commodity, an object of human wants, and man becomes dehumanized through the very process of production. Thus the unfavorable sense in Marx's use of the term Produktion. Whether the sense of the term is favorable or not, however, man's consciousness is necessarily related to the productive process.
"The German Ideology (hereafter GI)," Easton, 22-23.
8 EPM, Easton, 293. 9 Ibid. '0 Karl Marx, Capital, A Critique of Political Economy (hereafter C), Vol. I, trans. by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling (New York: International Publishers, 1967), 1834. " GI, Easton, 435.
"GEMEINSCHAFT" MARX'S
475
Finally, man is necessarily related to other men, even as he concerns himself with nature and production. For "men need and always have needed one another."1 It is impossible for a person to live humanly as an isolated individual, for
when man confronts himself, he confronts other men. What holds true of man's relationship to his work, to the product of his work, and to himself, also holds true of man's relationship to other men, to their labor, and the object of their
labor.'2
To Marx, then, man as man is constantly interacting with nature, with production, and with other men. Since he sees human consciousness as necessarily related to other men, Marx consequently views human nature as essentially social. In this he repeatedly presents a contrast to the egoistic human self that Hegel (in Marx's estimation) proposes. "Man is no abstract being squatting outside the world," Marx writes in 1843. Rather, "man is the world of men, the state, society."13At times the emphasis is so strong in Marx that he seems to assert the primacy of society over the individual. Note the following, as example:
The human essence of nature primarily exists only for social man, because only here is nature a link with man, as his existence for others and their existence for him, as the life-element of human actuality-only here [i.e., in society] is nature the foundation of man's own human existence and nature become human.'4
The passage clearly suggests subordination of the individual to society. Nonetheless, Marx's more consistent emphasis illustrates simultaneity in the actual existence and historical progress of the individual and society. If we continue for several paragraphs in the same passage, we read:
The individual is the social being. The expression of his life - even if it does not appear immediately in the form of a communal expression carried out together with others - is therefore an expression and assertion of social life.'5
In other words, individual and society are concomitant beings in Marx. Neither can exist without the other, insofar as either is properly predicated of man as man. The term which Marx uses to express his notion of man as essenEPM, Easton, 295. "Toward the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law," Easton, 250. 4 EPM, Easton, 305-6. '5 Ibid., 306. Easton has translated "communal" here from gemeinschaftlichen. Cf. Karl Marx-Friedrich Engels historischkritische Gesamtausgabe (hereafter MEG), edited by D. Rjazanov and V. Adoratskij (Berlin: Marx-Engels Verlag, 1927-32), 117. In section III we consider more extensively Marx's usage of German terms for "community."
12 13
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tially social is Gattungswesen or species-being. Deriving the term from Feuerbach, Marx identifies species-being with man's social nature, as the actualization of man's freedom to be man through a kind of blending or fusion of his actual individuality with an abstract universality."6 "This man" and "humanity" become one existential reality in Marx's Gattungswesen. Until he arrives at this remarkable blending or union, which can only be effected through social relationships, man is doomed to a lesser humanness, a lesser freedom. For
only when the actual individual man has taken back into himself the abstract citizen and in his everyday lfie, his individual work, and his individual relationships has become a species-being, only when he has recognized and organized his own powers as social powers, . . . only then is human emancipation complete.'7
It is man's consciousness which distinguishes his species from that of the animal, a consciousness which is necessarily free as well as social. Or better, Marx's understanding of man as social is at the same time an understanding of man as a free being. In his essay On the Jewish Question, Marx declares quite explicitly that conscious life activity is free activity precisely because it is the activity of the species-being of man."8 Of no other being can social consciousness and/or freedom be properly predicated. The prototype of what Marx means by species-being is the relationship of man to woman. Here we see at once an ideal for other types of social relationships and a gauge of the level at which human society has arrived.
In this natural species-relationship man's relationship to nature is immediately his [man's] relationship to men, as his relationship to man is immediately his relationship to nature, to his own natural condition.... From this relationship one can thus judge the entire level of mankind's development. From the char. acter of this relationship follows the extent to which man has become and comprehended himself as a generic being, as man; the relationship of man to woman is the most natural relationship of human being to human being. It thus indicates the extent to which man's natural behavior has become human or the extent to which his human essence has become a natural essence for him, . . . the extent to which he in his most individual existence is at the same time a social being.'9
16Pertinent here is BockmUhl's remark that Marx's species-being is a further qualification of the Wesen or nature, which is essentially realized in the community as Gemeinschaft. Bockmiihl claims that the terms "species-being" and "sociality" as used by Marx are already a tautology. Cf. Klaus Bockmiihl, Leiblichkeit und Gesellschaft (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1961), 251. '1 "On the Jewish Question (hereafter JQ)," Easton, 241. I8 Cf. Ibid. and EPM, Easton, 293. 19EPM, Easton, 303. Note that the term used here for "social being" is Gemeinwesen. Cf. MEG, 113.
477
Gattungswesen as typified in the man-woman relationship is thus the most natural situation for man as man, for here his species-being is most truly the being of his nature. Yet Gattungswesen is also the ideal fulfillment of man as man. As individual men are constantly transcending their egoistic limitations through their social relationships, they thereby become more and more human as well as natural. So long as this process of humanizing continues, the Gattungswesen of man is not yet perfectly achieved. 'Gesellschaft': Society as Means to Man's Humanization When the Gattungswesen of man is fully actualized, i.e., when man reaches the total fulfillment of his own humanity, then the Marxist ideal will be reality. In the meantime, however, the very pursuit of this ideal of total humanization requires some humanizing means. The label through which we designate that humanizing means is Gesellschaft or society. Marx uses the term Gesellschaft in a rather wide sense to describe any purposeful coming together of men. The reasons for the emergence and continuance of society at every stage of human history are twofold. First of all, to satisfy man's own basic need to be social, i.e., to be human; and secondly, to provide a way in which man's limitedness as an individual might be supplemented in order to meet the exigencies of life more effectively and more humanly.20 II. Because of his nature as an essentially communal being, man must create society. Marx claims in fact that "the creation of human society (Gesellschaft) - is the actual nature of man.""2Nonetheless, Marx insists that each age issues in a different manifestation of its socialness, as a form of society (Gesellschaftsformation) determined by its own peculiar historical and economic situation.22 In other words there is always a means (Gesellschaft) through which man lives out the process of his own humanizing, but the means alters according to the various stages of social development, hopefully so as to enhance rather than impede man's progress towards an ever fuller humanness.
20 The supplementing results from a freeing of man to be himself, i.e., to be both individual and communal. For "Der Mensch-so sehr er daher in besondres Individuum ist, und grade seine Besonderheit macht ihn zu einem Individuum und zum wirklichen individuellen [sic] Gemeinwesen - ebenso sehr ist er die Totalitat, . . . das subjective Dasein der gedachten und empfundnen Gesellschaft fur sic . . ." MEG, 117. 21 EPM, Easton, 311. 22 The historical stages in the development of society, referred to as "Epochen okonomischen Gesellschaftsformation," are treated by Marx in his Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Okonomie (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1953), hereafter GKO.
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PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICALRESEARCH
Such progress necessarily includes a growth in freedom. In describing the role that freedom has played in the history of social production, Marx shows the optimism inherent in his view of man. The four stages of human social development record the advance of man from a lesser to a greater freedom.23 In early societies, for example, where members of tribes lived rather individualistically but at an undeveloped stage of production, slavery was normally practiced. It was also practiced in a later form of society (e.g., city-states), where a degree of communal ownership freed people (those who were not slaves) to provide more efficiently for their own needs. In a third (feudal) form of society, the class standing over against the "producers" was not a class of slaves but an "enserfed small peasantry."24 Obviously the producing class was freer than serfdom, yet the producers themselves were less than wholly human, less than wholly free, precisely insofar as they were responsible for dehumanizing other men. Accordingly, when some producers (the burghers) came to realize the fetters imposed on them by feudal society, they tore themselves free from feudal ties in order to create a society more supportive of their freedom, more respectful of their humanness.25 The result of course, in the modern bourgeois society, is yet a block to man's full freedom, but one which Marx and his followers would hope to remove in order to make way for the ongoing humanizing process. Capitalism as the most recent form of bourgeois society must be overcome (aufgehoben) so that man might be completely free. All four forms of society that have emerged in the various historical epochs are founded on man's basic communalness, on that fundamental notion of his essential socialness.26 No matter what diverse form society manifests, the underlying social factor in man's nature perdures: it could validly be claimed the unifying principle for all of history and prehistory in the thought of Marx. Although Marx's use of the term Gesellschaft is rather general, it is possible to spell out its meaning more clearly through an examination of his notion of state (Staat) as "the organization of society."27
Ibid., 375 ff. GI, as translated in Karl Marx Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations, ed. by Eric J. Hobsbawm (New York: International Publishers 1965), 125. 25 Cf. Ibid., 130-1. 26 E.g., "Es [der Feudalismus] beruht, wie das Stamm - und Gemeindeeigentum wieder auf einem Gemeinwesen." Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Die Deutsche Ideologie (hereafter DDI), (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1960), 20. Cf. Megill, section III. 27 "Critical Notes on 'The King of Prussia and Social Reform' (hereafter KPSR)," Easton, 348.
23 24
MARX'S"GEMEINSCHAFT"
479
For Marx the state acts as an intermediary in the formation of all communal institutions, thus giving them a specific form.28 But the state cannot be equated with any set form of society as an immutable organization thereof. Rather, as society changes, so does the state, acting through the ongoing social process as mediator between public and private life, between the general and particular interests of men. Neither the state (Staat) of Marx nor society (Gesellschaft) ought to be identified with his notion of civil society (burgliche Gesellschaft).29 For civil society is an egoistic entity, one which stresses individual rather than common values. The state, on the other hand, represents general human interests in the lived organization of the individuals who comprise society.30 If the time ever arrives when there is no conflict between egoistic and universal drives of men, then there need no longer be a state to act as mediator. Moreover, Marx maintains that any purportedly "Christian state" is not a state at all. "The so-called Christian state," he writes, "is a Christian denial of the state, not in any way the political actualization of Christianity.""3The "Christian state" cannot be a true organization of society because its very nature prevents it from performing the proper function of a state, i.e., mediation between the individual and universal human interest. Drawing largely on Feuerbach's critique, Marx insists that religion in general and Christianity in particular impede man's growth in humanness and socialness by drawing a line to the humanizing process, by positing that beyond that line
any further development for man transcends his human power.32
"Religion," he claims, "is only the illusory sun that revolves around man so long as he does not revolve about himself."33 Man must remain both starting point and end point in Marx's doctrine. Marx realizes, however, that a free state does not necessarily
28 29
Cf. DDI, 63.
E.g. cf. JQ, Easton 216-248, especially 226-228. Generally, Marx's attitude towards civil society is derogatory since he construes its egoistic individualistic orientation as impeding the progress of universal human interests. 30 Cf. DDI, 30. JQ, Easton, 228. Marx's remedy for the dehumanizing influence of "Christian state" is to stress the human element in Christianity: "weil nicht das Christentum als Religion, sondern nur der menschliche Hintergrund der Christlichen Religion in wirklich menschlichen Schopfungen sich ausfifihren kann." Karl Marx-Friedrich Engels Werke (hereafter MEW) (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1964), 357.
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480
make free men. While the state facilitates
man's growth
in freedom
by mediating general and particular interests in its organization of society, it is possible for men to remain unfree even when the state itself is free. For
the limits of political emancipation are seen at once in the fact that the state can free itself from a limitation without men actually being free from it, in the fact that a state can be a free state without men becoming free men.34
Only when society itself reaches a stage of maximum humanizing influence can perfect freedom be assured. Only then can man, both collectively and individually, be completely human: man, as a totally fulfilled Gattungswesen, a perfect synthesis of human individuality and universality. III. 'Gemeinschaft': Community as End, Man's Total Humanization
The German language supplies Marx with several different expressions for the single English term community. Among these are Gemeinwesen, Gemeinde, Gemeindewesen, Gemeinschaft. On the other hand, there are at least two meanings which could legitimately be attributed to "community" as the term is used in Marx. The first meaning is that of a presently existing social group or communal reality; the second, a not-yet existing communal goal. If and when the ideal becomes real, the two meanings will coincide. But at that point the Marxist ideal of community will have ceased to be an ideal: when the goal is achieved there is no longer any goal. The term for community which Marx seems to use most frequently is Gemeinwesen. Throughout the Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations, for example, in which Marx gives a rather detailed description of the various Gesellschaftsformationen, the expression that constantly recurs is Gemeinwesen.35 Community as Gemeinwesen is the underlying reality in men which drives them towards some common goal through the formation of society. It is the very being of man as social, an existential being, rather than an ideal that lies beyond, a present human and humanizing factor rather than a not-yet existent end. Gemeinwesen is man's being (wesen) -together (Gemein) -ness with other men.
33 34
"Contribution to Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right," Easton, 250-1.
JQ, Easton, 223.
35 E.g., cf. GKO, 375-413. The term Gemeinwesen, for which the generally rendered English equivalent is "community" occurs 71 times within those pages. Megill seems to concur on the point: cf. 383.
481
Marx also uses the terms Gemeinde and Gemeindewesen to designate community. Here again however he seems to be talking about either a previously existent or a presently existing communal being rather than an unrealized communal goal. We read, for example, again in the Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations, that
the community [Gemeinde] - as a state - is, on the one hand, relationship of these free and private proprietors to each other, their combination against the outside world - and at the same time their safeguard. The community [Gemeindewesen] is based on the fact that its members consist of working owners of land, small peasant cultivators....36
The "communities" referred to in the above passage belong to the second phase of ownership, the ancient stage of society. Gemeinde and Gemeindewesen so used refer to previously existent communities. Gemeinschaft as the German expression for community occurs very seldom in the actual text of Marx. Nonetheless, Pappenheim notes that Marx laid the basis for Tdnnies distinction between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft as early as May 1843, in his letter to Ruge. The section to which he refers is the following:
Freedom, the feeling of man's dignity, will have to be awakened again in these men. Only this feeling, which disappeared from the world with the Greeks and with Christianity vanished into the blue mist of heaven, can again transform society into a community [der Gesellschaft wieder eine Gemeinschaft] of men to achieve their highest purpose, a democratic state.37
Certainly, the passage is suggestive of Gemeinschaft as ideal, an ideal which when realized necessarily incorporates man's highest capacity for freedom. Hence, while acknowledging that in the texts Marx does not confine himself to a strict literal usage of terms for community, it seems valid to use the term Gemeinschaft for designating Marx's ideal of total humanization. The fact that Marx does use the term in describing his ideal, while generally using other expressions to describe existent communities, warrants our using the label of Gemeinschaft to discuss the meaning of community as end.38 "Gemeinschaf t," then, refers to the second meaning of "comGKO, 379. MEW, 339. Cf. Pappenheim, 151, n. 25, and note the use of the term "democratic" in describing Gemeinschaft. 38 We are aware that in the Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations a term translated as commonalityy" and as "common organization" is used (cf. Hobsbawn 68, 70, from Gemeinschaf tlichkeit in GKO, 377), and the adjective form of Gemeinschaf t (gemeinschaftliche) is used rather frequently. Nonetheless, the term Gemeinschaft itself occurs but twice in the text: at GKO, 376 and 377.
36 37
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RESEARCH PHILOSOPHYAND PHENOMENOLOGICAL
accompanied the other three forms of society, the present form of munity," as a not-yet existing communal goal. It is Marx's humanistic ideal, the end for all the various forms of society, the fulfillment of man's basic communal orientation. In the first part of the German Ideology Marx provides a rather succinct description of what he means by this Gemeinschaft. After recalling the inevitable limitedness of the human individual qua individual, and the particular limitations of various previously and presently existing social forms, Marx calls for a radically new form of worldwide social intercourse. Only in such a community, he claims,
do the means exist for every individual to cultivate his talents in all directions. Only in the community [Gemeinschaft] is personal freedom possible. In previous substitutes for the community, in the state, etc., personal freedom has existed only for the individuals who developed within the ruling class and only in so far as they belonged to this class. The illusory community, in which individuals have come together up till now, always took on an independent existence in relation to them and was at the same time not only a completely illusory community but also a new fetter because it was the combination of one class against another. In a real community [Geminschaft] individuals obtained their freedom in and through their association.39
In other words, man cannot be truly free - alone. As he needs others to be human, he needs others to be free. Only when man's efforts to wed individual and particular interests in various forms of state and society succeed in producing a perfect blend between the two will the age of substitutes for the community be ended and the real Gemeinschaft be established. At that point, as Bdckmuhl observes, Gesellschaf t will equal Gemeinschaf t.40 In the present state of affairs, however, Gesellschaft is quite obviously not Gemeinschaft. At most, Gesellschaft is a means flowing out of man's Gemeinwesen, his communal nature, and directed towards Gemeinschaft as his communal end. Up to this time, the different societal forms have been the result of what Marx calls naturally spontaneous development, i.e., they have been produced not through man's voluntary choice, but within the historical and natural evolution of man's productive life.4 Now the time has come
DDI, 76. 250, n. 62: "Wenn der Mensch wesentlich, sozial, geworden ist, ist Gesellschaft = Gemeinschaft." Note, however, that the text of Marx on which BockmUhl bases his comment does not include the term Gemeinschaft: cf. MEG, 117 and Bockmiihl, 149. Consequently, BockmUhl's interpretation can only be construed as correct if restricted to Marx's meaning rather than to his literal usage of German terms for "society" and "community." The same is true of course with regard to the other interpretations mentioned in this article, viz., Pappenheim's, Tonnies', Megill's, and Mahowald's. 41 Cf. DDI, 30.
39 40
483
for man to make history; everything previous has been mere propadeutic. Consequently, subsequent social development must be the result of man's own voluntariness. Human progress hereafter must be effected through rationally directed revolution rather than through natural spontaneity. Since Gemeinschaft means that situation in which man is most truly human, most truly free, any description of the status of man as lacking Gemeinschaft is a description of society as involving some degree of limitation to man's freedom. Just as slavery or serfdom civil society (biirgliche Gesellschaft) is characterized by its own peculiar dehumanizing element, which Marx calls slavery. In his Critical Notes on the King of Prussia and Social Reform, he puts the matter bluntly but plainly:
This dismemberment, this debasement, this slavery of civil society is the natural foundation on which the modern state rests, just as the civil society of slavery was the foundation of the state in antiquity.42
But civil society is not the only object of Marx's criticism in regard to freedom. The political state and "Christian state" get similar treatment. Both are situations which lack Gemeinschaft because they necessarily impede man's total humanization, his full freedom. The political state, Marx maintains, stands in the same opposition to civil society, as does religion to the profane world, i.e., it inhibits man's essential freedom. For
in the political state . . . he [man] is an imaginary member of an imagined sovereignty, divested of his actual individual life and endowed with an unactual universality.43
Hence the only community that would be possible in Marx's political state is an illusory Gemeinschaft with illusory freedom. Paradoxically (perhaps), Marx sees a "Christian state" as inhibiting the actualization of the very Christianity it preaches precisely because such a state impedes progress towards full humanness, full freedom. "The state that is still theological and still officially prescribes belief in Christianity," he writes,
has not yet dared to declare itself to be a state, and has not yet succeeded in expressing in secular and human form, in its actuality as a state, those human foundations of which Christianity is the sublime expression.44
42
43
KPSR, Easton, 349. JQ, Easton, 226. 44 Ibid., 228.
484
The Christian state is thus "the mediator to which man transfers all his unholiness and all his human freedom."45 In short, any description of Gesellschaft, as shown by the Gesellschaftsformationen that have existed throughout history, indicates that man has not yet reached full humanization, the perfect freedom which is Gemeinschaft. It is a goal that remains to be attained. That man is capable of achieving that goal seems never to have been questioned by Marx - though we well might. Instead, he concentrated his philosophical energies on describing the ideal and the means through which it might be actualized, and to arousing men to apply that means.
-
Communism is the general means for achieving the Marxist ideal communism as the stage of society which follows the present capitalistic form of modern bourgeois society. The more specific means through which the transition is to be effected is the revolution of the proletariat.46 The latter, to Marx, means
a class in civil society which is not a class of civil society, a class which is the dissolution of all classes, a sphere of society which has a universal character because its sufferings are universal, and which does not claim a particular redress because the wrong which is done to it is not a particular wrong but wrong in general. ... It thus can only redeem itself by a total redemption of humanity.47
In other words, the proletariat is that group of men who realize that the very progress of humanity is impeded by the present capitalistic social system. Consequently, the proletariat is obligated to overthrow the existing structure, sustaining its power in the process through a revolutionary dictatorship. Marx is careful to note that the proletarian dictatorship is only transitory, leading to the abolition of all classes or to a classless society.48 In the Communist Manifesto he calls upon all workers of the world to unite in pursuit of their common humanistic end, claiming that the revolutionary proletariat class holds the future in its hands.49 But the future society which Marx envisions requires more than revolution to effect its actualization. He therefore refers to two phases of Communist society (Kommunistische Gesellschaft). The
Ibid., 224. Cf. Kritik das Gothaer Programms (Berlin: Neuer Weg, 1946), 29. 47 "Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right," Bottomore, 182. 48 Cf. Marx's letter to J. Weydemeyer, March 5, 1852, in Marx Engels Selected Correspondence (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, N.D.), 86. 49 Cf. Karl Marx/ Friedrich Engels, "Manifest der Kommunistichen Partei," Werke, Band 4 (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1964), 471.
45 46
485
first phase is that stage of society which immediately follows the revolution through which capitalist society is overthrown; it is the phase which Marx describes in Hegelian terminology as "the negation of the negation."50 Defects are inevitable in this first phase of communism, since society
has just emerged after prolonged birth-pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and the cultural development conditioned by it.5'
In this first phase, "communism is not itself the end of human development, . . . not a state of affairs still to be established, not an ideal to which reality (will) have to adjust, ... but a real movement which abolishes the present state of affairs."52 In the second phase of communism, however, we see a different picture, one which might be equated with Marx's ideal. For here Communism is "the definitive resolution of the antagonism between man and Nature, and between man and man." It is "the return of man himself as a social, i.e., really human being, a complete and conscious return which assimilates all the wealth of previous development."53Of course this phase can only occur when all the defects of the first phase have been removed, so that history might witness a happy marriage between the needs of individuals and universal human interests. Marx does not say when he expects the wedding to take place, but he looks forward to it as if anticipating the life that might follow from such a union. "In this higher phase of communist society," he remarks,
when the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and with it the antithesis between mental and physical labor has vanished; when labor is no longer merely a means of life but has become life's principal need; when the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly - only then will it be possible completely to transcend the narrow outlook of bourgeois right and only then will society be able to inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!54
We could carry the metaphor just one step further. In the future society to which Marx refers, society's banners, so inscribed, would be the birth announcement for a new humanity, the totally humanized humanity born of the union between Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaf t.
50 EPM, Bottomore, 246. 51 "Critique of the Gotha Programme (hereafter CGP)," Bottomore, 258.
52
EPM, Bottomore, 246 and GI, Easton, 426. EPM, Bottomore, 243-4. 54 CGP, Bottomore, 258.
53
486
Conclusion:
Let the End Judge the Means
At the outset we indicated a twofold purpose: to present an interpretive clarification of Marx's notion of community, and to draw whatever practical consequences might be drawn from that interpretation. In regard to the first aim it is clear from the texts that Marx's notion of community is grounded in his understanding of man as essentially communal (Gattungswesen). To be human is to be conscious, to be free and to be social. But to be man also means to be involved in a positive thrust towards a greater degree of humanness, consciousness, freedom and sociality. Whether this progress is effected through evolution or revolution, it requires overcoming whatever dehumanizing elements are present in society. Man, to Marx, is a human being in the process of becoming still more human. In this sense, the Gattungswesen both is and is not yet. Perhaps we have spelled out in more precise terms than did Marx himself the meanings of society and community. Nonetheless, the spelling out is grounded in his texts. Marx has an ideal, whose picture he paints with appropriately vague rather than definite strokes. The picture suggests that human situation in which all the resources of humanity are drawn upon so that man's freedom and productivity are not diminished because of his inevitable limitedness as an individual. In such a situation man's very individuality is enhanced through the pooling of all human resources. This is the picture of the ideal community in Marx. We have titled the picture "Gemeinschaf t." Marx knows however that his ideal is not yet fully realized. He looks back through the ages at the means by which man has always been reaching towards his communal ideal. He describes these means as different forms of human society (Gesellschaft), ways in which men have attempted to actualize whatever degree of humanization was possible to their stage of social development. He anticipates a stage at which these means of humanization will have finally succeeded in effecting the desired goal for man. At that stage society will merge into community as means into end. Although he based his famous distinction on Marx, Tdnnies' description of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft is quite different from our interpretation of meanings for the terms. Whereas we have construed the two as means and end in Marx's thought, Tdnnies defines community (Gemeinschaft) as the real and organic life of humai; social relatedness; and society (Gesellschaft) as the imaginary and
MARx's"GEMEINSCHAFT"
487
mechanical structure of public life.55In other words, Tbnnies explains both community and society as presently existing realities. This is consistent with the texts of Marx insofar as Marx is not restrictive in his literal usage. In our own interpretation of Marx, community as Gemeinwesen, and society-as-organized, or Staat, are closer to the meanings of community and society in Tbnnies' work. While Megill does not intend a literal treatment of terms for "community" in his article, he claims that Gemeinschaft is not a broad enough term for Marx's concept of community.56 It seems to this writer, however, that Gemeinschaft as ideal is precisely the broadest possible conception of community, one which includes what Megill describes as "primitive form of association." "stateless society," and "a way of being."57The stateless society has not yet been realized, but it is an ideal towards which even primitive societies were ultimately aiming, because their natural way of being, as of all men, was to be and become community. Although society has not reached its full humanization, to the extent that men have become fuller, freer, more human, Gemeinschaft has been partly actualized. Regarding our second purpose, this interpretation of Marx's Gemeinschaft suggests as its conclusion an idea quite relevant to contemporary "society" and "community." Basically, the concept of society existing through its changing forms as the means of facilitating man's growth towards genuine community: this seems to me a most practical insight. That organization and structure are necessary for society, as state, is undeniable - even though Marx sees classlessness in the final goal of total humanization. But this end is always judge of present means, because the men who comprise society are continually responsible for effective criticism regarding the actualization of their communal humanistic ideal. The criteria for criticism are the characteristics with which Marx describes Gemeinschaft: freedom and productivity. Where these are maximal for every individual, society faithfully fulfills its responsibility for serving the cause of mankind evolving. Where these are less than maximal for the stage to which man has progressed, society - in whatever form - betrays its end, and so betrays its own being as means. The meaning of Gemeinschaft in Marx provides an apt description of the goal by which today's society may be judged. Man's
55 Cf.
56
Tonnies, 33. Cf. Megill, 383. 57 Ibid., 384.
488
RESEARCH PHILOSOPHYAND PHENOMENOLOGICAL
present responsibility to evolution, involving irreversible gravity, challenges humankind to choose its real ideal, then make that ideal society. Freedom and productivity are maximal only real -through to the extent that Gemeinschaft or genuine community becomes reality, and that can only be accomplished through free men actually producing it. Society is fashioned by individuals, who in turn draw from that society the energy through which to live more effectively and fully towards the universal community which is Gemeinschaft. Only insofar as society facilitates this is its existence in any era validated. As individuals cannot serve themselves alone and be fulfilled, so with society: where needs of others (even yet unborn) are best served, present need's will be best met. GeselIschaft is for the sake of Gemeinschaft. MARY B. MAHOWALD.
INDIANA UNIVERSITY.

Marx's 'Gemeinschaft': Another Interpretation

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Marx's 'Gemeinschaft': Another Interpretation

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International Phenomenological Society

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Cf. DDI, 63.

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make free men. While the state facilitates

"Contribution to Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right," Easton, 250-1.

JQ, Easton, 223.

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KPSR, Easton, 349. JQ, Easton, 226. 44 Ibid., 228.

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Let the End Judge the Means

Tonnies, 33. Cf. Megill, 383. 57 Ibid., 384.

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