+# quotes from Karl Marx
+
+{#OJQ}
+## from _On the Jewish Question_{as=cite}[^Easton1967]
+
+{as=details}
+::::::::::::
+{as=summary}
+(Regarding this essay…)
+
+I think it’s pretty clear, when you take it in context, that what Marx
+ is doing here is effectively saying “ah, you who think you hate the
+ Jews! you fools! what you really hate is capitalism!”, but it’s still
+ very uncomfortable at times reading him effectively arguing with
+ proto·Nazis using their own language and arguments.
+This is unfortunate because the first section otherwise has a number of
+ choice critiques of the liberal state and its limitations, reproduced
+ below.
+If you plan on reading this essay, I do recommend sticking to that
+ section, and skipping the second part (which has little to offer and
+ is more overt in its anti·Semitic rhetoric). [][@:Lady]{.sig}
+::::::::::::
+
+{as=figure}
+::::::::::::::::::::::::::
+> Only in the free states of North America—or at least in some of
+> them—does the Jewish question lose its _theological_ significance
+> and become a truly _secular_ question.
+> Only where the political state exists in its complete development can
+> the relation of the Jew, and generally speaking the religious man,
+> to the political state, that is, the relation of religion to state,
+> appear in its characteristic and pure form.
+> Criticism of this relation ceases to be theological once the state
+> abandons a _theological_ posture toward religion, once it relates
+> itself to religion as a state, that is, _politically_.
+> Criticism then becomes _criticism of the political state_.
+> Where the question here ceases to be _theological_, Bauer’s criticism
+> ceases to be critical.
+> “_In the United States there is neither a state religion, nor a
+> religion declared to be that of the majority, nor a pre‐eminence of
+> one faith over another.
+> The state is foreign to all faiths._”
+> (Gustave de Beaumont, _Marie ou l’esclavage aux
+> Etats‐Unis_:nbsp:.:nbsp:.:nbsp:. [Brussels, 1835], p. 214.)
+> There are even some states in North America where “_the constitution
+> imposes no religious beliefs or sectarian practice as the condition
+> of political rights_” (_loc. cit._{as=i} p. 225).
+> Yet “_no one in the United States believes that a man without
+> religion can be an honest man_” (_loc. cit._{as=i} p. 224).
+> And North America is pre‐eminently the land of religiosity as
+> Beaumont, Tocqueville, and the Englishman Hamilton assure us
+> unanimously.
+> The North American states, however, serve only as an example.
+> The question is:
+> What is the relation of _complete_ political emancipation to
+> religion?
+> {=If we find even in a country with full political emancipation that
+> religion not only _exists_ but is _fresh_ and _vital_, we have
+> proof that the existence of religion is not incompatible with the
+> full development of the state.=}
+> But since the existence of religion implies a defect, the source of
+> this defect must be sought in the _nature_ of the state itself.
+> We no longer take religion to be the _basis_ but only the
+> _manifestation_ of secular narrowness.
+> Hence we explain religious restriction of free citizens on the basis
+> of their secular restriction.
+> We do not claim that they must trancend their religious resriction in
+> order to trancend their secular limitations.
+> We do claim that they will trancend their religious restriction once
+> they have trancended their secular limitations.
+> We do not convert secular questions into theological ones.
+> We convert theological questions into secular questions.
+> {=History has long enough been resolved into superstition, but now we
+> can resolve superstition into history.=}
+> The question of the _relation of political emancipation to religion_
+> becomes for us a question of the _relation of political
+> emancipation to human emancipation_.
+> We criticize the religious weaknesses of the political state by
+> criticizing the political state in its _secular_ construction
+> _apart from_ the religious defects.
+> In human terms we resolve the contradiction between the state and a
+> _particular religion_ such as _Judaism_ into the contradiction
+> between the state and _particular secluar_ elements, the
+> contradiciton bewteen the state and _religion generally_ into the
+> contradiction between the state and its _presuppositions_.
+>
+> The _political_ emancipation of the Jew, the Christian, or the
+> _religious_ man generally is the _emancipation of the state_ from
+> Judaism, from Christianity, from _religion_ in general.
+> In a form and manner corresponding to its nature, the _state_ as such
+> emancipates itself from religion by emancipating itself from the
+> _state religion_, that is, by recognizing no religion and
+> recognizing itself simply as the state.
+> _Political_ emancipation from religion is not complete and consistent
+> emancipation from religion because {=political emancipation is not
+> the complete and consistent form of _human_ emancipation=}.
+>
+> The limits of political emancipation are seen at once in the fact
+> that {=the _state_ can free itself from a limitation without man
+> _actually_ being free from it=}, in the fact that {=a state can be
+> a _free state_ without men becoming _free men_=}.
+> Bauer himself tacitly admits this in setting the following condition
+> of political emancipation:
+> “Every religious privilege, including the monopoly of a privileged
+> church, would have to be abolished. If a few or many or even the
+> _overwhelming majority still felt obliged to fulfill their
+> religious duties_, such a practice should be left to them as a
+> _purely private matter_.”
+> The _state_ can thus emancipate itself from religion even though the
+> _overwhelming majority_ is still religious.
+> And the overwhelming majority does not cease being religious by being
+> religious _in private_.
+>
+> But the attitude of the state, particularly the _free state_, toward
+> religion is still only the attitude of the _men_ who make up the
+> state.
+> Hence it follows that man frees himself from a limitation
+> politically, through the state, by overcoming the limitation in an
+> _abstract_, _limited_, and partial manner, in contradiction with
+> himself.
+> Further, when man frees himself _politically_, he does so
+> _indirectly_, through an _intermediary_, even if the _intermediary_
+> is _necessary_.
+> Finally, even when man proclaims himself an atheist through the
+> medium of the state—that is, when he declares the state to be
+> atheistic—he is still captive to religion since he only recognizes
+> his atheism indirectly through an intermediary.
+> Religion is merely the indirect recognition of man through a
+> _mediator_.
+> The state is the mediator between man and the freedom of man.
+> As Christ is the mediator on whom man unburdens all his own divinity
+> and all his _religious ties_, so is the state the mediator to which
+> man transfers all his unholiness and all his _human freedom_.
+>
+> The _political_ elevation of man above religion shares all the
+> defects and all the advantages of any political elevation.
+> If the state as state, for example, abolishes _private property_, man
+> proclaims private property is _overcome politically_ once he
+> abolishes the property qualification for active and passive voting
+> as has been done in many North American states.
+> _Hamilion_ interprets this fact quite correctly in political terms:
+> “_The great majority of the people have gained a victory over
+> property owners and financial wealth._”^[*]^
+> Is not private property ideally abolished when the have‐nots come to
+> legislate for the haves?
+> The _property qualification_ is the last _political_ form for
+> recognizing private property.
+>
+> Yet {=the political annulment of private property not only does not
+> abolish it but even presupposes it.=}
+> The state abolishes distinctions of _birth_, _rank_, _education_, and
+> _occupation_ in its fashion when it declares them to be
+> _non‐political_ distinctions, when it proclaims that every member
+> of the community _equally_ participates in popular sovereignty
+> without regard to these distinctions, and when it deals with all
+> elements of the actual life of the nation from the standpoint of
+> the state.
+> {=Nevertheless the state permits private property, education, and
+> occupation to _act_ and manifest their _particular_ nature as
+> private property, education, and occupation in their _own_ ways.=}
+> Far from overcoming these _factual_ distinctions, the state exists
+> only by presupposing them; it is aware of itself as a _political
+> state_ and makes its _universality_ effective only in opposition to
+> these elements.
+>
+> [[*Thomas Hamilton, _Men and Manners in America_{as=cite} (2 vols;
+> Edinburgh: Willam Blackwood, 1833).
+> Marx quotes from the German translation, _Die Menschen und die Sitten
+> in den Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika_{as=cite lang=de}
+> (Mannheim: Hoff, 1834), Vol Ⅰ, p. 146.]]{as=small}
+
+{as=figcaption}
+:::::::::::::::
+The liberal state frames aspects of human life as “nonpolitical” as a
+ way of _upholding_, not _challenging_ them.
+A proper liberatory state must frontally grapple with human life in all
+ its complexities, rather than simply writing off such things as
+ property ownership as an “apolitical” distinction.
+
+Either the personal is political, or politics is insufficient for
+ human liberation.
+:::::::::::::::
+::::::::::::::::::::::::::
+
+{as=figure}
+::::::::::::::::::::::::::
+> According to Baeur man must sacrifice the “_privilege of faith_” to
+> be able to acquire the universal rights of man.
+> Let us consider for a moment these so‐called rights and indeed in
+> their most authentic form, the form they have among their
+> _discoverers_, the North Americans and the French.
+> In part these rights are _political_ rights that can be exercised
+> only in community with others.
+> _Participation_ in the _community_, indeed the _political_ community
+> or _state_, constitutes their substance.
+> They belong in the category of _political freedom_, of _civil
+> rights_, which by no means presupposes the consistent and positive
+> trancendence of religion and thus of Judaism, as we have seen.
+> There is left for consideration the other part, the _rights of man_
+> as distinct from the _rights of the citizen_.
+>
+> Among these is freedom of conscience, the right to practice one’s
+> chosen religion.
+> The _privilege of faith_ is expressly recognized either as a _right
+> of man_ or as a consequence of a right of man, freedom.
+>
+> > _Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen_{as=cite},
+> > 1791, Art. 10:
+> > “No one is to be disturbed on account of his beliefs, even
+> > religious beliefs.”
+> > In Title Ⅰ of the Constitution of 1791 there is guaranteed as a
+> > human right:
+> > “The liberty of every man to practice the _religious worship_ to
+> > which he is attached.”
+> >
+> > The _Declaration of the Rights of Man_{as=cite}, etc., 1793,
+> > includes among human richts, Art. 7:
+> > “Freedom of worship.”
+> > Moreover, it even maintains in regard to the right to express views
+> > and opinions, to assemble, and to worship:
+> > “The need to proclaim these _rights_ assumes either the presence or
+> > recent memory of despotism.”
+> > Compare the Constitution of 1795, Title ⅩⅠⅤ, Art. 354.
+> >
+> > _Constitution of Pennsylvania_{as=cite}, Art. 9, § 3:
+> > “All men have a natural and indefeasible _right_ to worship
+> > Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences;
+> > no man can of right be compelled to attend, erect, or support any
+> > place of worship, or to maintain any ministry against his
+> > consent; no human authority can, in any case whatever, interfere
+> > with the rights of conscience and control the prerogatives of the
+> > soul.”
+> >
+> > _Constitution of New Hampshire_{as=cite}, Arts. 5 and 6:
+> > “Among the natural rights, some are in their very nature
+> > unalienable, because no equivalent can be conceived for them.
+> > Of this kind are the _rights_ of conscience.”
+> > (Beaumont, _loc. cit._{as=i}, pp. 213, 214.)
+>
+> The incompatibility between religion and the rights of man is so
+> little implied in the concept of the rights of man that the _right
+> to be religious_ according to one’s liking and to practice a
+> particular religion is explicitly included among the rights of man.
+> The _privilege of faith_ is a universal human right.
+>
+> The _rights of man_ as such are distinguished from the _rights of the
+> citizen_.
+> Who is this _man_ distinguished from the _citizen_?
+> None other than the _member of civil society_.
+> {=Why is the member of the civil society called “man,” man without
+> qualification, and why are his rights called the _rights of man_?=}
+> How can we explain this?
+> By the relation of the political state to civil society and by the
+> nature of political emancipation.
+>
+> Let us note first of all that the so‐called _rights of man_ as
+> distinguished from the _rights of the citizen_ are only the rights
+> of the _member of civil society_, that is, of egoistic man, man
+> separated from other men and from the community.
+> The most radical constitution, the Constitution of 1793, may be
+> quoted:
+>
+> > _Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen._{as=i}
+> >
+> > _Art. 2._{as=i}
+> > “These rights (the natural and imprescriptible rights) are:
+> > _equality_, _liberty_, _security_, _property_.”
+>
+> What is this _liberty_?
+>
+> > _Art 6._{as=i}
+> > “Liberty is the power belonging to each man to do anything which
+> > does not impair the rights of others,” or according to the
+> > Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1791:
+> > “Liberty is the power to do anything which does not harm others.”
+>
+> Liberty is thus the right to do and perform anything that does not
+> harm others.
+> {=The limits within which each can act _without harming_ others is
+> determined by law just as the boundary between two fields is marked
+> by a stake.=}
+> This is the liberty of man viewed as an isolated monad, withdrawn
+> into himself.
+> Why, according to Bauer, is the Jew not capable of acquiring human
+> rights?
+> “As long as he remains a Jew the limited nature which makes him a Jew
+> must triumph over the human nature which should link him as a man
+> with others and must separate him from non‐Jews.”
+> {=But liberty as a right of man is not based on the association of
+> man with man but rather on the separation of man from man.=}
+> It is the _right_ of this separation, the right of the _limited_
+> individual limited to himself.
+>
+> The practical application of the right of liberty is the right of
+> _private property_.
+>
+> What is property as one of the rights of man?
+>
+> > _Art. 16_{as=i} (Constitution of 1793):
+> >
+> > “The right of _property_ is that belonging to every citizen to
+> > enjoy and dispose of his goods, his revenues, the fruits of his
+> > labor and of his industry as he wills.”
+>
+> The right of property is thus the right to enjoy and dispose of one’s
+> possessions as one wills, without regard for other men and
+> independently of society.
+> It is the right of self‐interest.
+> This individual freedom and its application as well constitutes the
+> basis of civil society.
+> It lets every man find in other men not the _realization_ but rather
+> the _limitation_ of his own freedom.
+> It proclaims above all the right of man “to enjoy and dispose of his
+> goods, his revenues, the fruits of his labor and of his industry
+> _as he wills_.”
+>
+> There still remain the other rights of man, equality and security.
+>
+> “Equality”—here used in its non‐political sense—is only the equal
+> right to _liberty_ as described above, viz., that every man is
+> equally viewed as a self‐sufficient monad.
+> The Constitution of 1705 defines the concept of equality with this
+> significance:
+>
+> > _Art. 3_{as=i} (Constitution of 1795):
+> > “Equality consists in the fact that the law is the same for all,
+> > whether it protects or whether it punishes.”
+>
+> And security?
+>
+> > _Art. 8_{as=i} (Constitution of 1793):
+> > “Security consists in the protection accorded by society to each of
+> > its members for the preservation of his person, his rights and
+> > his property.”
+>
+> {=_Security_ is the supreme social concept of civil society, the
+> concept of the _police_, the concept that the whole society exists
+> only to guarantee to each of its members the preservation of his
+> person, his rights, and his property.=}
+> In this sense Hegel calls civil society “the state as necessity and
+> rationality.”
+>
+> Civil society does not raise itself above its egoism through the
+> concept of security.
+> Rather, security is the _guarantee_ of the egoism.
+>
+> {=Thus none of the so‐called rights of men goes beyond the egoistic
+> man, the man withdrawn into himself, his private interest and his
+> private choice, and separated from the community as a member of
+> civil society.=}
+> Far from viewing man here in his species‐being, his species‐life
+> itself—society—rather appears to be an external framework for the
+> individual, limiting his original independence.
+> The only bond between men is natural necessity, need and private
+> interest, the maintenance of their property and egoistic persons.
+>
+> It is somewhat curious that a nation just beginning to free itself,
+> tearing down all the barriers between different sections of the
+> people and founding a political community, should solemnly proclaim
+> (Declaration of 1791) the justification of the egoistic man, man
+> separated from his fellow men and from the community, and should
+> even repeat this prose lamation at a moment when only the most
+> heroic sacrifice can save the nation and hence is urgentity
+> required, when the sacrifice of all the interests of civil society
+> is highly imperaive and egoism must be punished as crime
+> (Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1793).
+> This becomes even more curious when we observe that the political
+> liberators reduce citizenship, the _political community_, to a mere
+> _means_ for preserving these so‐called rights of man and that the
+> citizen thus is proclaimed to be the servant of the egoistic man,
+> the sphere in which the man acts as a member of the community is
+> degraded below that in which he acts as a fractional being, and
+> finally man as bourgeios rather than man as citizen is considered
+> to be _proper_ and _authentic_ man.
+>
+> “The _goal_ of all _political association_ is the _preservation_ of
+> the natural and imprescriptible rights of man.”
+> (Declaration of the Rights of Man, etc., of 1791, Art. 2.)
+> “_Government_ is instituted to guarantee man’s enjoyment of his
+> natural and imprescriptible rights.”
+> (Declaration, etc., of 1793, Art. 1.)
+> Thus even at the time of its youthful enthusiasm fired by the urgency
+> of circumstances political life is proclaimed to be a mere _means_
+> whose end is life in civil society.
+> To be sure, {=revolutionary practice flagrantly contradicts its
+> theory=}.
+> While security, for example, is proclaimed to be one of the rights of
+> man, the violation of the privacy of correspondance is publicly
+> established as the order of the day.
+> While the “_unlimited_ freedom of the press” (Constitution of 1973,
+> Art. 122) as a consequence of the rights of man and individual
+> freedom is guaranteed, freedom of the press is completely abolished
+> because “freedom of the press should not be permitted to compromise
+> public liberty.”
+> (“Robespierre jeune,” _Parliamentary History of the French
+> Revolution_{as=cite}, by Buchez and Roux, Vol. 28, p. 159.)
+> This means that the human right of liberty ceases to be a right when
+> it comes into conflict with _political_ life while theoretically
+> political life is only the guarantee of the rights of man, the
+> rights of individual man, and should be abandoned once it
+> contradicts its _end_, these rights of man.
+> But the practice is only the exception, the theory is the rule.
+> Even if we choose to regard revolutionary practice as the correct
+> expression of this relationship, the problem still remains
+> unsettled as to why the relationship is inverted in the
+> consciousness of the political liberators so that the end appears
+> as means and the means as the end.
+> This optical illusion of their consciousness would always be the same
+> problem, though a psychological, a theoretical problem.
+
+{as=figcaption}
+:::::::::::::::
+“Civil” (bourgeois, liberal) society seeks to uphold the rights of
+ the individual at the expense of the collective, which not only is
+ nonpractice·able from a revolutionary standpoint (as revolution
+ depends on collective action at the expense of individual liberty)
+ but also, and more importantly, forms a reductive model of humanity
+ which negates social forces, interactions, and community (including
+ political community [hence the contradiction]).
+
+Socialist society, in contrast, upholds the rights of humanity _as
+ members of society_ over their rights as individuals; this is what
+ distinguishes left socialism from left liberalism (and leaves
+ socialism and libertarianism fundamentally at odds with each other).
+:::::::::::::::
+::::::::::::::::::::::::::
+
+{as=figure}
+::::::::::::::::::::::::::
+> This _man_, the member of civil society, is now the basis and
+> presupposition of the _political state_.
+> He is recognized as such by the state in the rights of man.
+>
+> {=But the freedom of egoistic man and the recognition of this freedom
+> is rather the recognition of the _unbridled_ movement of the
+> sprirtual and material elements forming the content of his life.=}
+>
+> {=Thus man was not freed from religion; he received religious
+> freedom.
+> He was not freed from property.
+> He received freedom of property.
+> He was not freed from the egoism of trade but received freedom to
+> trade.=}
+>
+> The _constitution_ of the _political state_ and the dissolution of
+> civil society into independent _individuals_—whose relation is
+> _law_ just as the relation of estates and guilds was
+> _privilege_—is accomplished in _one and the same act_.
+> As a member of civil society man is the _non‐political man_ but
+> necessarily appears to be _natural_ man.
+> The _rights of man_ appear to be _natural rights_ because
+> _self‐conscious activity_ is concentrated on the _political act_.
+> The _egoistic_ man is the _passive_ and _given_ result of the
+> dissolved society, an object of _immediate certainty_ and thus a
+> _natural_ object.
+> {=The _political revolution_ dissolves civil life into its constituent
+> elements without _revolutionizing_ these elements themselves and
+> subjecting them to criticism.=}
+> It regards civil society—the realm of needs, labor, private
+> interests, and private right—as the _basis of its existence_, as a
+> _presupposition_ needing no ground, and thus as its _natural
+> basis_.
+> Finally, man as a member of civil society is regarded as _authentic_
+> man, _man_ as distinct from _citizen_, since he is man in his
+> sensuous, individual, and _most intimate_ existence while
+> _political_ man is only the abstract and artificial man, man as an
+> _allegorical_, _moral_ person.
+> Actual man is recognized only in the form of an _egoistic_
+> individual, _authentic_ man, only in the form of _abstract
+> citizen_.
+
+{as=figcaption}
+:::::::::::::::
+The creation and conceptualization of the political state has
+ politicized community, afflicting it with the veneer of artificiality
+ and cementing individualistic, egoistic, asocial life as “natural”.
+:::::::::::::::
+::::::::::::::::::::::::::
+
+(This quote is interesting as it seems to predict and also complicate
+ Foucault’s analysis of the state as an imposition of regulatory and
+ normativising knowledge on a sensual world of pleasures.
+In fact the sensual world of pleasures Foucault imagines is, ⅌ Marx, a
+ _product of_ the existence of a liberal state order which views, and
+ depends _in its very essence_ on such a view, “private” acts as
+ natural and beyond critique.
+It does not precede it.
+[][@:Lady]{.sig})
+
+[^Easton1967]:
+ Translated by Loyd D Easton and Kurt H Guddat, © 1967.
Lady’s Gitweb / Wiki / commitdiff