From: Lady Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2023 05:49:35 +0000 (-0700) Subject: Add quotes from Marx’s “On the Jewish Question” X-Git-Url: https://git.ladys.computer/Wiki/commitdiff_plain/bdbfead9101ee370cf937f01efe748eeb3791a01 Add quotes from Marx’s “On the Jewish Question” --- diff --git a/Sources/Page/MarxQuotes.djot b/Sources/Page/MarxQuotes.djot new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5b8aca3 --- /dev/null +++ b/Sources/Page/MarxQuotes.djot @@ -0,0 +1,491 @@ +# 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.