The Historical Generation Of Marx's "Free Individuality" Thought

IAccording to figures ,the word"individuality"appears more than 200 time in the first Chinese edition of"Karl Marx Frdeerick Engels Collected Works",and the words"free individuality"at least 6 times. And not only that, all of the 6 times comes from the Marxist classics, so we can confirm that there must be some"free individuality"in Marx's thought.It can be made a decision on the basis of Marx's description of"Three social forms"in the"Grundrisse derKritik der Politischen ?konomie"of"Relations of personal dependence","Personal independence founded on objective dependence"and"Free individuality",Compared with the proposition of"In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all"in the"Manifesto of the Communist Party"①and the proposition of Communism is"a higher form of society, in which the full and free development of every individual forms the ruling principle"②in the"Das Kapital"that Marx regarded"Free individuality"as a state of being that"every individual"has independent individuality and full, free development on the confirmation of individual independence and man himself, which also shows the value of pursuing priority of individual independence, freedom and liberation, besides the real social equality and harmony of Marx's"Free individuality"Thought. Just in this context , we regard"free individuality"as the value goal of Marx theory. Meanwhile,"free individuality"should be regarded as a concept equated with some related concepts such as"community of free individuals","communism","free man""Universally developed individuals"and so on to some extent, that is all the description of the future state of being.Therefore, the generation process of"free individuality"is just the emancipation and full development of individuality, just the generation process of"free man", just the generation process of"community of free individuals", just the generation process of"communist society"from the perspective of ownership. Having clarified the connotation of"free individuality", we turn into the deeply thinking and demonstration of historical generation of"free individuality".Still on the basis of Marx's description of"Three social forms", we inferred that that the generation of Marx's"free individuality"is a historical process from"Relations of personal dependence"to the"Personal independence founded on objective dependence"and then to the stage of"Free individuality, based on the universal development of individuals and on their subordination of their communal, social productivity as their social wealth". Besides, we draws a conclusion that Marx paid a special attention to"the system of ownership". In order to understand this point better, we made an analysis as a whole. resorting to the research mentality and analysis method of Classical document"Manifesto of the Communist Party". This is the main content of the Chapter1.IIThe second chapter starts to analyze the relation between"the system of ownership"and"free individuality". In this chapter ,we used the similar method as in the first chapter, inferred layer upon layer starting with a section of description about the relation between"the system of ownership"and"free individuality"in "Das Kapital".From the abstract of Marx about Morgan's"Ancient times Society", unifying Morgan's "Ancient times Society", Engels's "Family, Private ownership And National Origin" and "Germany Ideology", in the backward of the human society development process ,we draw the conclusion: following the property rights personally , individual was independent gradually from the blood relationship community, and the individuality also developed in resistance form. Under the slave system, it is the slave-owner's individuality and independence, the slave did not have the independence completely; Under the feudalism, it is the feudal lord's individuality and independence, the farmer or the serf had the limited individuality and independence on his scrap land; but under the capitalist system, it is only the bourgeoisie's individuality and independence, the working class did not have a thing in the world freely, therefore they have lost the individuality and independence completely. Also because of this, to achieve the goal of"free individuality",that is ,the independent individuality, free and comprehensive development of"every individual"which we conceived, we must restore"each individual system of ownership". Only this kind of ownership can guarantee each individual's"the individual property", thus guarantee each individual's independence and the individuality. Regarding the"each individual system of ownership", Marx has taken an accurate name to it--"social individual system of ownership".Above all ,we may also draw this conclusion:"free individuality"'s historical generation also inevitably displays for social individual's historical generation. In order to guarantee the"the free individuality"of"social individual", the"social individual system of ownership"must be established.In this process, we also analyze The human state of"Relations of personal dependence","Personal independence founded on objective dependence"through the relationship between the individual and Primitive commune in the"Economic Manuscripts of 1857-58".and then obtained the viewpoint that realization of"free individuality"was to realize ancient times community in a higher level, it must realize individual and society free and full development on the basis of holding the modern world's massive productive forces. It is the historical dialectics; it is the negation of negation.Besides, the author especially analyzed the"social individual system of ownership", pointing out"social individual system of ownership"="public property"="social property".However, whatever term, it must guarantee the"individual property".IIINot only Chapter3 is a further discuss to Chapter2 about the relationship between the"ownership"and"free individuality", but also deepen and expand the concept and historical generation of Marx's"free individuality", What's more, it is the analysis of the historic generation under the view of Historical materialism.This Chapter firstly proposed the question starting with Marx's conclusion of"The private property of the laborer in his means of production is the foundation of petty industry, whether agricultural, manufacturing, or both; petty industry, again, is an essential condition for the development of social production and of the free individuality of the laborer himself",and then analyze the relationship between"free individuality"and self-activity , productive powers,the division of labor,individual,class,nation,world history ,etc, in turn through self-examined from answers. Finally the author analyzed the historical generation of Marx's"free individuality".With the sentiment of ideal"Perfect person", Marx begin with"the real individuals", clarified the human's state of existence during narrating the historic course. At first, in front of the nature, the human appear helpless and the nature appears to men as a completely alien. The human even can't realize his own survival, not to tell the development of individuality. So the people united, the tribe appeared, however, the individual belongs to the tribe here. Along with appearance of the division of labor, people's social relation increases, the productive forces also developed, but because this was the spontaneous division of labor, regarding the people was one kind of force division of labor, therefore the people are limited to a small scope, therefore the division of labor appeared people's alienation. At the same time, with development of the division of labor, the private property developed, thus produced the contradiction between the interest of the separate individual and the common interest, which appeared the interest of class and his Unreal community-Nation, both are the self-alienation to the individuals. However, before the big industry, because the producer also can feel feeling of satisfaction in his limited self-activity in own division of labor scope, therefore they also can have their own limited individuality. For all this, along with the big industry development, the capitalist society has developed, the society splits day by day into the capital and the work, the two extremes of capitalist class and proletarian social class, the private system has obtained the pure form. Speaking of the proletarian, they do not have a thing in the world; even the only relationship between the productive forces and themselves-the work also transformed the employment work. But this was precisely to workers vitality devastating, not to tell the individuality.Even the capitalist's existence is just because he is personified capital. If the capitalist did not hold capital, he was nothing. Just because of this, the capitalist was not the existence as an individual of individuality. Just because of this, inside the capitalist society, was the capital's individuality and freedom. Thus the human only lives for the capital, has lost the dignity and the existence significance. Then, how can realize"the free individuality"? That is inevitably"the communism"realization,"independent activity"realization,"free man"realization,"community of free individuals"realization, simultaneously is"perfect individual","true individual""individual of individuality"realization.Also just because of this, only when the united proletarian hold the real property and the highly generally developed productive forces, thus formed the real collective, eliminated the social class, eliminate the national: the kind of false collective pseudomorph, thus eliminated the private ownership, re-established"worker's individual system of ownership";Thus eliminated the force spontaneous division of labor, established the conscious division of labor; thus eliminated the nature of employment work , caused the physical production work to be consistent with the self-activity, caused the work to become people's first need; thus eliminated individual regional existence, made individuals become"world history individual"did we say only then by that time it can realize"the free individuality"truly; only then by that time, it can realize the independent individuality, free and comprehensive development of"every individual"; only then by that time the human society can achieve the ancient society's higher regression.IVBecause Marx devoted all his life to the critique of capitalist society,so it will absolutely be a great oversight if we do not study the relationship between"capital"and"free individuality",when we study Marx's"free individuality". Therefore, Chapter 4 mainly analyze the historical generation of"free individuality"from the view of capital. In this chapter, the author didn't simply demonstrate the relationship between the"free individuality"and money and capital, that is just result, but further, make the analysis from why Marx conceived the relationship of"free individuality"and money, capital as this relation. Just because of this, along Marx's logic, the author begin with the analysis of a commodity, in turn analyzed the relationship between"free individuality"and money,"the transformation of money in capital","the direct production process of capital","capitalist production on a progressively increasing scale","the process of circulation of capital","the process of capitalist production as a whole".The elaboration of the relationship between"free individuality"and"money","the transformation of money in capital",is based on the comparison between"Economic Manuscripts of 1857-58","Economic Manuscripts of 1861-63"and"Das capital". Through the analysis, we saw Marx's concrete research mentality conversion process. For example, in the"Economic Manuscripts of 1857-58", when it came to some stage of money's development or function,Marx always turned back to elaborated the relationship between the man and the with the concept"alienation",but in his work which publishes officially such as"Das capital",Marx tried to cover (I didn't use the word"Elimination")this kind of mentality influence as far as possible and just remain one train of thought,that is-Marx adopted the concept of"subordinate"to demonstrate the relationship of real things. The concept"alienation"derives from a kind of thought"what should be". And then weigh and judge some related things by the concept. When the concept"subordinate"replaced the concept"subordinate", it appeared a description of the fact and as we have seen that, the value judgment to start with the man himself didn't reduce for this.In the"Economic Manuscripts of 1857-58", by the analysis of the relationship between"free individuality"and"money", the author firstly made the conclusion through the general analysis of media function and social authority:Firstly, the money plays 2 roles to the generation of"free individuality". One side, the social authority not only produces the elimination of individuality, but also the"alienation"among the individuals. On the other side, it produces the universal relations and universality of individual ability among the individuals,which is just the basis of"free individuality", just for the function of"comprehensive medium"which causes the function of"social authority".Secondly,The realization of"free individuality"means the disappearance of money as the media and social authority and it need 2 conditions to make the disappearance become possibility—The first is to make the"communal production"become premise, to make the labor of individual be the social labor in the beginning, that need the individuals unit themselves, to form the"property of social individual". The second is to make"free time"become possibility. That is because whatever an individual or the society's development, enjoyment and activity ultimately depends on economization of time. And in order to realize the economization of time, it also need 2 conditions-,the first is the higher development of the productive power and the second is"communal production".Thirdly, the conditions of the realization of"free individuality"are not only the result by the logical inference but also generating and continue generating. Such as the agglomeration, combination, cooperation, stock companies produced by the division of labor.They are all antithetical forms of the unity .They are all one kind self-contradictory, which requests to break through oneself inevitably. The exchange value arises relations of circulation as well as of production, which inevitably becomes their master's gravedigger.And then the author gains his conclusion through the functions of the money: the functions of measure of values and The Medium of Circulation make money become"comprehensive medium"and"social authority".The function of hoarding makes the elimination of individuality. And the function of universal Money makes the elimination of individuality become global. The author finally pointed out that it is the simple circulation that makes false freedom and equality among individuals and its limitation. And Then the author simple analyzes logic of"Economic Manuscripts of 1861-63"and"Das capital"and pointed out the Conjunction of the three Manuscripts.Next, the author adapted the same method, analyzed the logic of"The Transformation of Money in Capital"of"Economic Manuscripts of 1857-58","Economic Manuscripts of 1861-63"and finally"Das capital"in turn. During this process,we see the conjunction of the three manuscripts again, as well as Marx's more and more clear mentality developing process. And finally, the author proposed the argument that the worker lost his independence and the possibility of developing his individuality at the moment of"The Transformation of Money in Capital".But when it comes to the relationship between"free individuality"and"the direct production process of capital",the author gives up this method of comparison research and turned into a re- conformity from the view of"free individuality"on the basis of Marx's several economic manuscripts.Firstly, the expansion of value is just the essential character of capitalist production, and the source of value augmentation is the use-value of a special commodity-labor. Not only does the labor produce the value of himself-wages ,thus preserves the value ,but adds to the new surplus-labor,thus produces surplus-value.It is the greed of unlimited surplus-labor of capital's greed, which appears the unlimited squeeze and exploitation. So the tendency of capital is to reduce the"necessary"labor time and increase surplus labor-time as far as possible. The nature of pursing the surplus labor (surplus value) makes the worker lose his individuality and"him-self". On the other side,it is just the process of capital's pursing the surplus labor(surplus value) that highly develops the productive power, produces a system of universal relations ,all-round needs and universal capacities, produces a great quantity of free time.During this process, the fact of the lower and lower of"rate of surplus-value"also indicates that the capitalist production also has its own limitation. The capitals indeed promote the development of productive power in some historic stage, but together with the development of productive power, the capital itself becomes the limitation of productive power. Thus the capital quit from the history Instead of"free individuality".Secondly, the production of surplus-labor (surplus-value) appears the production of absolute and relative surplus value. The production of absolute surplus-value appears"the formal subsumption of labour under capital, while the production of relative surplus-value appears The real subsumption of labor under capital, thus the factors to increase the relative surplus value, such as cooperation, the division of labor, machine., and factory, all become the factors of capital and appears the alien to the individual worker. The production of capitalist is just the combination of production of absolute and relative surplus value. The combination of two forms makes workers lose their individuality and fall into inhuman state. However, the forms themselves are also the positive factors to the realization of"free individuality". Once they get rid of the property of capitalist, and are held by the united"social individuals", then it will be not just a possibility of the independent individuality, free and comprehensive development of"every individual".After the analysis of"the direct production process of capital", the author turned into the analysis of"capitalist production on a progressively increasing scale"and made the conclusion that the accumulation of Capital and capitalist production on a progressively increasing scale continually produced the"the formal and real subsumption of labor under capital"and the workers are like dropped into an endless vicious circle losing his individuality and him-self. But on the other hand, we will also see the tendency of the accumulation of Capital and capitalist production on a progressively increasing scale is the"property of social individual"inevitably,which then indicates the inevitable realization of"free individuality".In the end, the author mentioned the relationship between"free individuality"and"the process of circulation of capital","the process of capitalist production as a whole", and pointed out that, the author didn't want to give us a specific analysis, because of the limitation of the thesis, while the other reason was that the author thought the analysis he has gave us had proved his argument. However, it will not affect the force of analysis even he did this.VChapter 5 is the analysis of the relationship between"free individuality"and"social revolution". The chapter pointed out not only did Marx prove the historic inevitability of"free individuality", but also it was himself gradually walked into social revolution from the political critic and launched the revolutionary theory and the practice led by the value goal. The"free individuality"thought just obtained its unceasing rich and development in the interaction with social revolution theory and practice. Meanwhile, the author found there exist a kind of game playing phenomenon through the analysis of the contraction between Marx's revolutionary strategic theory and practice, the inclination of Marx's revolutionary tactics and the transformation about the view of joint stock system, which initiated our thinking about the relationship between the means and the aims- On the one hand, we cannot negatively wait. We must display the subjective initiative fully, goes to the realization of"free individuality"on our own initiative. We must seeks positively any possibility of the realization of our goal, however, on the other hand, when we act, we must be conscious and prevent one kind of danger, that is the means takes the place of our goal. Even though we think the means is advantageous to our goal, we can't conceive it as the excuse of changing the goal into the means. So, revolution is necessary, however, if we take the revolution as our final goal, we will lose the value-goal of the independent individuality, free and comprehensive development of"every individual".VIChapter 6 is the thinking about the historical appraisal of Marx's"free individuality"thought. It firstly involved the position of Marx's"free individuality"thought in Marx's theory. Meanwhile, because the development, mature and practice of Marx's"free individuality"thought is all along with Marx's theory, so this chapter is also the retrospect and thinking about the historical fate of Marx's theory.Firstly,Marx's"free individuality"thought occupied a central value core and aim position in Marx's theory. In the last chapters, we have seen that Marx's analysis of ownership, capital, and revolution was all based on t the fact how these factors influenced the man's individuality and freedom, while the thinking of Marx's whole life was based on the value aim of the independent individuality, free and comprehensive development of"every individual". In this chapter, the author pointed out that that's just the tradition of European advocating freedom and individuality independence culture, which facilitated Marx the for-ever value core and goal of the independent individuality, free and comprehensive development of"every individual". Besides, the author made the concrete analysis of the relationship between the"free individuality"and European social culture in the Appendix. Then it involved Marx's attitude to different literature style of works and some characters,while the attitude in turn reflected the influence of these works and characters to Marx. So the author pointed out that Marx was a complex unique man who was deeply influenced multiply by the literature, economic, mathematics, biology, philosophy and history. Meanwhile the chapter made some interesting analysis of the relationship between Marx and Aeschylus, Spartacus, Martin Luther, Dante, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Balzac, Danidl Defoe, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Goethe, Schiller, Immanuel Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Feuerbach, Hess, Friedrich Engels, Saint-Simon, Fourier, Robert Owen, P. Trémaux,Comte, N. Flerovsky, etc. Of course, because of the limitation of the thesis, there are a lot of other characters not involved; the author said he will finished it in another thesis.Secondly,the author analyzed the flaw of Marx's"free individuality"thought; the first is to integrate all factors into capital, while neglect the influence to the human of science, technology and management of themselves. The second is lacking the microscopic view of human's existence and development. The third is there was great class characteristic and revolutionary characteristic in Marx's ideas. The fourth is during the complex dissemination process, along with the different context Marx's theory appeared different manners, which caused the different fate of Marx's"free individuality"thought together with the Marx's theory's historical fate. Therefore, the chapter firstly demonstrated the fact that Marx's"free individuality"thought had been covered in the Orient from 4 angles, that is, the internal gambling of Communism theory itself, the time background when Marx's theory was born, the Orient social background in which Marx's theory was being disseminated, the Chinese was mainly deeply influenced by"the Communist Manifesto"when they accepted Marx's Theory. And then the author pointed out that as a result of the western traditional liberalism spirit and individualism tradition, and the western's earlier historical contexts to Marx's"free individuality"thought, the development of Marx's ideas in the western was filled with strong sense of reality, era and critical spirit. Together with the development of China, it gradually formed the social critical context. Therefore, the thought of Marx's"free individuality"gradually showed its importance in China. And Marx'ideas will re-irradiate its Vigorous life for this. And actually, we will just re-irradiate the vigorous life of Marxism by the value-goal of the independent individuality, free and comprehensive development of"every individual". Therefore, it must firstly emphasize the Marx's value-goal of the independent individuality, free and comprehensive development of"every individual"and establish the notion of "individual liberty"。Thus we must especially respect the priority of individual and respect the difference of individual when we .advocate all-round development of Human Beings.In the end, the author started with not only chapter 6 but also the whole thesis, made a deep analysis among the mutual relationship of"free individuality", capital, the system of ownership, and revolution, pointing out the capital and revolution are double-edged swords to realize"free individuality"and"individual property"is the key to guarantee"free individuality". Therefore, the author gained the conclusion: On the one side, we must take economic development as the central task. Only by the developed productive force, do we can realize the"free individuality". If we don't have the developed productive force, we will just fall into a vicious circle of poor equalitarianism of communism society. In order to promote the advance of productive force, it needs the full and comprehensive development of capital, therefore, we must take the measure to guarantee the capital has the development by temperance. On the other side, we must remember that we must not fall into another extreme of"only for the productive force. We must not ignore the negative effects to man-himself and social injustice for mercenary capital itself. In view of the thinking,the author thought that at present there will be 2 points to do—the first is to persevere in reform and opening up and keep improving the socialist market economy, on the other hand, to further improve the urban social equality and security system。In order to do this, the most important is to gradually cultivate a Civil Society with Chinese characteristics.At the same time, the author emphasized once more the value core status of"free individuality"thought in the Marx theory and the necessity of realizing"free individuality"in reality. Meanwhile, the author proposed an argument that the"free individuality"has been realized and is being realized and is going to be realized on the land of China. During this process, we must insist on one important principle that must be"practice". The thesis stopped here abruptly, and found a final the destination of this articleVIIThe conclusion part re-emphasized the subject-"It is not enough for thought to strive for realization, reality must itself strive towards thought."①...