APPENDIX
: A MORE DETAILED SYNOPSIS – with our commentary - OF MARX=S
VIEWS ON THE JEWISH QUESTION.
All the quotations from Marx=s
articles below, are drawn from the Marx-Engels Internet Archive and can
be found at the following web site for the full index of works by Marx
on one particular Internet Archive: http://www.marx.org/Archive/arch-z.gif;
or more directly at:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844-jq/index.htm
(Please note that all emphases below in the quotes
are from the Alliance editors. Original Marx citation is in blue
and Alliance commentary is in black.)
_________________________________________________________________________
Marx=s
article contains more than simply an analysis not only of the attitude
that revolutionaries should take to the Jewish Question. Because the Jewish
Question is a complex mixture of political, civil and religious victimisation,
Marx has to deal with the relation of religion to society. Marx also deals
with Bauer=s misconceptions surrounding
the Democratic Rights Of Man - as adopted
by the French Revolution and the USA War of Independence.
Marx first summarises the
position of Bruno Bauer.
Bauer starts out saying that no
one in Germany, has the type of freedom that Jews want, ie ACivic
political emancipation@. He argues
that it is therefore Aegoist-ic@
to want a Aspecial emancipation@
separate from other humans. He argues that emancipation cannot come from
those who are themselves Anot
free@:
"Bruno Bauer: The German Jews
desire emancipation. What kind of emancipation do they desire? Civic, political
emancipation. Bruno Bauer replies to them: No one in Germany is politically
emancipated. We ourselves are not free. How are we to free you? You Jews
are Aegoists@
if you demand a special emancipation for yourselves as Jews. As Germans,
you ought to work for the political emancipation of Germany, and as human
beings, for the emancipation of mankind, and you should feel the particular
kind of your oppression and your shame not as an exception to the rule,
but on the contrary as a confirmation of the rule.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844-jq/index.htm
For Bauer the roots of the AJewish
Question@ lie in a Areligious
opposition@. This opposition
can only be resolved by rendering the opposition Aimpossible@.
Christianity and Judaism are simply different stages Ain
the development of the human mind@.
But there is only one way to render opposition Aimpossible@
- by Aabolishing
religion@. The Jew must
follow Bauer=s dictum of Aself-emancipation@,
the Jew must renounce religion:
"How, then, does Bauer solve
the Jewish question?..
"We must emancipate ourselves
before we can emancipate others".
The most rigid form of the opposition
between the Jew and the Christian is the Areligious@
opposition. How is an opposition resolved? By making it impossible. How
is religious opposition made impossible? By "abolishing
religion". As soon as Jew and Christian recognize
that their respective religions are no more than "different
stages in the development of the human mind", different
snake skins cast off by "history",
and that man is the snake who sloughed them, the relation of Jew and Christian
is no longer religious but is only a critical, "scientific",
and human relation. AScience@,
then, constitutes their unity. But, contradictions in science are resolved
by science itself."
For Bauer this renunciation and self-emancipation
is necessary for Christians as well as Jews. It has a Auniversal
significance@. The question
embraces more than the individual, being also a Aquestion
of the relation of religion to the state@:
AThe
AGerman
Jew@,
in particular, is confronted by the general absence of political emancipation
and the strongly marked Christian character of the state. In Bauer's conception,
however, the Jewish question has a universal significance, independent
of specifically German conditions. It is the question of the relation of
religion to the state, of the contradiction between Areligious
constraint and political emancipation@.
Emancipation from religion is laid down as a condition, both to the Jew
who wants to be emancipated politically, and to the state which is to effect
emancipation and is itself to be emancipated.@
In any case argues, Bauer, even if
the State itself took the actions demanded by Jews, the State=s
formal actions will not achieve the desired results. Bauer cites the French
State as an example. Here the formal declaration of equality for all was
not matched in practice. He then stresses that the responsibility for emancipation
lies with the victim, the Jew - who should renounce religion and the Sabbath
allowing him/her to attend the Chamber of Deputies and vote down the Aprivileged
religion@. With the ending of
a Aprivileged religion@
(ie Christianity) the freedom of worship as an individual act will follow.
Marx concludes:
ABauer,
therefore, demands, on the one hand, that the Jew should renounce Judaism,
and that mankind in general should renounce religion, in order to achieve
Acivic@
emancipation. On the other hand, he quite consistently regards the Apolitical@
abolition of religion as the abolition of religion as such. The state which
presupposes religion is not yet a true, real state.@
Marx now begins
his demolition of Bauer. In essence, Marx shows that Bauer:
(i) Confuses civil and political emancipation;
(ii) Does not understand the distinction between full
human freedoms and state granted political freedom;
(iii) That he does not understand the concrete manifestations
of the Jewish Question in the different States;
(iv) That he does not understand the Declaration of
Rights Of Man.
Marx outlines the limitations and the
questions left unanswered by the mechanistic Bauer. Especially
asks Marx, What is the nature of the emancipation being demanded that Bauer
has not addressed?
"At this point, the Aone-sided@
formulation of the Jewish question becomes evident. It was by no means
sufficient to investigate: Who is to emancipate? Who is to be Emancipated?
Criticism had to investigate a third point. It had to inquire: AWhat
kind of emancipation@ is in question?
(Editor=s emphasis). What conditions
follow from the very nature of the emancipation that is demanded? Only
the criticism of Apolitical emancipation@
itself would have been the conclusive criticism of the Jewish question
and its real merging in the Ageneral
question of time@. Because Bauer
does not raise the question to this level, he becomes entangled in contradictions.
He puts forward conditions which are not based on the nature of @political@
emancipation itself. He raises questions which are not part of his problem,
and he solves problems which leave this question unanswered. A
Bauer excuses the bigots who opposed
Jewish emancipation, seeing them as only committing only one error- they
assume a Christian state to be Athe
only true one@, and they do not
criticise it as they do Judaism. For Marx the relevant
criticism is the state itself, and the relationship of political
emancipation to human emancipation:
"We find that his error lies
in the fact that he subjects to criticism Aonly@
the AChristian state@,
not the "state as such", that he does not investigate Athe
relation of political emancipation to human emancipation@
and, therefore, puts forward conditions which can be explained only by
uncritical confusion of political emancipation with general human emancipation.@
Thus Marx turns Bauer=s
question to the Jews around. Marx defends in effect
the Aright@
of a private choice to religion and Judaism in particular. This
right is not dependent upon, nor subordinate to a superior political emancipation:
AIf
Bauer asks the Jews: Have you, from your standpoint, the right to want
Apolitical emancipation@?
We ask the converse question: Does
the standpoint of Apolitical@
emancipation give the right to demand from the Jew the abolition of Judaism
and from man the abolition of religion?@
Marx also points out that Afreedoms@
necessitate understanding concrete realities. There are particular
aspects that the Jewish question takes in different societies. Thus in
Germany, a state not yet undergone the bourgeois
revolution, a theological State is encountered by the Jew:
AIn
Germany, where there is no political state, no state as such, the Jewish
question is a purely Atheological@
one. The Jew finds himself in Areligious@
opposition to the state, which recognizes Christianity as its basis. This
state is a theologian Aex professo@.
Criticism here is criticism of theology, a double-edged criticism -- criticism
of Christian theology and of Jewish theology. Hence, we continue to operate
in the sphere of theology, however much we may operate Acritically@
within it.@
Whereas since France
is a constitutional state with differing effects on Jews, there it was
a question of a Aincompleteness
of political emancipation@:
AIn
France, a Aconstitutional@
state, the Jewish question is a question of constitutionalism, the question
of the Aincompleteness of political
emancipation@. Since the Asemblance@
of a state religion is retained here, although in a meaningless and self-contradictory
formula, that of a Areligion
of the majority@, the relation
of the Jew to the state retains the Asemblance@
of a religious, theological opposition.
Only one state,
the USA, has an apparently fully secular relationship with its peoples,
allowing religious freedoms. Although Marx made it clear that he
obviously understood that hypocrisies abounded, saying that although the
USA Constitution was clear on the freedom of worship, ANorth
America is pre-eminently the country of religiosity@.
Nonetheless:
AOnly
in the North American states -- at least, in some of them -- does the Jewish
question lose its Atheological@
significance and become a really Asecular@
question. Only where the political state exists in its completely developed
form can the relation of the Jew, and of the religious man in general,
to the political state, and therefore the relation of religion to the state,
show itself in its specific character, in its purity. The criticism of
this relation ceases to be theological criticism as soon as the state ceases
to adopt a theological attitude toward religion, as soon as it behaves
towards religion as a state -- i.e., Apolitically@.
Criticism, then, becomes criticism of the political state. At this point,
where the question ceases to be theological, Bauer's criticism ceases to
be critical.@
In any case,
the fundamental question is the relation of political emancipation to religion.
Marx argues that if religious motivations still remain, despite Apolitical
emancipation@ in countries like
the USA, it is because of an incomplete secular
freedom, a Adefect@
of a Asecular narrowness@.
Religion itself is not the Acause@
of the defect. Religion can only be overcome not
by overcoming Areligious narrowness@
but by Agetting rid of secular
restrictions@- Not by Aabolishing
religion@ as Bauer proclaims:
AThe
question is: What is the relation of complete political emancipation to
religion? If we find that even in the country of complete political emancipation,
religion not only exists, but displays a fresh and vigorous vitality, that
is proof that the existence of religion is not in contradiction to the
perfection of the state. Since, however, the existence of religion is the
existence of defect, the source of this defect can only be sought in the
nature of the state itself. We no longer regard religion as the Acause@,
but only as the manifestation of secular narrowness. Therefore, we explain
the religious limitations of the free citizen by their secular limitations.
We do not assert that they must overcome their religious narrowness in
order to get rid of their secular restrictions, we
assert that they will overcome their religious narrowness once they get
rid of their secular restrictions. We do not
turn secular questions into theological ones... The question of the relation
of political emancipation to religion becomes for us the question of the
relation of political emancipation to human emancipation. We criticize
the religious weakness of the political state by criticizing the political
state in its secular form, apart from its weaknesses as regards religion.@
Marx agrees with Bauer, that for both
Jews and Christians, full liberty means shedding religious superstitions.
But for a fuller human liberation, the first and immediate need is for
separation of state and religion, for the
Aemancipation@
of the state from any Aparticular@secular
elements and from Astate religion@.
This is a Apolitical
emancipation@ & not a Areligious
emancipation@ which requires
Ahuman emancipation@:
AThe
contradiction between the state and a particular religion, for instance
Judaism, is given by us a human form as the contradiction between the state
and Aparticular@
secular elements; the contradiction between the state and religion in general
as the contradiction between the state and its presuppositions in general.
The political emancipation of the Jew, the Christian, and, in general,
of religious man, is the emancipation of the
Astate@
from Judaism, from Christianity, from religion in general...
the state as a state emancipates itself from religion by emancipating itself
from the state religion -- that is to say, by the state as a state not
professing any religion, but, on the contrary, asserting itself as a state.
The Apolitical@
emancipation from religion is not a religious emancipation that has been
carried through to completion and is free from contradiction, because political
emancipation is not a form of Ahuman@
emancipation which has been carried through to completion and is free from
contradiction.@
It is irrelevant if even the majority
of the people remain religious. For religious sentiments remain, until
the people undergo a more profound freedom. The problem is the Alimits@
of a Apolitical emancipation@
by itself:
AThe
limits of political emancipation are evident at once from the fact that
the state can free itself from a restriction without man being really free
from this restriction, that the state can be a Afree
state@ without man being a Afree
man@.
Marx means by this, the
need for a further and profound liberation of the human. To drive
his point home, Marx draws an analogy to private
property relations. As the USA state had abolished requirements
of property for the right to vote, he argues that it had effectively Aabolished@
private property. But Marx says this is ridiculous since clearly, private
property not only exists in the USA, but that it forms the presupposed
basis for the state:
ANevertheless,
the political annulment of private property not only fails to abolish private
property but even presupposes it. The state abolishes, in its own way,
distinctions of birth, social rank, education, occupation, when it declares
that birth, social rank, education, occupation, are non-political distinctions,
when it proclaims, without regard to these distinction, that every member
of the nation is an Aequal@
participant in national sovereignty, when it treats all elements of the
real life of the nation from the standpoint of the state. Nevertheless,
the state allows private property, education, occupation, to Aact@
in Atheir@
way - Ai.e.@,
as private property, as education, as occupation, and to exert the influence
of their Aspecial@
nature. Far from abolishing these real distinctions, the state only exists
on the presupposition of their existence; it feels itself to be a political
state and asserts its universality only in opposition to these elements
of its being.@
Consistent with this type of hypocrisy
of the tenets of the bourgeois Constitution, religious conflicts will exist
in politically bourgeois states. But these are no different in kind from
contradictions even the bourgeoisie find themselves in with respect to
their status as supposed free Acitizens@.
Marx locates Jew=s
problems in civil society, in the same conflicts of the Acitizen@
whose political powers are merely a Asophistry@
and not a real one:
AMan,
as the adherent of a particular religion, finds himself in conflict with
his citizenship and with other men as members of the community. This conflict
reduces itself to the Asecular@
division between the Apolitical@
state and Acivil@
society. For man as a bourgeois [ here, meaning, member of civil society,
private life], Alife in the state@
is Aonly a semblance or a temporary
exception to the essential and the rule@.
Of course, the bourgeois, like the Jew, remains only sophistically in the
sphere of political life, just as the citoyen only sophistically remains
a Jew or a bourgeois. But, this sophistry is not personal. It is the sophistry
of the political state itself. The difference between the merchant and
the citizen, between the day-labourer and the citizen, between the landowner
and the citizen, between the merchant and the citizen, between the Aliving
individual@ and the Acitizen@.
The contradiction in which the religious man finds himself with the political
man is the same contradiction in which the bourgeois finds himself with
the citoyen, and the member of civil society with his political lion=s
skin.@
For Marx, Bauer
ignores the Jew=s secular problems,
confining himself to the purely religious conflicts:
AThis
secular conflict, to which the Jewish question
ultimately reduces itself, the relation between
the political state and its preconditions, whether these are material elements,
such as private property, etc., or spiritual elements, such as culture
or religion, the conflict between the general interest and private interest,
the schism between the political state and civil society -- these secular
antitheses Bauer allows to persist, whereas
he conducts a polemic against their religious expression.@
As explained, Marx distinguishes political
emancipation from the full human emancipation that tackles the religious
sentiment. It is not surprising then, that Marx says that political emancipation
of itself, often leaves religion intact. A thorough
liberation, including from religion, requires special periods when
new political states arise out of civil society, where a Apermanent@
non-stop revolution does not baulk at hurdles:
AOf
course, in periods when the political state as such is born violently out
of civil society, when political liberation is the form in which men strive
to achieve their liberation, the state can and must go as far as the abolition
of religion, the destruction of religion. But, it can do so only in the
same way that it proceeds to the abolition of private property, to the
maximum, to confiscation, to progressive taxation, just as it goes as far
as the abolition of life, the guillotine. At times of special self-confidence,
political life seeks to suppress its prerequisite, civil society and the
elements composing this society, and to constitute itself as the real species-life
of man, devoid of contradictions. But, it can achieve this only by coming
into Aviolent@
contradiction with its own conditions of life, only by declaring the revolution
to be permanent, and, therefore, the political drama necessarily ends with
the re-establishment of religion, private property, and all elements of
civil society, just as war ends with peace.@
So Marx differentiates between the
more limited liberation in political emancipation of the >secular=
state of bourgeois society (that which in words denies religious persecution
and property rights, but in fact endorses them) and a fuller human liberation.
Where does all this leave the Jew? Bauer had
denied the Jew civil rights till renunciation of Judaism. Marx denies that.
But he adds, for full liberation, the Jew must strive for a Ahuman
liberation@ from religion itself
- as well as striving for political emancipation. The latter can be achieved
without renouncing Judaism, but Ahuman
liberation@ requires leaving
religion. The Jew however, in confronting the AChristian@
state, in demanding Acivic rights@
is acting politically:
ATherefore,
we do not say to the Jews, as Bauer does: You cannot be emancipated politically
without emancipating yourselves radically from Judaism. On the contrary,
we tell them: Because you can be emancipated
politically without renouncing Judaism completely and incontrovertibly,
political emancipation itself is not Ahuman@
emancipation. If you Jews want to be emancipated
politically, without emancipating yourselves humanly, the half-hearted
approach and contradiction is not in you alone, it is inherent in the Anature@
and Acategory@
of political emancipation. If you find yourself within the confines of
this category, you share in a general confinement. Just as the state evangelizes
when, although it is a state, it adopts a Christian attitude towards the
Jews, so the Jew acts politically when, although a Jew, he demands civic
rights.@
Bauer had a somewhat mystical
idea of how Democratic Rights were obtained.
According to Bauer, the Arights
of Man were not a gift of nature@
but were obtained by struggle against historical tradition:
ABut,
if a man, although a Jew, can be emancipated politically and receive civic
rights, can he lay claim to the so-called Arights
of man@ and receive them? Bauer
denies it. [Says Bauer]:
AThe
question is whether the Jew as such, that is, the Jew who himself admits
that he is compelled by his true nature to live permanently in separation
from other men, is capable of receiving the universal rights of man and
of conceding them to others. For the Christian world, the idea of the rights
of man was only discovered in the last century. It is not innate in men;
on the contrary, it is gained only in a struggle against the historical
traditions in which hitherto man was brought up. Thus the rights of man
are not a gift of nature, not a legacy from past history, but the reward
of the struggle against the accident of birth and against the privileges
which up to now have been handed down by history from generation to generation.
These rights are the result of culture, and only one who has earned and
deserved them can possess them.@
ACan
the Jew really take possession of them? As long as he is a Jew, the restricted
nature which makes him a Jew is bound to triumph over the human nature
which should link him as a man with other men, and will separate him from
non-Jews. He declares by this separation that the particular nature which
makes him a Jew is his true, highest nature, before which human nature
has to give way. Similarly, the Christian as a Christian cannot grant the
rights of man.@
In countering
this naive mystic view, Marx shows that Bauer had not even understood the
notion of the Auniversal rights
of man@. For Bauer,
man has to sacrifice the Aprivilege
of faith@ to obtain universal
rights of man. But Marx points out that these rights were never seen, by
either the French and the USA framers of the Declaration of Rights, as
being contingent upon abolition of religion:
ALet
us examine, for a moment, the so-called rights of man -- to be precise,
the rights of man in their authentic form, in the form which they have
among those who Adiscovered@
them, the North Americans and the French. These rights of man are, in part,
political rights, rights which can only be exercised in community with
others. Their content is Aparticipation@
in the community, and specifically in the political community, in the life
of the state. They come within the category of political freedom, the category
of Acivic rights@,
which, as we have seen, in no way presuppose the incontrovertible and positive
abolition of religion -- nor, therefore, of Judaism.@
Marx now examines the possible differences
between the Arights
of man@ and the Arights
of the citizen@:
AThere
remains to be examined the other part of the rights of man -- the Arights
of man@, insofar as these differ
from the Arights of the citizen.
Included among them is freedom of conscience, the right to practice any
religion one chooses. The privilege of faith is expressly recognized either
as a right of man or as the consequence of a right of man, that of liberty.
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 1791, Article 10:
AThe
freedom of every man to practice the religion of which he is an adherent.@
Marx quotes the Declaration, showing
that the Right of freedom of conscience is drawn
from ANature@:
AAll
men have received from nature the imprescriptible right to worship the
Almighty according to the dictates of their conscience, and no one can
be legally compelled to follow, establish, or support against his will
any religion or religious ministry. No human authority can, in any circumstances,
intervene in a matter of conscience or control the forces of the soul.@
Marx now distinguishes between Aman@
and Acitizen@.
Man - as in Arights of man@
- is the person who makes up Acivil
society@. Man, separated atomically
from other men. He goes on to quote directly from the Amost
radical Constitution@ that of
1793, that was used to define liberty, what is it that Aconstitutes
liberty@?
AThe
rights of man, are, as such, distinct from.. the rights of the citizen.
Who is man as distinct from citizen? None other than the member of civil
society. Why is the member of civil society called Aman@;
why are his rights called the rights of man? How is this fact to be explained?
From the relationship between the political state and civil society, from
the nature of political emancipation...
...Above all, we note the fact
that the so-called rights of man.. as distinct from the rights of citizens,
are nothing but the rights of a member of civil society -- Ai.e.@,
the rights of egoistic man, of man separated from other men and from the
community. Let us hear what the most radical Constitution, the Constitution
of 1793, has to say: Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
Article 2. AThese rights, etc.,
(the natural and imprescriptible rights) are: equality, liberty, security,
property.@
What constitutes liberty?
"Article 6. ALiberty
is the power which man has to do everything that does not harm the rights
of others@, or, according to
the Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1791: ALiberty
consists in being able to do everything which does not harm others.@
Liberty, therefore, is the right
to do everything that harms no one else. The limits within which anyone
can act Awithout harming@
someone else are defined by law, just as the boundary between two fields
is determined by a boundary post. It is a question of the liberty of man
as an isolated monad, withdrawn into himself. A
Marx returns to contrast Bauer=s
position with that of the 1793 Constitution. Bauer=s
position in demanding of the Jew to renounce Judaism
before granting human rights- ALiberty@
in the words of the Declaration of Rights Of Man - is that unless
the Jew does renounce Judaism he will remain Aseparate
from non-Jews@:
AWhy
is the Jew, according to Bauer, incapable of acquiring the rights of man?
@As long as he is a Jew, the
restricted nature which makes him a Jew is bound to triumph over the human
nature which should link him as a man with other men, and will separate
him from non-Jews.@
And Marx replies to him saying that
the very notion of liberty under the bourgeois Declaration
of Rights is of a Aseparation
of man from man@, on an isolated
individual. This is easily illustrated with respect to another aspect
of the Declaration of Rights of Man, that concerning private property:
ABut,
the right of man to liberty is based not on the association of man with
man, but on the separation of man from man. It is the right of this separation,
the right of the Arestricted@
individual, withdrawn into himself. The practical application of man=s
right to liberty is man=s right
to private property.
What constitutes man=s
right to private property?
Article 16. (Constitution of
1793):
AThe
right of property is that which every citizen has of enjoying and of disposing
at his discretion of his goods and income, of the fruits of his labor and
industry.@
The right of man to private property
is, therefore, the right to enjoy one=s
property and to dispose of it at one=s
discretion (a son gre), without regard to other men, independently of society,
the right of self-interest. This individual liberty and its application
form the basis of civil society. It makes every man see in other men not
the realization of his own freedom, but the barrier to it. But, above all,
it proclaims the right of man Aof
enjoying and of disposing at his discretion of his goods and income, of
the fruits of his labor and industry.@
Of the other
rights of Man: AThere
remains the other rights of man: equality and security.@
Marx goes on to show that these also consist
of a guarantee of individual rights as a Aself-sufficient
nomad:
AEquality,
used here in its non-political sense, is nothing but the equality of the
liberty described above -- namely: each man is to the same extent regarded
as such a self-sufficient monad. The Constitution of 1795 defines the concept
of this equality, in..
Article 3 (Constitution of
1795):
AEquality
consists in the law being the same for all, whether it protects or punishes.@
And Security? Article 8
(Constitution of 1793):
ASecurity
consists in the protection afforded by society to each of its members for
the preservation of his person, his rights, and his property.@
Security is the highest social concept
of civil society, the concept of Apolice@,
expressing the fact that the whole of society exists only in order to guarantee
to each of its members the preservation of his person, his rights, and
his property. It is in this sense that Hegel calls civil society Athe
state of need and reason@.
Marx concludes that egoism is
enshrined in the Democratic Rights of Man:
ANone
of the so-called rights of man, therefore, go beyond egoistic man, beyond
man as a member of civil society -- that is, an individual withdrawn into
himself, into the confines of his private interests and private caprice,
and separated from the community. In the rights of man, he is far from
being conceived as a species-being; on the contrary, species-like itself,
society, appears as a framework external to the individuals, as a restriction
of their original independence. The sole bound holding them together it
natural necessity, need and private interest, the preservation of their
property and their egoistic selves.@
As the Democratic Rights of Man signalled
the victory of the bourgeois production over feudal
production, Marx finds it consistent that an Aegoistic
man@ should result:
AFeudal
society was resolved into its basic element -- man, but man as he really
formed its basis -- egoistic man. This Aman@,
the member of civil society, is thus the basis, the precondition, of the
Apolitical@
state. He is recognized as such by this state in the rights of man.@
Again Marx stresses the
incompleteness of the emancipation achieved under bourgeois rule,
that there is freedom of religious opinion, but not freedom from religion:
AHence,
man was not freed from religion, he received religious freedom. He was
not freed from property, he received freedom to own property. He was not
freed from the egoism of business, he received freedom to engage in business.
Man as a member of civil society, unpolitical man, inevitably appears,
however, as the Anatural@
man. The Arights of man@
appears as Anatural rights@,
because conscious activity is concentrated on the Apolitical@
act. A
Full emancipation has still to come,
when the Aabstract citizen@
is Are-absorbed@
into the individual man, - that is when recognises and exerts his conscious
Asocial powers@
:
AAll@
emancipation is a Areduction@
of the human world and relationships to Aman
himself@. Political emancipation
is the reduction of man, on the one hand, to a member of civil society,
to an egoistic, independent individual, and, on the other hand, to a citizen,
a juridical person. Only when the real, individual man re-absorbs in himself
the abstract citizen, and as an individual human being has become a species-being
in his everyday life, in his particular work, and in his particular situation,
only when man has recognized and organized his "own powers" as -social@
powers, and, consequently, no longer separates social power from himself
in the shape of Apolitical@
power, only then will human emancipation have been accomplished.@
For Bauer, the
Christian is closer to freedom than the Jew, since the Christian
only needs to give up religion. But the Jew not only has to give up religion
but also has to give up struggle to Aperfecting
his religion@. Marx realises
that Bauer has simply re-dressed in civic clothes,
the old religious conflict between Judaism and Christianity. Marx
condemns the Atransformation@
of Jewish emancipation into a Apurely
religious question:
AFor
Bauer: AThe Christian has to
surmount only one stage, namely, that of his religion, in order to give
up religion altogether@, and
therefore become free. AThe Jew,
on the other hand, has to break not only with his Jewish nature, but also
with the development towards perfecting his religion, a development which
has remained alien to him.@ Thus,
Bauer here transforms the question of Jewish emancipation into a purely
religious question. The theological problem
as to whether the Jew or the Christian has the better prospect of salvation
is repeated here in the enlightened form: which of them is more capable
of Aemancipation@.
No longer is the question asked: Is it Judaism or Christianity that makes
a man free? On the contrary, the question is now: Which makes man freer,
the negation of Judaism or the negation of Christianity?@
Bauer uses a complex theological argument
to portray the Jews need to overcome not only Judaism itself, but also
Judaism=s link with Christianity.
Jews must not only come to terms with Judaism, but also with Christianity
by carrying out the ACritique
of the Evangelical History of the Synoptics@
and the ALife of Jesus@,
etc.@ Since Bauer conceives of
Judaism as a Acrude religious
criticism of Christianity, and of Judaism Amerely@
of religious significance, he transforms the emancipation of the Jews,
also into a philosophical-theological act. Finally Bauer notes & excuses
that Christians find Jews Aoffensive@.
In contrast to this religious hocus-pocus, Marx emphasises
the secular realities. This means an unsentimental analysis of the
position of the Jew in society:
AWe
are trying to break with the theological formulation of the question. For
us, the question of the Jew=s
capacity for emancipation becomes the question: What particular Asocial@
element has to be overcome in order to abolish Judaism?
For the present-day Jew=s capacity
for emancipation is the relation of Judaism to the emancipation of the
modern world. This relation necessarily results from the special position
of Judaism in the contemporary enslaved world. Let us consider the actual,
worldly Jew -- not the Sabbath Jew, as Bauer does, but the everyday Jew.
Let us not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let us look
for the secret of his religion in the real Jew.@
So saying Marx locates the Jewish reality
in money trading, in Asacher@
- or Ahuckstering@:
AWhat
is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is
the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God?
Money. Very well then! Emancipation from huckstering and money, consequently
from practical, real Judaism, would be the self-emancipation of our time.@
This being so, only a societal change
of society to Aabolish those
preconditions of huckstering@
- can make the AJew impossible@:
AAn
organization of society which would abolish the preconditions for huckstering,
and therefore the possibility of huckstering, would make the Jew impossible.
His religious consciousness would be dissipated like a thin haze in the
real, vital air of society. On the other hand, if the Jew recognizes that
this Apractical@
nature of his is futile and works to abolish it, he extricates himself
from his previous development and works for Ahuman
emancipation@ as such and turns
against the supreme practical expression of human self-estrangement. We
recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the Apresent
time@, an element which through
historical development -- to which in this harmful respect the Jews have
zealously contributed -- has been brought to its present high level, at
which it must necessarily begin to disintegrate. In the final analysis,
the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.@
Bauer argues that the Jews have financial
power, and goes so far as to state that it is fiction
to say that the Jew is deprived of political rights, given the Jew has
so much money power:
AAccording
to Bauer, it is Aa fictitious
state of affairs when in theory the Jew is deprived of political rights,
whereas in practice he has immense power and exerts his political influence
Aen gros@,
although it is curtailed Aen
detail@.@
Marx replies that money power is not
always consonant with political power:
AThe
contradiction that exists between the practical political power of the
Jew and his political rights is the contradiction between politics and
the power of money in general. Although theoretically the former is superior
to the latter, in actual fact politics has become the serf of financial
power.@
The peculiar power of the Jews arises
from the need for money free of restraints:
AJudaism
has held its own Aalongside@
Christianity, not only as religious criticism of Christianity.. but equally
because the practical Jewish spirit, Judaism, has maintained itself and
even attained its highest development in Christian society. The Jew, who
exists as a distinct member of civil society, is only a particular manifestation
of the Judaism of civil society... The Jew is perpetually created by civil
society from its own entrails. What, in itself, was the basis of the Jewish
religion? Practical need, egoism. ... Practical need, egoism, is the principle
of civil society, and as such appears in pure form as soon as civil society
has fully given birth to the political state. The god of practical need
and self-interest is money. Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face
of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man --
and turns them into commodities. Money is the universal self-established
Avalue@
of all things. It has, therefore, robbed the whole world -- both the world
of men and nature -- of its specific value. Money is the estranged essence
of man's work and man's existence, and this alien essence dominates him,
and he worships it. The god of the Jews has become secularized and has
become the god of the world. The bill of exchange
is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange.
The view of nature attained under the domination of private property and
money is a real contempt for, and practical debasement of, nature; in the
Jewish religion, nature exists, it is true, but it exists only in imagination.@
Indeed Judaism reaches its peak in
Christian society, since its social function of money loaning is unique,
and very much needed by Christians:
AJudaism
reaches its highest point with the perfection of civil society, but it
is only in the AChristian@
world that civil society attains perfection. Only under the dominance of
Christianity, which makes Aall@
national, natural, moral, and theoretical conditions Aextrinsic@
to man, could civil society separate itself completely from the life of
the state, sever all the species-ties of man, put egoism and selfish need
in the place of these species-ties, and dissolve the human world into a
world of atomistic individuals who are inimically opposed to one another.@
AChristianity
sprang from Judaism. It has merged again in Judaism. From the outset, the
Christian was the theorizing Jew, the Jew is, therefore, the practical
Christian, and the practical Christian has become a Jew again. Christianity
had only in semblance overcome real Judaism. It was too noble-minded, too
spiritualistic to eliminate the crudity of practical need in any other
way than by elevation to the skies. Christianity is the sublime thought
of Judaism, Judaism is the common practical application of Christianity,
but this application could only become general after Christianity as a
developed religion had completed Atheoretically@
the estrangement of man from himself and from nature. Only then could Judaism
achieve universal dominance and make alienated man and alienated nature
into Aalienable@,
vendible objects subjected to the slavery of egoistic need and to trading.
Selling [verausserung] is the practical aspect of alienation [Entausserung].
Just as man, as long as he is in the grip of religion, is able to objectify
his essential nature only by turning it into something Aalien@,
something fantastic, so under the domination of egoistic need he can be
active practically, and produce objects in practice, only by putting his
products, and his activity, under the domination of an alien being, and
bestowing the significance of an alien entity -- money -- on them. In its
perfected practice, Christian egoism of heavenly bliss is necessarily transformed
into the corporal egoism of the Jew, heavenly need is turned into world
need, subjectivism into self-interest. We explain the tenacity of the Jew
not by his religion, but, on the contrary, by the human basis of his religion
-- practical need, egoism.@
Is there a
Jewish Anation@?
Marx thinks this is a Achimera@:
"The chimerical nationality
of the Jew is the nationality of the merchant, of the man of money in general.
The groundless law of the Jew is only a religious caricature of groundless
morality and right in general, of the purely formal rites with which the
world of self-interest surrounds itself. Here, too, man's supreme relation
is the legal one, his relation to laws that are valid for him not because
they are laws of his own will and nature, but because they are the dominant
laws and because departure from them is avenged.@
Again the Asocial
emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism@
ie the emancipation of society from money and mercantile bonds of trading:
AOnce
society has succeeded in abolishing the empirical essence of Judaism --
huckstering and its preconditions -- the Jew will have become impossible,
because his consciousness no longer has an object, because the subjective
basis of Judaism, practical need, has been humanized, and because the conflict
between man's individual-sensuous existence and his species-existence has
been abolished.
The Asocial@
emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism.@
All quoted sections in the Appendix
are from the Marx-Engels Internet Archive located at the web site : "http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844-jq/index.htm";
all at <http://www.marx.org/Archive/arch-z.gif>
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View of Jewry