whole conditions of his life, it is naturalthat exactlyinthis opposition he should
be most manly, noblest,mostworthyofsympathy.”¹²Thus empowered, the
(male) proletarians join the project of class struggle,convincedthat“they,as
human beings, shall not be made to bow to social conditions,but social condi-
tions oughttoyield to them as human beings.”¹³
As asocial group, the proletariat could be first studied in the factoriesand
tenements of Manchester, yetasasocial imaginary,itarrived on the world his-
torical stagelargelythrough the uniquecombination of idealistphilosophyand
political backwardness that,intrulydialecticalfashion,created the conditions
for arevolutionary situation. As Marx insists in hisContribution to the Critique
of Hegel’sPhilosophyofLaw(1844) the proletariat is“not the naturallyarising
poor but the artificiallyimpoverished.”It is aproduct not of industrial develop-
ment but of the exploitative nature of capitalism. Preciselythrough its status as
the particularclass, the proletariat is able to take on the emancipatory project of
all of humankind: for“by proclaiming thedissolution of the hithertoworld order
the proletariat merelystates thesecret of its own existencefor it isin factthe dis-
solution of that world order.”Identifying the proletarian as the designated me-
diator between matter and spirit and establishing his proper place on the world
historical stage, Marx concludes that,“As philosophyfinds itsmaterialweapons
in the proletariat,sothe proletariat findsitsspiritualweapons in philosophy.”
Significantly, Marx achieves the materialist appropriation of idealist philosophy
through the clichéd languageofemotion, namely the opposition between mind
and heart,with the proletariat cast in the role of all-powerful mediator:“The
emancipation of the Germanis theemancipation of man.Theheadof this eman-
cipation isphilosophy,itshearttheproletariat.”¹⁴
The discursive field established by the terms“worker”and“proletarian”and
the emotional investmentsorganized through theircomplicatedrelationship can
be traced backtoone of the corecontradictions haunting Marxist theory–name-
ly its statusasbothananalysis of capitalism and an alternativetocapitalism.
Whereas the figure of the worker is evokedto draw attentionto the conditions
of labor and the laws of capital, the figure of the proletarian allows the social
imagination to anticipateadifferent future in the present.Given this prefigura-
tive quality, it should not surprise that the enlistment of the“heart”in the proj-
Engels,“The Conditionofthe Working-Class,”502.
Engels,“The Conditionofthe Working-Class,”506.
Karl Marx, Introduction,“Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’sPhilosophyofLaw,”MECW
3: 186–187. The passageiscrucial for understanding Marx’sargument that the conditions for a
true revolution in Germanyoriginated in the backwardness of its political institutions—in other
words,that the lack of particularity allowed for the realization of universality.
56 Chapter 2