Karl Marx: A biography by David McLellan

PARIS 99

have a definite, human value and only love could be exchanged for love,

and so on.

It was in contrast to this society based on money and credit that Marx

outlined his idea of man's authentic social existence:

Since human nature is man's true communal nature, men create and

develop their communal nature by their natural action; they develop

their social being which is no abstract, universal power as opposed to

single individuals, but the nature of each individual, his own activity,

his own life, his own enjoyment, his own wealth. Therefore this true

communal nature does not originate in reflection, it takes shape through

the need and egoism of individuals, i.e. it is produced directly by the

effect of their being. It is not dependent on man whether this communal

being exists or not; but so long as man has not recognized himself as

man and has not organized the world in a human way, this communal

nature appears in the form of alienation - because its subject, man, is

a self-alienated being. Men - not in the abstract, but as real, living,

particular individuals - are this nature.^144

With the transformation of labour into wage-labour, this alienation
was inevitable. In primitive barter men only exchanged the surplus of their
own produce. But soon men produced with the sole object of exchanging
and finally 'it becomes quite accidental and inessential whether the pro-
ducer derives immediate satisfaction from a product that he personally
needs, and equally whether the very activity of his labour enables him to
fulfil his personality, realize his natural capacities and spiritual aims'.^145
This process was only accelerated by the division of labour that increased
with civilisation and meant that 'you have no relationship to my object
as a human being because I myself have no human relation to it'.^146
Marx finished his note on money with a description of unalienated
labour and this is one of the few passages where he described in any
detail his picture of the future communist society. It is therefore worth
quoting at length:

Supposing that we had produced in a human manner; in his production

each of us would have doubly affirmed himself and his fellow men. (1)

I would have objectified in my production my individuality and its

peculiarity, and would thus have enjoyed in my activity an individual

expression of my life and would have also had - in looking at the object

• the individual pleasure of realizing that my personality was objective,
  visible to the senses and therefore a power raised beyond all doubt; (2)
  in your enjoyment or use of my product I would have had the direct
  enjoyment of realizing that by my work I had both satisfied a human
  need and also objectified the human essence and therefore fashioned
  for another human being the object that met his need; (3) I would have