Writing Capital

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whatmakespistachionuts: In an extended note on James Mill written about this time (unfortunately not included in most editions of the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts), Marx attacked the notion of credit which he called “the economic judgement on the morality of a man. In credit, man himself, instead of metal or paper, has become the mediator in exchange but not as man, but as the existence of capital and interest.” In contemporary society, according to Marx, men were increasingly producing with the sole object of exchanging and thus “you have no relation to my object as a human being because I myself have no human relation to it … our mutual value is the value of the object for us.” The passage towards the end of the note constitutes a sort of positive counterpart to the description of alienated labour and deserves quoting in full: “Supposing that we had produced in a human manner; each of us would in his production have doubly affirmed himself and his fellow men. I would have: 1.) objectified in my production my individuality and its peculiarity and thus both in my activity enjoyed an individual expression of my life and also in looking at the object have had the individual pleasure of realizing that my personality was objective, visible to the senses and thus 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 I had both satisfied a human need by my work and also objectified the human essence and therefore fashioned for another human being the object that met his need. 3.) I would have been for you the mediator between you and the species and thus been acknowledged and felt by you as a completion of your own essence and a necessary part of yourself and have thus realized that I am confirmed both in your thought and in your love. 4.) In my expression of my life I would have fashioned your expression of your life, and thus in my own activity have realized my own essence, my human, communal essence.” —David McLellan, Marx

whatmakespistachionuts:

In an extended note on James Mill written about this time (unfortunately not included in most editions of the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts), Marx attacked the notion of credit which he called “the economic judgement on the morality of a man. In credit, man himself, instead of metal or paper, has become the mediator in exchange but not as man, but as the existence of capital and interest.” In contemporary society, according to Marx, men were increasingly producing with the sole object of exchanging and thus “you have no relation to my object as a human being because I myself have no human relation to it … our mutual value is the value of the object for us.” The passage towards the end of the note constitutes a sort of positive counterpart to the description of alienated labour and deserves quoting in full:

“Supposing that we had produced in a human manner; each of us would in his production have doubly affirmed himself and his fellow men. I would have:

1.) objectified in my production my individuality and its peculiarity and thus both in my activity enjoyed an individual expression of my life and also in looking at the object have had the individual pleasure of realizing that my personality was objective, visible to the senses and thus 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 I had both satisfied a human need by my work and also objectified the human essence and therefore fashioned for another human being the object that met his need.

3.) I would have been for you the mediator between you and the species and thus been acknowledged and felt by you as a completion of your own essence and a necessary part of yourself and have thus realized that I am confirmed both in your thought and in your love.

4.) In my expression of my life I would have fashioned your expression of your life, and thus in my own activity have realized my own essence, my human, communal essence.”

—David McLellan, Marx