Takahisa Oishi
Introduction
As Engels said, Marx's system is a critique of English political economy, German classical philosophy and French socialism.
Surprisingly, however, the logical structure of this three-part enterprise has never been made clear. Once this simple structure has been clarified, the critique as whole becomes easier to understand. In my view "The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844" (EPM)is the first and simplest attempt at this critique, and it is the logical place to begin.
To defend this view I shall begin by critically summarising the research on the EPM to date. (All quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from "Marx-Engels Collected Works," Vol. 3, Moscow, 1975. )
Specialists on EPM agree on the following three points: firstly, EPM is Marx's first critique of political economy; secondly, the central concept in EPM is 'alienated labour' through which English political economy, German philosophy and French socialism are criticised; thirdly, 'alienated labour' also has a function in economic analysis. However most Marxist economists do not regard 'alienated labour' as an important concept in Marx's mature thought, as seen in "Capital".
Consequently they have not regarded EPM, his first critique, as very important. l shall argue that the concept 'alienated labour' is essentiaI to Marx's whole system at every stage. An investigation into the first two manuscripts of EPM will show that 'alienatedlabour' is not at all extraneous to Marx's cfitique.
Specialists have genrally analysed the EPM in three parts:
1. [First Manuscript: Former Part] (=[FM: FP])
2. [First Manuscript: Latter Part] (=[FM: LP])
3. [FirstManuscript: Former Part] taken together with [Second Manuscript] (=[SM])
A formal examination of the two manuscripts will make clear how the EPM should be understood as the first draft of Marx's critique.
The Position of the First and Second Manuscripts
1 The Relation of [FM: LP] and [SM]
There are two suppositions concerning the content of the missing parts of [SM]. The first supposes that the description of the three stages of exchange in history would be developed in order to explain the historical forms of private property in [SM]. Evidence for this includes the fact that most of the "Notes on James Mill" presumes that Marx had done this himself. This fact is then linked to the distinction between movable and immovable property, the sketch concerning the movement of capital and labour in [SM], and the discussion of 'two problems' at the end of [FM: LP]. Mitzutani concludes:
It might not be wrong to conclude that the task of the[Second Manuscript] is to make clear the meaning of alienated labour and private property in human history by giving an account of their historical development*.
According to this view the content of [SM] has nothing to do with that of [FM], and the conclusion is inevitable that there is no part of EPM where economic theories are developed. This has given rise to three critical questions. Firstly, what is the basis for supposing that the "Notes on James Mill" would have been quoted in [SM]H The only evidence comes from outside the EPM. Secondly, could Marx really have been concerned with history qua history after [FM: LP]? After that point he seems only concerned with the comprehesion (Begreifen) of the laws of private property. Thirdly, does not the content of the [Third Manuscript] prove that the analysis of [SM] had to be at the logical level? For example, Marx writes:
We have already seen how the political economist establishes the unity of labour and capital in a variety of ways: (1)Capital is accumulated labuor. (2)The determinations* of capital within production|partly, reprodution of capital with profit, partly. . . (3 MEC 312).
On the other hand, a second view supposes that [FM: LP] and [SM] form two components of the analysis of the immediate process of capital. The basis of this view is the content (particularly pp. 287-8)of [SM]. The only weak point in this view is that its adherents do not make plain the logical structure of the first two manuscripts. Typically they say:
We should not forget that the real historical process is reflected in 'political economy' and will be made clear through the critique of 'political economy' by Marx*.
This is correct, but it is not enough to persuade specialists adhering to the first view. I will develop this view after the following formal considerations concerning the relationship between the first two manuscripts. Marx repeated his comments on the relation of 'private property' eight times in [FM: LP] and twice in [SM]. I quote some of these comments in order to draw conclusions:
[Comments in [FM]]
(Extract 1)Through estranged, alienated labour, the worker produces the relationship to this labour of a man alien to labour and standing outside it. The relationship of the worker to labour creates the relation to it of the capitalist or whatever one chooses to call the master of labour (3 MEC 279).
(Extract 2)Alienated labour has resolved itself for us into two components which depend on one another, or which are but deferent expressions of one and the same relationship. Appropriation appears as estrangement, as alienation; and alienation appears as appropriation, estrangement as true naturalisation*(3 MEC 281).
(Extract 3)Having seen that in relation to the worker who appropriates nature by means of his labour, this appropriation appears as estrangement, his own spontaneous activity as activity for another and as activity of another, vitality as a sacrifice of life, production of the object as loss of the object to an alien power, to an alien person, ę we shall now consider the relation to the worker, to labour and its object of this person who is alien to labour and the worker (3 MEC 281-2).
[Comments in the [SM]]
(Extract 4)The relations of private property contain latent within them the relation of private property as labour, the relation of private property as capital, and the mutual relation of these two to one another (3 MEC 285).
(Extract 5)The character of private property is expressed by labour, capital, and the relation between these two (3 MEC 289).
[Conclusions drawn from these extracts]
Firstly, 'private property' or 'alienated labour' consists of two aspects: the 'relation of the worker to labour and to the production of his labour' (or 'the relation of private property as labour')and the 'relation of the non-worker to the worker and to the product of his labour' (or 'the relation of private property as capital').
That means these two aspects are 'two components which depend on one another, or which are but different expressions of one and the same relationship'.
Secondly, these two aspects are defined as 'appropriation' appears as estrangement, as 'alienation' appears as appropriation, estrangement as true naturalisation.
Thirdly, 'appropriation appears as alienation, estrangement' defines the 'relation of private property as labour'. 'Alienation appears as appropriation, estrangement as true naturalisation' must define the 'relation of private property as labour'. The analysis in [FM] is limited to 'the relation of private property as labour,' which logically produces the other relation. Thus [FM] ends by posing the analysis of the other relation as a topic for the following manuscript.
Lastly, in [SM] the reconfirmation of, 'both relations' shows that the 'relation of private property as capital' must have been analysed there.
We can now conclude the following:
(a)the 'relation of private property' consists both of the alienation of the worker from his work and from his product and of the appropriation of work and product by the non-worker;
(b)the object of analysis in [SM] is the same as that in [FM: LP], i.e., the immediate production process of capital. These are the only immanent interpretations of [FM: LP] and [SM], and confirm the second view on the content of [SM].
Following through on these conclusions, we can now confirm that the logical position of [SM] in the EPM is the same as that of [FM: LP], i.e., the derivation of economic laws from the principle of private property, that is, the genetic development of economic categories from 'the general nature (or essence)of private property'. In [FM: LP] Marx has already developed a conception (Vorstellung) of the structural and dynamic laws of the capitalist economy through the works of political economists and socialists. At the beginning of [FM: LP] he demonstrates that the basic flaw in classical economics is that the economists did not comprehend the inner, necessary relationships of their categories. They had no conception that the economic categories should be explained step-by-step from the abstract up to the more complex and concrete. Thus Marx set himself the task of comprehending these laws in the manuscript which followed:
Political economy starts with the fact of private property; it does not explain it to us. It expresses in general, abstract formulas the material process through which private property actually passes, and these formulas it then takes for laws. It does not comprehend these laws, i.e., it does not demonstrate how they arise from the very nature of private property (3 MEC 270-1).
Thus Marx's task is to deduce the 'general nature of private property' and then to develop each economic category from this as a more precise definition. This is the real meaning of the phrase in which Marx
recommends grasping economic categories as scientific reflections of historical, transcendent economic relations of production. He writes:
Just as we have derived the concept of private property from the concept of estranged alienated labour by analysis, so we can develop every category of political economy with the help of these two factors; and we shall find again in each category, e.g., trade, competition, capital, money only a particular and developed expression of these first elements (3 MEC 281).
2 The Position of the First and Second Manuscripts
As Marx himself put it, his work in [FM: LP] and the following manuscripts were supposed to expose the 'essence of private property' and to demonstrate how economic laws arise from its very nature. However to understand this work it is important to grasp two points:
(a)the 'separation of labour, capital and landed property,' which had been presupposed earlier in [FM: LP], must now be explained;
(b)this exercise has nothing to do with the historical 'original accumulation of capital'. This separation is rather produced regularly every year and must be explained as the separation of wages, profit of capital and rent'. From [FM: LP] onwards Marx's task was the genetic development of economic categories. Hence he criticised the explanation of the origin of profit as given by classical political economists. Marx writes:
Political economy throws no light on the cause of the division between labour and capital, and between capital and land. When, for example, it defines the relationship of wages to profit, it takes the interest of the capitalist to be the ultimate cause, i.e., it takes for granted what it is supposed to explain (3 MEC 271).
In classical political economy the ofigins of wages, profit and rent were not discussed. David Ricardo, as well as Adam Smith, took it for granted that capitalists must receive profit, or else 'capitalists had no interest to invest their money in business'. This is not a scientific explanation for the origin of profit. Rather the economist 'assume as a fact, in historical form, what has to be explained'.
Marx, however, starts his explanation with the analysis of an 'actual economic fact', which he confirmed as a concept (Vorstellung) in [FM: FP]:
The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and size. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates. The devaluation of the world ofmen is in direct proportion to the increasing value of the world of things. Labour produces not only commodities: it produces itself and the worker as a commodities - and this at the same rate at which it produces commodities in general (3 MEC271-272).
Logic in [FM: LP]
1 Distinguishing Alienation and Estrangement from Objectification
Let us move on to consider the content of the critique of political economy in EPM. Marx analyses this 'fact' by taking the metabolism between men and nature, i.e., the relation of the worker to work and to the product of his labour,' as his basic viewpoint. Ontologically 'the product of labour is labour which has been embodied in an object'. Production is the realisation of labour, which is also its objectification, and in addition the appropriation of nature by the worker. This 'fact,' however, means that 'objectification appears as loss of the object and bondage to it; appropriation as estrangement, as alienation' in capitalist society (3 MEC 272). Marx calls this situation the 'estrangement or alienation of the worker from his product'. In other words, 'realisation' is ontologically equal to 'objectification' and to the 'appropriation(Aneignung) of nature,' but 'under these (capitalist) economic conditions' it appears as a 'loss of the object and bondage to it' of 'estrangement, alienation'.
2 An Analysis of the Worker's Relation to Nature
When the product of the worker's labour does not belong to him, Marx calls this alienation from the product. This is the first aspect of alienation. Moreover, when the product of labour does not belong to the worker, this is only possible because his labour itself does not belong to him; his labour is not done for himself but for someone else. The alienation of the worker from his product comprises the alienation of the worker from his labour. The estrangement of the object of labour merely summarises the estrangement of the activity of labour. Note that objectification and alienation are compared in three dimensions:
realisation appears as loss of realisation
objectification appears as loss of object and bondage to it appropriation appears estrangement, as alienation (3 MEC 272)
The third aspect of the alienation of labour is a reflection of the second. This aspect is very important, because it is the turning point in evaluating the whole of the EPM. Firstly we should understand the difference in logical dimension between the first two aspects and the third. That aspect was 'deduce(d) from the two already considered'.
The third aspect shares the same object as the first two, but the viewpoint is different. Up to then production had been considered only as a realisation of private life. However, according to the new viewpoint production is also the realisation of human nature. Human beings also need nature a sthe object of their material and spiritual means of living. In that sense human beings are natural beings like other animals. Nature is the inorganic body of human beings, who cannot live without it, yet it does not exist already prepared for consumption by humans. Human beings, however, are not quite the same as other animals who must relate to nature within a limited range of activities. Only humans relate to nature over a full range, which means that each human being is a species-being (Gattungswesen). Humans can address the species as an object, and can produce quite apart from the demands of hunger, even, according to the standards of beauty, and so they can produce universally. The third aspect of alienation indicates that human beings sell their productive activities in order to get their means of life, something which is possible only for them. As human beings they are free beings; they can sell their productive activities under certain conditions and can fall under the control of other human beings. Thus the third aspect of alienation indicates the alienation of the worker from human nature.
Economically this aspect is the basis of exchange and the formation of 'commercial society'. As only human beings can exchange products and form a commercial society, these phenomena must be explained from human nature itself. Moreover Marx also used this aspect of alienation to explain a commodity producing society as alienated social relations, yet only through that means, in his view, could human beings increase their social power and individual abilities.
3 Analysis of the Relation between Men
The fourth aspect of alienated labour is the alienation of man from some other man. This aspect of alienated labour represents the answer to an important question: if labour and the product of the worker do not belong to the worker himself, to whom do they belongHIn society, or rather, in social relations, the alienation of the worker from his product and from his labour can appear only through his relation with some other man. The worker's product and labour must belong to someone else. In other words, the alienation of the worker is the logical representation of the appropriation of his labour and product by someone else. 'The property relation of nonęworker to the worker and labour' is reproduced daily by 'the alienated relation of the worker to labour and to his product' (3 MEC 281). Without the labour of others, the capitalist cannot be a capitalist; the capitalist cannot reproduce his money with profit. Thus this fourth aspect marks the transcendence of 'private property as labour' to 'private property as capital'. This is illustrated in the following passages:
If the product of labour does not then, this can only because it
belong to the worker, if it confronts belongs to some other man than
him as an alien power, the worker (3 MEC 278).
If the worker's activity is a to another it must give satisfac]
torment to him, tion and pleasure (3 MEC 278).
Thus, if the product of his labour, then his position towards it is his labour objectified, is for him an such that someone else is master alien, hostile, powerful object of his subject, someone who is independent of him, alien, hostile, powerful, and
independent of him (3 MEC 278).
If he treats his own activity as then he treats it as an activity unfree, performed in the service, under the dominion, and the yoke of
another man (3 MEC 2789).
Just as he creats his own so he creates the dominion of prouduciton as the loss of his the person who does not produce
reallity, as his punishment; over production and over the product (3 MEC 279).
Just as he estranges his own so he confers upon the stranger
activity from himeslf, an acitvity which is not his own
(3 MEC 279).
Through 'estranged labour' the worker not only creates his relationship to the object and to the act of production as a relationship to powers that are alien and hostile to him, he also creates the relation in which other man stands to his production and to his product, and the relationship in which he stands to the other man. It is very important to confirm that 'the concept of private property', which is derived by analysis from the 'concept of alienated labouf', is the 'relation of the non]worker to the worker and to the product of his labour. The concept of 'private property' used here is the 'property relation of the non-worker to the worker and to labour'* (3 MEC 281). Marx analysed the immediate process of production of capital into two component parts, i. e. , 'the relation of private property as labour' and 'the relation of private property as capital '. He showed that the latter is merely a 1ogical and necessary result of the former. Although the latter relation itself has not yet been analysed, the most important points to note are the following: Marx grasped capital as a social relation, a production relation and a commanding power over other men's labour and their products. The first two aspects of alienateded labour are not merely found in "Capital" but are crucial to comprehending capital as 'self-realising value'.
Logic of the [Second Manoscript]
1 An Analysis of Priate Property as Capital
The extant pages of [SM] consist of the following four parts:
a. 'The worker produces capita1, capital produces him | hence he produces himself, and a man as worker, as a commodity . . .' (3 MEC 283).
b. Capitalist 'production produces him in keeping with this role as a mentally and physically dehumanised being ' (3 MEC 284).
c. The real course of development . . . results in the necessary victory of the capitalist over the landed owner'. (This describes the antagonism between movable property and laned property.)
d. Description of 'the movement through which these constituents (Iabour and capital)have to pass'.
[SM] as extant beings with a paragraph stating that capital and labour are a negation of each other:
The worker is the subjective manifestation of the fact that capital is man wholly lost to himself, just as capitalis the objective manifestation of the fact tha labour is man lost to himself (3 MEC 283).
This relation of capital and labouris not a simple negation. It is a contradiction in the strict sense, i. e., that they need each other, produce each other and yet still exclude each other. A worker can be a worker when he gets a job and thus he becomes capital in the production process. The worker is a most miserable commodity and has to starve to death if his commodity cannot be sold to the capitalist. He can exist as a worker only when he becomes a part of capital and reproduce capital with profit. Wages, as is the same with the price of any other commodity, are determined by their 'cost'. Human activity is considered within political economy merely as a material commodity and as nothing more.
The wages of labour have thus exactly the same significance as the maintenance and servicing of any other productive instrument, or as the consumption of capital in general, required for its reproduction with interest, like the oil which is applied to wheels to keep them turning. Wages, therefore, belong to capital's and the capitalist's necessary costs, and must not exceed the bounds of this necessity (3 MEC 284).
In short, in capitalist relations of production, the woker reproduces not only capital with profit but also himself as a com modity. This antithesis of capital and labour is not a simple antithesis. It is the highest form of antithese, i. e. , contradiction, because in the form of capital private property has reached its peak of development. In capital private property has become 'totally indifferent to its real content' (31 MEC 285). Capital is the peak form which contains all forms of private property within its essence.
There is the production of human activity as labour . . . On the other hand, there is the producition of the object of human activity as capital . . . This contradiction, driven to the limit, is of necessity the limit, the culmination, and the downfall of the whole private property relationship (3 MEC 285).
Let us reconfirm the content of [SM] with the following paragraph in the [Third Manuscript], which refers to [SM]:
We have already seen how the political economist establishes the unity of labour and capital in a variety of ways: (1)Capital is accumulated labour. (2)The determinations of capital within producdon ę partly, reproduction of capital with profit, partly, capital as raw materia1(material of1abour), and partly, as an automatically working instrument(the machine is capital directly equated with labour)ę is productive labour. (3)The worker is a capital. (4)Wages belong to the costs of capital. (5)In relation to the worker, labour is the reproduction of his life ę capital. (6)In relation to the capitalist, 1abour is an aspect of his capital's activity. Finally, (7)the political econmomist postulates the original unity of capital and labour as the unity of the capitalist and the worker; this is the original state of paradise. The way in which these two aspects as two persons, confront each other, is for the political economist an accidental event, and hence only to be explained by reference to external factors (3 MEC 312).
Firstly, the underlined phrase in the extract above shows that Marx has already considered the determinations of capital within production in [SM]. The definitions in [SM] confirm this statement, i. e. , they coincide with the contentof [SM].
Secondly, (2)above shows that it is only labour that reproduces capital with profit. Two things are now obvious: Marx distinguishesthree phases of capital within production, i.e., labour, raw materials and machines. ln relation to labour, Marx states that it reproduces capital with profit, because raw materials and machines, which have no1ife, cannot reproduce themselves.
Lastly, (7)above shows that Marx grasped the produciton process of capital as a transcendent unity of capital and labour followed by their separation. Criticising the economic trinity, i.e., capital producing profit, wages of labour and rent of land, Marx identifies rent as a part of profit. Landed property as such has vanished and it has become capital. Here we see the outlines of his analysis of the ecommic categories, which was already demonstrated in [FM: FP] in purely conceptual form (Vorstellung).
With the above consideration in mind, we can conclude that in [SM] Marx considered another component of the production process of capital from the standpoint of capital itself, i.e., 'the relation of private property as capital'. History as such has nothing to do with the analysis from that point in [FM: LP] onwards.
The third type of dicussion in [SM], the discussion of 'the necessary victory of the capitalist over the landowner', which follows the paragraphs above, is a logical insight based on the essence of capital (3 MEC 288). This essence of capital logically contains the essence of all former types of private property and thus comprehends the necessary development of private propefty. Just as in the 'First Reference' in the[Third Manuscript], antagonism between immovable and movable property etc. is grasped by their essences. In the form ofcapital, private property has become totally indifferent to its content. It contains all kinds of private property in its essence. Capital is the highest abstraction of this content. From this point of view the historical development from landed property to capital must be grasped as 'necessary'. This is of course consistent with the task which Marx set himself in [FM: LP].
2 Genetic Description of Capital
Marx uses 'capitaI' positively for the first time in [SM]. In [FM: LP] 'capitalist' is used only once negatively. Although 'capital' is often used in [FM: FP], this is only because of its position in the EPM, i.e., an idea pertaining to the economic laws of capitalism. However, 'capital' is not used at all in [FP: LP], in which the produciton process is analysed from the standpoint of 'labour' . Here 'capital' is a category to be developed from the 'general essence of private property'. In [SM]], for the first time, 'capital' is used positively within an analysis of theproduction process. Starting his analysis with an 'actual fact' | that the worker produces the 'commodity'. | Marx came to the conclusion that the worker produces the 'private property' through 'alienated1abour'', i.e., the 'property relation' of the non-worker to labour and to its product. 'Private property' as used in [FM: LP] means 'property relation' or 'commodity' (or 'product' )in the hands of the non-worker:
private property as the material and embracing expression of estranged labour . . . (3 MEC 281).
In [SM], through a twofold analysis of the production process of capital, Marx defines the worker as reproducing 'capital with pront'. There are two means that Marx assigns here to 'commodity' and 'capital'. Firstly, they mean 'accumulated labour' reproduced with 'profit'. It takes only one example of this usage to make the point:
Land as land, and rent as rent, have lost their distinction of rank and have become insignificant capital and interest | or rather, capital and interest that signify only money (3 MEC 285).
Secondly, in connection with the first, Marx calls 'private property' 'capital' when it has become indifferent to its content. Capital is private property in which any social meaning, which landed property once had, has been lost. Its only reference is to money, which is the extreme form of abstraction of its material content. For example:
immovable private property movableprivateproperty
. . . landed property (aristocratic But liberated industry, industry life)and itself continues to bear constituted for itself as such, and the feudal character of its opposite liberated capital, are the nece]
in the form of monopoly, craft, sary development of labour (3
guild, corporation, etc., within MEC 286).
which labour still has a seemingly
social significance, . . . (3 MEC 286),
The landowner lays stress on the a sly, hawking, carping, deceitful, noble lineage of his propefty, on greedy, mercenary, rebellious, feudal souvenirs or reminiscences, heartless and spiritless person the poetry of recollection, on his who is estranged from the
romantic disposition, on his politi community and freely trades it cal importance, etc. ; and when he away, who breeds nourishes and talks economics, it is only agricu] cherishes competition, and with turet hat he holds to be productive it pauperism, crime, and the (3 MEC 286-7). dissolution of all social bonds, . . . . 3 MEC 287).
undeveloped, immature private developed private property
property (3 MEC 288). (3 MEC 288).
In short 'capital' is used when every relation is turned into a ' value relation'. Capital is used as private property indifferent to its content, i.e., 'abstract', and without any social significance.
From the investigation so far we can now conclude the following: Firstly, 'commodity' is in 'fact' the starting point of analysis in [FM: LP]], which has been deveIoped step-by-step with the progress of the analysis into 'private property' and 'capita1' . As was predicted near the end of [FM: LP] 'capital' is developed through the help of two factors, i.e., 'alienated labour, and 'private property.' Secondly, in [SM] a new standpoint of 'value' has been introduced and Marx has discovered the way in which 'accumulated labour' realises itself in 'capital' . Thirdly, it is also shown that the production process of 'capital' is not only the reproduction process but also the reproduction process of wage labour, i.e., the capitalist 'relation of production' itself, which forms the basis of the 'separation of capital, 1abour and landed property.' Lastly, the content of 'A Critique of Political Economy' in EPM is the genetic description of 'wages' and 'profit' (in the broad sense of 'surplus-value' ) through a twofold analysis of the immediate production process of capital.
3 Capital as the Limit of the Development of Private Propofty
We have examined the first two sections of [SM], and now we move on the examination of the last two. These two are connected with the 'two problems' set up at the end of [FM: LP] .The first supposition concerning the content of [SM] was based on it. In the followingpassagesthesethree willbe examined one by one.
a. Meaning, Character and Method of the 'Two Problems'
For a careful reader it is obvious that these 'two problems' are new forms of the 'two questions' which were set up and answered in [FM: FP]7. Why did Marx set these two up on a more profound logical level? Marx argues that we have to stop looking at 'private property' as amaterial object existing outside us and must grasp it instead as a definite mode of existence or a dennite mode of labour. Private property is not a material object in itself, it is a social relation within the production process. Only when we grasp this essence does it become possible for us to abolish it. In other words, the theory of value and theory ofsurplus-value explain the meaning of private property in human history. In the history of economic theory, this was facilitated partly by the agricultural system. It was Francois Quesnay who took the first important step towards this. Adam Smith followed and David Ricardo completed this view within classical political economy. Quesnay, criticising the mercantile system, for which only precious metal was wealth, put the subjective essence of wealth in part into human labour, i.e., 'agricultural labour.' Smith grasped the ''essence of' 1abour in general, but he could not develop his theory consistently. Smith has a twofold value theory, i.e., 'dissolving value theory' and 'consisting value theory.' Ricardo criticised the latter and developed his theories solely in terms of the former. However, Ricardo did not understand the profound confusion in Smith' s value theory. This was the distinction between 'simple commodity production' and 'capitalist commodity production.' Ricardo neglected this historical distinction and regarded 'capitalist commodity production' as 'simple commodity production.' In this sense, Ricardo' s version of value theory was also a step backwards in understanding history. Ricardo' s retreat from Smith can be seen in his understanding of 'capital.' Smith defined capital as accumulated labour reproduced with profit, but Ricardo deprived any historical differentia specifica from capital and understood it as accumulated labour in general. Why and how 'accumulated labour' is turned into 'capital' was not explained by Ricardo. In other words, Ricardo did not grasp the substance and form oflabour which determines 'value.' Smith and Ricardo understood the subjective essence of private property as labour in general, but did not grasp this essence as 'alienated labour'. They defined labour which determines value as labour in accordance with human nature. In other words, they confused 'alienation' with 'objectification' in general. On the other hand, Marx understood the subjective essence of private property as alienated labour, human labour opposed to human nature. This means that Marx understood the substance of value as the alienated form of social labour and understood capital as the appropriation of the labour of others.
The next question is what this 'alienation' and its abolition mean for the development of human beings. These are the reasons why Marx set up 'two questions' and 'two problems' in [FM].
The above analysis reveals the logical, theoretical character of the 'two tasks'. It has nothing to do with history as history. These 'two problems' do not form a basis for anyone to derive some historical content from [SM] . What we have to take into account when we think about the answers to these 'two problems' is the way in which [FM: LP] ends. Following these tasks, Marx wrote 'As to (1)' noting that his analysis had been limited to one of the two component parts of 'the relation of private property.'
Now we are going to consider the relation of man, who is alien to work and of the worker, to the worker*.
This suggests that Marx tried to answer these problems through the analysis of this relation in [SM] . The extant pages of the manuscript contain no direct answer. Thus the next question for us is how the answer is likened to the analysis of the 'relation of private property as capital.' It seems to me that they are connected through the comprehension of the 'essence of capital.' This connection can be shown by considering the fourth section of [SM].
b. The Doscription about The Antithesis of Movable and Immovable Property
There is the production of human activity as labour|that is, as an activity quite alien to itself, to man and to nature, and therefore to consciousness and the expression of life the abstract existence of man as a mere workman who may therefore daily fall from his filled void into the absolute voidęinto his social and therefore actual, non-existence. On the other hand, there is the production of the object of human activity as capital|in which all the natural and social characteristic of the object is extinguished; in which privateproperty has lost its natural and social quality (and therefore every political and social illusion, and is not associated with any apparently human relations) ; in which the selfsame capital remains the same in the most diverse natural and social manifestations, totally indifferent to its real content. This contradiction, driven to the limit, is of necessity the1imit, the culmination, and the downfall of the whole private property relationship (3 MEC 285) . This paragraph tells us two things: private property has reached its limit subjectively (labour in general) and objectively (value) in the form ofcapital; this limit is the contradiction of capital and labour, and therefore the downfall of the private property in general. Let us begin with the explanation of the former statement. The loss of any natural and social quality in capital means not only that human activity is sepafated (or abstracted) from other means of production and is regarded as a mere labour force or 'hands' but also that it does not matter in which branch of production or to what use it is bestowed. It is only quantity that counts. The histofical development of private property, i.e., from landed property to capital, is now grasped as a development in abstraction from its content. 'Development' here means that the latter form has become more abstrat and universal in its essence and that it contains in itself the preceding form. Labour in general, as the subjective essence of capital, includes agricultural labour as well as the essence of landed property. The following passage in [Third Manuscript] indicates this:
It is clear that if the subjective essence of industry is now grasped . . ., this essence includes within itself its opposite. For just as industry incorporates annulled landed property, the subjective essence of industry at the same time incorporates the subjective essence of landed property (3 MEC 293) .
The so-called description of the antithesis, which occupies nearly half of the extant pages of [SM], is not history qua history. What Marx is trying to show is why the 'civilised victory' of capital over landed property is logically necessary. It is the victory of completed, universal private property over immature, local private property. Read carefully the following comparison:
movable property immovable property
The realcourse of development . . . over undeveloped, im mature results in the necessary victory of private property|just as in the capitalist over the landownerę general,
thatis to say, of developed
movement must triumph over immobility;
open, self-conscious baseness over hidden, unconscious baseness;
cupidity over self-indulgence;
the avowedly restless, adroit self- over the parochial, world-wise,
interest or enlightenment respectable, idle and fantastic
self-interest of superstition;
and money over the other forms of private
property (3 MEC 288) .
The real historical development of private property is understood by Marx even in [FM: FP], the purpose of which is to get a first glimpse of the economic laws of capitalism. None the less historical matters are not relevant here, since his purpose is to comprehend economic laws from the 'essence of private property.' No matter what their historical form, the private propefty is based on appropriating (or commanding) another' s labour and product, i.e., 'alienated labour.' Seen from the 'general essence of private property,' 'the distinction between capital and land, between profit and rent, and between both and wages, and industry, and agriculture, and im movable and movable private property|this distinction is not rooted in the nature of things, but is a historical distinction, a fixed historical moment in the formation and development of the contradiction between capital and labour' (3 MEC 285) . What is important is that if we grasp the 'essence of private property,' the 'civilised victory' of the capitalist over the landowner will become comprehensible as a necessafy one.
c. The Movement through which the two Constituents must Pass
Let us start by quoting the whole description of the fourth type in [SM] in order to investigate the content more closely. Marx writes at the end of [SM]:
The character of private property is expressed by labour, capital, and the relation between these two. The movement through which these constituents have to pass is:
First. Unmediated or mediated unity of the two. Capital and labour are at first still united. Then, through separated and estranged, they reciprocally develop and promote each other as positive conditions. [Second. ] The two in opposition, mutually excluding each other. The worker knows the capitalist as his own non-existence, and vice versa: each tries to rob the other of his existence.
[Third. ] Opposition of each other to itself. Capitalstoredup labourlabour. As such it splits into capital and its interest, and this latter again into interest and profit. The capitalist is completely sacrificed. He falls into the working class, whilst the worker 9but only exceptionally) becomes a capitailst. Labour as a moment of capital|its cost. Thus the wages oflabour|a sacrifice of capital.
Splitting of labour into labour itself and the wages of labour. The worker himself a capital, a commodity.
Clash of mutual contradiction (3 MEC 289).
At first glance this may look like a historical analysis. However, if we Iook closely at the latter half, particularly at the emphasised section, we can see clearly that thisis a sketch for the development of the economic categories. The same sketch can be found in the conspectus of Engels' "Outlines" done by Marx and in his "Notes on James Mill".
Secondly, the content is consistent with that of [SM], i.e., the worker is the subjective manifestation of the fact that capital is man wholly lost to himself, just as capital is the objective manifestation of the fact that labour is man lost to himself' (3 MEC 283) .
Furthermore, in his reference to the preceding page (now missing) , Marx notes that 'the antithesis between labour and capital, . . . grasped in its active connection, in its internal relation, . . . grasped as a conttradiction (2934) . Thus, 'The two in opposition' in [Second.] means that the production process of capital is the opposed process of capital and labour, and thus it is a self-contradicting process. The immediate production process of capital is the opposed process of accumulated labour and living labour through which the 'antithesis' between lack of pfoperty and possession of property becomes a 'contradiction.' When the description in [Second.] corresponds to the content in [SM], what part of EPM does the preceding phrase, i.e., [First], correspond to? lt must be either [FM: LP] or the first stage of exchange between capital and labour, which precedes the production process by capital. I think that it must be [FM: LP]. There are reasons for my view.
Firstly, 'unity of capital and labour' is the way that political economists see the production process. They saw only this aspect, in which Marx saw both unity and opposition.
Secondly, Engels also wrote about this uhity in his "Outlines", which Marx valued very highly as a sketch of the economic categories.
Thirdly, so long as [Second.] corresponds to [SM], it is natural to interpret [First] with respect to [FM: LP].
In fact, this unity is shown in [FM: LP] when Marx describes 'nature' (as material and as means of production) as the inorganic body of a human 'with which he must remain in continuous interchange if he is not to die' (3 MEC 276) . I believe that the 'unmediated or mediated unity of the two' indicates that the capitalist process of production is not merely the unity of the two but also their separation (3 MEC 289) . The fact that a relation of production, i.e., the capitalęlabour relation, is also reproduced through this production process, was grasped by Marx for the first time, yet was overlooked by other political economists.
Lastly, with respect to the underlined sentences in [Third], the idea there has already been formulated in [FM: FP] as the accumulation of capitalthat increases in intensity among competing capitals; this leads to a decrease in the rate of profit and rent, which leads to a decline of small capitalists and moneyed classes. Thus this section indicates a decrease in the rate of profit and rent in the development of the economic categories themselves. Marx understood this law as proof of the following two corollaries: capital is the '1imit' of private property so long as this law is a result of capital accumulation, and the 'downfall' of private property so 1ong as this law means the decrease of impetus within capital, i.e., pfofit. Thus the emphasised section must have the same meaning as the following passage, which refers to [SM]:
The decrease in the interest rate is therefore a symptom of the annulment of capital only in as much as it is a symptom of th growing domination of capital|of the estrangement which is growing and therefore hastening to its annulment. This is indeed the only way in which that which exists affirms its opposite (3 MEC 316) .
Now we may conclude that Marx reveals the limit of private property, i.e., capital, and that this is also its downfall through the development of the economic categories. What is important is that to grasp 'the general essence of private property' , which is deduced from the twofold analysis of the production process of capital, i.e., the limit of private property. This essence makes it possible for Marx to develop the economic categories genetically. Through this development, economic laws are comprehended as laws of the self-alienation of labour. Thus capitalist society is comprehended as a society in which the individual and the species are separated and in which there are dynamic relations driving towards a resolution (cf. 3 MEC 2934) .
It is clear, therefore, that only when labour is grasped as the essence of private property, can the economic process as such be analysed in its real concreteness (3 MEC 317) .
Here we witness the birth of Marx' s dialectical method. It is the 'essence of private propprty,' particularly the first two determinations of 'alienated labour', which makes it possible for us to comprehend the structural and dynamic laws of modern civil society through critical, genetic analysis of the economic categories.
Conclusion
What we have clarified through this investigation into [FM: LP] and [SM] can be summarised as in the following three points:
Firstly, [FM: FP] was undertaken to form an, 'idea (Vorstellung)', i.e., to grasp the structural and dynamic laws, of capitalist society through the works of socialists and political economists. [Third Manuscript] is a reference to [SM]. [FM: LP] and [SM] are works of conceptualisation in which the 'idea' which was formed in [FM: FP] is developed. It is these sections which should be known as Marx' s first critique of political economy.
Secondly, Marx analysed two components of the immediate production process of capital in [FM: LPl and [SM]. These components are (1) 'the relation of the worker to his work and product' and (2) 'the relation ofthe non-worker to the worker and to the product of labour,' or (1) 'the relation of estranged worker to himself' and (2) 'the property relation of the non-worker to the worker and labour' which is the necessary result of the former.
Through these twofold analyses Marx showed the reproduction of capital with profit to be the repoduction of 'relations of production' as well.
Thus in this first critique of politicaleconomy not only the theory of surplu-svalue but also the theory of accumulation appear for the first time. This reminds careful readers that there is achapter 'Transformation of Money into Capital' in the 'Contents' of "Manuscripts of 1861|1863." The 'Contents' of EPM is not the same as that of "Capital," but is like that of "Manuscripts of 1861-1863." This apparent likeness reveal sthe maturity of Marx in 1844. This is no wonder, since Marx worked on the principles of his system in EPM. The difference between EPM and "Manuscripts of 1861-1863" is merely a further maturity in the development of the economic categories. There is no difference in principle.
Lastly, the essence of capital allows the comprehension of both the structural laws and dynamic laws of private property, i.e., the comprehension of the birth, development and termination of capital. The critique of political economy in EPM shows the birth of Marx's dialectical method.
Notes
1 Kenji Mizutani, "Alienation of Labour and Marx's Economics," (Tokyo, 1974) , p. 39.
2 The translation is my own.
3 Fumio Hattori, "The Formation of Marxism" (Tokyo, 1987), p.177.
4 The translation is my own. This is a determination of the 'relation of the non-worker to the worker and to the product of hislabour.' This is well connected with the third consideration at the end of [FM: LP] :
Thirdly, the non-worker does every thing against the worker which the worker does against himself; but he does not do against himself what he does against the worker (3 MEC 282).
5 Some Japanese economists criticise that Marx does not distinguish 'private property' from 'capital.' This is because they misunderstand the meaning of 'private property' here. And what is more, they do not understand that 'capital' should be explained from the approriation of labour of the worker in production process. 'Capital is a command over alien labour' in production process. This is the first concept of capital by Marx, which is commonly found in private property in general. See the opening words of the 'Profit of Capita1' column in [FM: FP]:
What is the basis of capital, that is, of private property in tbe products of other men's lasbourH . . . How does one become a proprietor of productive stock? How does one become owner of the products created by means of a large fortune, for instanceH . . . Capital is thus the governing power over labour and its products (3 MEC 2467) .
This latent slavery in the fanmily, though still crude, is the first form of property, but even at this stage it corresponds perfectly to the defition of modern economists, who call it the power of disposing of the1abour power of others (5 MEC 46) .
In the first case, therefore, property (landed property) appears as direct natural domination, in the second, as domination of labour, particularly of accumulated labour, capital (5 MEC 63) .
6 The appropriation of alien labour by capital means the self-realisation of capital. Capital realises itself only through the self-estrangement of the worker. Marx writes:
Thus [in political economy] capital does not originally realize itselfęprecisely because the appropriation of alien labour (fremde Arbeit) is not itself included in its concept. Capital appears only afterwards, after already having been presupposed as capitalęa vicious circleęas command ooer alien labour. Thus, according to A. Smith, labour should actually have its own product for wages, wages should be to the product, hence labour should not be wage labour and capital not capita ( "Grundrisse," Penguin, 1973, p.330).
7 See 3 MEC 241-6.