INDIVIDUAL, SOCIAL AND COMMON PROPERTY

Takahisa Oishi
Professor of Economics
Takushoku University
Tokyo, Japan

I. Introduction

This paper is devoted to clarifying Marx's concept of 'individual property' and 'social property' in Capital (1867), volume 1.[1] Marx's communism[2] is one of the most basic subjects in Marxology and has been discussed by a large number of commentators. However, I believe Marx's view is still little known or, at least, not known well enough for the following three reasons:
Firstly: Engels is partly to be blamed. There are significant differences between Marx and Engels on some basic points of their communism. As we shall see later, Engels misinterpreted Marx's 'negation of negation', 'realm of freedom', 'individual property' and 'social property' in Capital. However, this has not been understood until now because Engels has been regarded as the most authoritative commentator on Marx's theories. That which we know as Marx's theories is Engels' interpretation of them and may be quite different.
Secondly: Stalinism is to be blamed. Soviet Marxists were reluctant to publish some of Marx's works, including the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (hereafter EPM) and the letter to Vera Zassoulitch (1881),[3] which indicates that they have published only those parts favourable to them. Engels' interpretation of Marx's works was more to their liking than the originals. They could justify their oppressive political system with some parts of Engels' works.
Thirdly: Commentators themselves are to be blamed. They have been influenced by commentaries from Engels and from the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, both in Moscow and in Berlin. Consciously or unconsciously, they have not supported the peoples of Eastern Europe but rather the ruling classes, the Communist Parties in those countries. Whatever the reason, the time has come to understand Marx in his own words.
Firstly, we are now completely free from the influence of Soviet Marxism. Secondly and more importantly, the present is simmilar to the time in which Marx developed his thought and theories. The 1840s saw many different socialisms in France, which Marx criticised as a 'bungled job', and also in Germany. Also there was Owen's pilot community ('New Harmony') and its failure. However, it was the time when Marx formulated his communism in EPM which has been neglected, or rather prohibited completely by Soviet Marxism. This suggests that we had better make a fresh start from EPM to understand Marx's communism in his own words.
It may sound reasonable to categorise Marx's words under 'state property' and 'planned economy', but this is to be trapped by Soviet Marxism. I would like to start my paper instead by comparing Engels' Anti-Duehring (hereafter Anti) and Marx's Capital in order to extract some apparent differences between their communism, and to follow this by inquiring into their genesis.
Although The German Ideology (1845-46) and The Communist Manifesto (1847-48) are widely known to have been written by both Marx and Engels, I treat them here as Marx's views and were written by him alone, because both differ from Engels' Principles of Communism (1847) and Anti. Also I treat all Marx's works as consistent with each other. The so-called inconsistency between the 'young Marx' and the 'old Marx' is but a fiction set up by Soviet Marxism and its followers. This paper will illustrate the controversy.

II. Marx Vs. Engels on Communism

A. Communism in Anti-Duehring

What marks Anti is its method: Engels explains that the 'contradiction between socialised production and capitalistic appropriation' manifested itself as the 'antagonism of proletariat and bourgeoisie', as the 'antagonism between the organisation of production in the individual workshop and the anarchy of production in society in general' and as 'crises'. By the 'contradiction' he means that the 'means of production of the individual' has been transformed into the 'social means of production only workable by a collectivity of men', and that 'production itself changed from a series of individual into a series of social acts, and the products from individual to social product', but 'the old forms of appropriation remained in full swing' and 'the owner of the instruments of labour always appropriated to himself the products . . . of the labour of others'.
This revolt of the productive forces makes the capitalist class treat the forces more and more as 'social productive forces, so far as this is possible under capitalist conditions': They merge into 'the different kinds of joint-stock companies' and into 'state property'.[4] However, they are not the abolition of 'the capitalistic nature of the productive forces' at all. On the contrary, 'state ownership' is nothing but 'the zenith' of the capitalist relation. State ownership is not and cannot be the 'solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution'.

This solution can only consist in the practical recognition of the social nature of the modern forces of production, and therefore in the harmonising of the modes of production, appropriation and exchange with the social character of the means of production. And this can only come about by society openly and directly taking possession of the productive forces . . . (Marx-Engels Collected Works, Vol. 25, p.266. Hereafter cited as 25 MEC 266).

The real solution of the conflict is summarised as: 'the proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production in the first instance into state property'. As 'the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society' is the first and the last act as a state, 'state property' becomes 'the direct social appropriation' (25 MEC 267).

B. Similarity between Anti-Dühring and Capital

It is clear that the outline of Anti is the same as that of Capital. The two share similar terms and statements. On closer examination, however, there are differences between the two works even on some significant points. I would like to illustrate some of these in the next section.

C. Dissimilarities between Anti-Dühring and Capital

1. 'Realm of Necessity' and 'Realm of Freedom'

The most significant and the most apparent dissimilarity between Anti and Capital is in the concepts 'realm of freedom' and 'realm of necessity'. Engels writes:

Man's own social organisation, hitherto confronting him as a necessity imposed by nature and history, now becomes the result of his own free action . . . . Only from that time will man himself, with full consciousness, make his own history only from that time will the social causes set in motion by him have, in the main and in a constantly growing measure, the results intended by him. It is humanity's leap from the realm
of necessity to the realm of freedom (25 MEC 270).
On the other hand, Capital, volume 3, says:

With his development this realm of physical necessity expands as a result of his wants; but, at the same time, the forces of production which satisfy these wants also increase. Freedom in this field can only consist in socialised man (der vergesellschaftete Mensch ), the associated producers (die assoziierten Produzenten ), rationally regulating their interchange with nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human nature. But it nonetheless still remains a realm of necessity. Beyond it begins the development of human energy which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis. The Shortening of the working-day is its basic prerequisite (Capital I, Pelican ed., p.959. Hereafter cited as Capital I, 959).

The 'realm of freedom' of Engels is the realm of conscious and planned control of the social metabolism by the associated producers.[5] However, this still belongs to the 'realm of necessity' in Capital. 'The realm of freedom', writes Marx, 'actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases; thus in the very nature of things it lies beyond the realm of actual material production' (ebd.). Marx's 'realm of freedom' is the sphere of 'free time' or 'disposable time' beyond the working-day. It is not the leisure time as compensation for estrangement in the working-day. It is 'time for free development of the workers for society, i.e. civilisation' (Grundrisse, Pelican ed., p.634. Hereafter cited as Gr., 634); the appropriation of surplus-time by the capitalist is the appropriation of civilisation by the capitalist.
Now we come to the following conclusions: 'Realm of freedom' in Anti differs from that in Capital. Anti lacks the 'realm of freedom' in Capital.

2. 'Social Property'

a. 'Negation of Negation' in Anti-Duehring

The second remarkable difference between Anti and Capital is their concepts of 'social property' and 'individual property'. Duehring understands Marx's 'negation of negation' as the 'property which is at once both individual and social' and criticise him by saying that Marx 'leaves it to his adepts to solve for themselves this profound dialectical enigma' (25 MEC 120). Engels' explanation of it is his critique of Duehring's interpretation. He says that 'this means that social ownership extends to the land and the other means of production, and individual ownership to the products, that is, the articles of consumption' (25 MEC 121). He repeats his view on page 267. Let us formulate their interpretations before we quote Marx's original and examine which is correct.

Duehring: individual property = social property <> common property
Engels : individual property <> social property = common property

b. 'Negation of Negation' in Capital
The second German edition[6] of Capital, volume 1, says:
The capitalist mode of production and of appropriation, accordingly capitalist private property, is the first negation of individual private property, as founded on the labour of its proprietor; but capitalist production begets . . . its own negation. This is the negation of negation. It re-establishes individual property on the basis of the the achievements of the capitalist era: namely cooperation of free workers and their possession in common of the land and the means of production
produced by labour itself. . . . [The] transformation of capitalist private property which in fact rests on the carrying on of production by society, into social property (Capital I, 929-30. Italics mine).

The French version begins with 'the capitalist mode of production and of appropriation that corresponds to it is . . . ' and omits the 'free workers'. The present German and the English versions were rewritten or modified by Engels. As far as we can distinguish a mode of appropriation from its basis and understand it in its context, we cannot agree with Duehring more.
'individual private property (as founded on the labour of its proprietor)'
Ü" 'capitalist private property (which rests on the exploitation of alien, but formally free labour)'
Ü" 'individual property (on the basis of . . . cooperation and the free workers' possession in common of the land and the means of production produced by labour itself)'
= 'social property' Let us formulate this and compare it with that of Engels:

Marx : individual property =social property <> common property
Engels: individual property <> social property = common property

Thus we arrive in this roundabout way at the starting point the controversy between Duehring and Engels: what kind of property it is which is 'at once both individual and social'; but one thing has become clear, Engels is not correct. So let us make a fresh start with the examination of his faults.
Firstly, Engels misunderstands Marx's 'social property': 'social property' is set against 'capitalist private property' and cannot be equivalent to 'common property', which is a mere basis of 'individual property'. 'Social property' should be understood as equivalent to 'individual property'. That is the problem which misled Engels. He understands by appropriation 'appropriation of the means of production and of the products' (25 MEC 269) or 'the taking possession' (Besitzergreifung ) of them. However, he meant originally 'appropriation of productive forces', did he not?
Secondly, Engels failed to understand Marx's 'individual property' fully. No wonder that part of the product is consumed by individuals as means of subsistence. However, Engels failed to explain why the second negation is described as the 'reestablish [ment]' of individual property. There must be something more in it than 'the ownership to . . . .the articles of consumption.' He failed to tell us that 'individual private property' is 'the foundation of small-scale industry, and small- scale industry is a necessary condition for the development of social production and of the free individuality of the worker himself' (Capital I, 927). The 're-establish[ment]' or the second negation must succeed individual property 'on the basis of the achievements of the capitalist era'. We have examined Engels' remarks within chapter 32 of Capital, volume 1. If we take other Marx's works into account, it will become clearer that Engels' interpretation of 'individual property' is defective. From 1844 onward, Marx describes the future social relations as 'association'. The EPM , The German Ideology, The Poverty of Philosophy (1848), The Communist Manifesto and J. Most's Capital and Labour by Marx (corrected by Marx himself) says eine Assoziation (an association) or eine Vereinigung (a union) of free workers is established by the 'negation of negation'. Capital and Labour by Marx, e.g., says:

Thus individual property is re-established, but on the basis of the achievements of the modern mode of production. So we have an association of free workers who possess in common the land and the means of production produced by labour itself (MEGA2,áU-8, S.783).

This shows us that Marx's 'individual property' is equivalent to 'an association of free workers' which links 'individual property' to 'social property' by bringing us back to the end of chapter 1 of Capital, volume 1. There Marx writes:

Let us finally imagine, for a change, an association of free men, working with the means of production held in common, and expending their many different forms of labour-power in full self-awareness as one single social labour force (Capital I, 171. Italics mine).

That which Engels quoted as the grounds for his argument turns into the grounds for an argument against him, if we understand by 'appropriation' the 'relations of production and forms of intercourse [Verkehrverh$ltnisse] that corresponds to it' (Capital I, 90). Anyway, we can now formulate Marx's four concepts as follows:

individual property = an association of free workers
= social property <> common property

We now come to a conclusion that Anti differs from Capital even on some basic points. Anti has been thought to be the best introduction to Marx's Capital, his thought and theories, but we should stop reading it as such. In the next chapter I make Marx's socialism clearer by showing where these dissimilarities come from and what causes them.

III. Individual, social and Common Property

A. The Labour Process & 'Individual Property'

1. The General Character of the Labour Process and of Appropriation

Physically and mentally human beings need nature and can live only through a metabolism between themselves and nature. Nature, in this sense, is the inorganic body of human beings, but it does not satisfy human needs as it is. Labour is a process between human beings and nature, a process by which man mediates, regulates and controls the metabolism between himself and nature. Man changes external nature using his physical and mental powers in order to appropriate (aneignen ) the materials of nature in a form adapted to his own needs.[7] This action is not only a change of form for the materials of nature but a realisation (Verwirklichung ) of his own purposes.[8] Man changes his own nature through this purposeful action. In this process he uses an instrument to direct his activity onto objects. The instrument becomes 'one of his organs of his activity, which he annexes to his own bodily organs.'[9]
The simple elements of the labour process are 1) purposeful activity, 2) the object on which that work is performed, and 3) the instruments of that work. Without any one of these elements, no production is possible.
With regard to the result, the product, both the instruments and the object of labour are means of production and the labour itself is productive labour. Production is the relation of productive labour to means of production. It is man's realisation of his physical and mental powers, i.e. himself and his life, and the development of his powers through it. The labour process is an appropriation of what exists in nature for the requirements of men. The labour process in its simple elements is the universal condition for the metabolic interaction (Stoffwechsel) between man and nature. It is worth repeating that Eigentum (appropriation) in this sense is abstract but is also its first and original meaning.[10] We should understand by 'appropriation' the relationship of the worker to his means of production but not the relationship with the person to whom the products belong. 'Appropriation' should be understood as a process of production, or the whole of the relations of production, and the realisation and the confirmation of the worker's species-life.[11]
Incidentally, the labour process is not usually carried on by a single worker but by many workers. Workers usually cooperate in the process, which means that workers also develop 'the capabilities of his species (Gattungsvermoegen )'[12] through their cooperation and the labour process.

2. Historical Features of the Capitalist Labour Process

The three elements of the labour process become separated from each other. Under capitalist relations of production, immediate producers are separated from their means of production, and this separation is reproduced every day. The producers have to sell their labour-power, i.e. creative power and source of all wealth, to survive. They lose all other means of life. They cannot carry out the labour process alone any more. The labour process, i.e. production is now carried out by capitalists only and it becomes a process by which capitalists consume labour-power they purchase or 'a process between things the capitalist has purchased, 'exhibiting two characteristic features:
1) the worker works under the control (command) of the capitalist to whom his labour belongs;
2) the product is the property of the capitalist and not of its immediate producer. 'Capital develop[s] within the production process until it acquired command over labour, i.e. over self- activating labour power, in other words the worker himself.'[13] Working under the control of the capitalist is characteristic for human beings alone. It is possible only because man is a species-being. The animal is immediately one with its life activity and cannot make its life activity itself an object, but man can. Man can make his life-activity the object of his will and of his consciousness. In this case the strong point of man appears as his weak point, and man's life-activity loses any sense of the objectification of his species-life.
Working under the control of the capitalist means not only the alienation of labour-power but also social ability, an ability to have social intercourse with others. Cooperation in the production process is performed only under the command of the capitalist, not under the contro l of the workers themselves, and cooperation becomes part of the power of capital. It ceases to be a realisation of the workers' own social ability. Additionally, the products belong to the capitalist and are sold in the market. The social intercourse via products ceases to be a relation of producers to each other, becoming instead a relation of products to other products. The immediate producer loses his power to mediate relations with other men with his products. The capitalist mode of appropriation, based on the separation of productive labour from its means of production, should not be understood merely as the worker's loss of products, but also as the loss of his personal and social abilities.

3. 'Individual Property'

Now let us go back to the 'negation of negation' in Capital, volume 1. When we read the chapter carefully, the focus is on the proprietor of the means of production, on the immediate producer, and on production or appropriation as the combination of three elements of the labour process. That is so, whether 'the means of production and the external conditions of labour belong to private individuals' or not, 'whether these private individuals are producers or non-workers,' and the general character of '(private) property', i.e. the mode of production or of appropriation. We can formulate the three modes of appropriation in this chapter as follows:

Character of Property Individual as Individual as
Proprietor Producer
___________________________________________________
Individual Private Property Yes Yes
_______Negation_____________________________________
Capitalist Private Property No No
_______Negation_____________________________________
Individual Property Yes(Common Yes
Property) (Cooperation)

'Individual property' is the new mode of appropriation into which capitalistic private property is transformed through a long process but not so long as that of the first negation. 'Individual property' means 'all production has been concentrated in the hands of associated individuals' (6 MEC 505) who work with common property in the means of production. All individuals are proprietors of their means of production and are immediate workers. The original unity of labour with its external conditions is recovered on a new basis, which is the achievements of the capitalist era: namely 'cooperation of free workers and their possession in common of the land and the means of production produced by labour itself.'
I do not think I need to remind readers that 'individual property' also means the universal development of the workers' individuality. There is, however, one thing left which requires comment on, i.e. 'social production'. Marx writes in relation to small-scale production that it is the basis of 'social production'. Before this mode of production, there was only communal production, where all members of the community worked together at the same time and the members were not independent of the community itself but were immersed in it. Small-scale production, however, set the members free and made them independent individuals through commodity production. In that mode of production individuals work separately and their labour is immediately private, not social or communal. Those private labours become social through an exchange of their products, by making up the whole quantity of labour that society needs. Exchange value of the commodity expresses a new historical way of conceptualising social labour or the social nature of labour.
Thus, the first negation, the supplanting of 'individual private property' by 'capitalistic private property', creates a universal development of human socia l intercourse by producing an 'immense collection of commodities'. Commodity production is fully developed on its own foundations, and universal (in this sense 'free') social relations of men are created, for the first time in opposition to the immediate producers themselves. This, however, forms the real basis for the full development of humanity.

Personal independence founded on objective dependence is the second great form, in which a system of general social metabolism, of universal relations, of all-round needs and universal capacities is formed for the first time. Free individuality, based on the universal development of
individuals and on the subordination of their communal, social productivity as their social wealth, is the third stage. The second stage creates the conditions of the third (Gr., 158).

It is now clear that Marx's 'individual property' does not 'extend . . . to the products, that is, the articles of consumption' at all but to the universal development of individuality of the individual workers. In the following section, we examine Marx's 'individual property' more closely by inquiring into the concepts 'appropriation of productive forces' and 'social property'.

B. 'Appropriation of Productive Forces' and 'Social Property'

The German Ideology says that appropriation by free workers is determined by: 1) 'the object to be appropriated', 2) 'the persons appropriating' and 3) 'the manner in which it must be effected'. Thus in this section I would like to compare and examine Marx's and Engels' concepts of 'individual property' and 'social property' more precisely according to these criteria.

1. The Object to Be Appropriated

The German Ideology says that 'the object to be appropriated' is 'the productive forces, which have been developed to a totality and which only exist within a universal intercourse' amongst individuals. 'Productive forces' does not only mean the 'means of production'. 'Productive forces' are said to 'exist within a universal intercourse. ' On a preceding page, Marx also writes: that 'the social power, i.e. the multiplied productive force, which arises through the cooperation of different individuals as it is.'
Capital, volume 1, is consistent with The German Ideology when it says in chapter 32 that individual property is re- established on the basis of the achievements of the capitalist era,' i.e. 'cooperation of free workers and their possession in common of the land and the means of production.'
Anti, however, is not consistent. Engels writes correctly that the proletariat succeeds the 'socialised productive power' in the capitalist mode of production. On the other hand, he describes the 'real solution', socialism, as 'taking possession of the means of production in the name of society, ' which leads him directly to 'social appropriation' extending to 'the land and the other means of production'. His concept of 'appropriation' does not include 'the cooperation' of the workers. His 'appropriation' is not 'production', but 'possession' of the products.
'The so-called community of property' (6 MEC 348) of the early Engels shows that he had never counted 'cooperation' as a 'productive force'. This explains why Engels rewrites the opening sentence on 'negation of negation' (which I quoted in the preceding chapter) as follows in the present German and English editions: 'The capitalist mode of appropriation, which springs from the capitalist mode of production, produces capitalist private property.' This rewriting is based on the distinction between the mode of production and that of appropriation.

2. The Persons Appropriating and the Manner of Appropriation

The German Ideology says that 'the persons appropriating' are 'the proletarians'. It also says that 'the manner in which it must be effected' is 'a union, which . . . can again only be a universal one, and through a revolution.' Seemingly Capital and Anti are similar on this. However, if we examine both works closely and take 'the object' and 'the manner' of the appropriation into account, we will find that Marx considers the proletarians as 'individuals', and Engels considers them as a group, 'society'.
For Marx 'the persons appropriating' must be 'individuals', because workers in the capitalist mode of production 'have become abstract individuals, who are, however, by this very fact put into a position to enter into relations with one another as individuals' (5 MEC 87). Thus The German Ideology and Capital mention 'an association'[14] of 'free workers'. On theother hand, Anti says the appropriation of all means of production 'by society' (25 MEC 268).
Here we must take into account the distinction between the different concepts of 'appropriation' held by the two. For Marx 'appropriation' is 'production', thus it is individuals who enter into cooperation in the production process. For Engels, however, 'appropriation' is 'possession' of the means of production, thus the subject who appropriates has to be a group, i.e. 'society'. Keen-eyed readers may defend Engels by asserting that he uses 'the hands of the producers working together (assoziierte Produzenten)' (25 MEC 267) once. This is, however, a supplement to the Fourth Edition of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1891) and extends only to the means of production.
Now it is safe to conclude that dissimilarities in the concepts of 'appropriation' and '(appropriation of) productive forces' led Marx and Engels to hold different concepts of 'individual property' and 'social property'.

3. 'Social Property'

Let us summarise the concept of 'social property' in Marx and Engels. Marx's concept is equivalent to the 'appropriation of productive forces' developed universally in the capitalist era; it consists of cooperation amongst workers and of the means of production. Thus, it extends to their 'universal intercourse between men' (5 MEC 49) which 'cannot be controlled by individuals, unless it is controlled by all' (5 MEC 88). This requires 'the association of individuals . . . which puts the conditions of the free development and movement of individuals under their control' (5 MEC 80). Marx's 'individual Property', as the basis for the development of universal individuality, cannot exist except through this association in which individuals obtain freedom. Marx's individual property can exist only as 'social property'.

Communism differs from all previous movements in that it overturns the basis of all earlier relations of production and intercourse, and for the first time consciously treats all naturally evolved premises as the creations of hitherto existing men, strips them of their natural character and subjugates them to the power of the united individuals (5 MEC 81).

Engels' concept of the 'appropriation of productive forces', however, is limited to 'taking possession' of the means of production. Thus he omits the cooperation amongst workers and, consequently, their association or their universal intercourse. Though he uses Marx's term 'associated workers', it does not link with other statements in his argument. It is necessary for Engels to explain Marx's 'social property' and 'individual property' as 'upon the one hand, direct social appropriation, as means to the maintenance and extension of production on the other, direct individual appropriation, as means of subsistence and of enjoyment' (25 MEC 267).
This dissimilarity also leads Marx and Engels to their different visions on communism. Engels is very optimistic and sounds as if taking possession of the means of production by 'society' would make everything all right, e.g. he says:

With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer (25 MEC 270).
From the moment when society enters into possession of the means of production and uses them in direct association for production, the labour of each individual, however varied its specifically useful character may be, becomes at the start and directly social labour (25 MEC 294).

This optimism comes naturally from his concept of 'social'. Marx, on the other hand, is a bit more prudent, e.g. he writes:

Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things (5 MEC 49).
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production (6 MEC 504).

The author of Capital recognises very well through his analysis of the 'commodity' that even in 'an association of free men, . . . expending their many different forms of labour- power in full self-awareness as one single social labour force,'[15] their labour can be 'social' only when they fulfill the following two conditions: 1) 'On the one hand, it must, as a definite useful kind of labour, satisfy a definite social need, and thus maintain its position as an element of the total labour.' 2) 'On the other hand, it can satisfy the manifold needs of the individual producer himself only in so far as every particular kind of useful private [read this as: individual] can be exchanged with.'[16] As far as the second point is concerned, 'labour-time would in that case play a double part' and may serve as the direct measure of distribution. The first point, however, is feasible only through 'a definite social plan' developed democratically by the individuals themselves. I would like to make Marx's concept of communism clearer by investigating his concept of the 'essence of private property' after a brief comment on his 'common property'.

C. 'Common Property'

1. 'Common Property'

Marx's concept of 'common property or communal property' (Gemeineigentum ) extends, without any doubt, exclusively to the means of production. Thus, Engels does not differ from Marx on this concept. The only possible point of difference is whether the immediate workers have free access to the means of production or whether the means of production belong to some institution independent of the workers themselves.
In Capital Marx writes clearly: 'the free workers' possession of the land and the means of production produced by labour itself.' This leaves no room for any doubt. The producers are supposed to have free access to the means of production they need. According to Marx, what is important for the workers is to recover an original unity with the conditions of production and to develop their individuality universally, or else the revolution becomes meaningless.[17]
Although Engels sometimes seems to give 'society' priority over 'individuals', he also thinks that workers should have easy access to the means of production, because his concept 'community of property' is 'common use of all the instruments of production and the distribution of all products by common agreement' (6 MEC 348).

2. The Germanic Community

Both Marx and Engels write that workers must gain complete control over universally developed productive forces and over social powers, including those which arose from workers' but because opposed to them. Hence every individual is expected to be able to use 'common property'. Marx's description of the Germanic community, which preceded the capitalist mode of production, gives us a clear vision of 'common property'. In the Germanic relations of property, the independent unit at the bottom is the family, which 'settled in the forests, long distances apart,' and the commune exists only 'in the periodic gathering-together (Vereinigung )' of the commune members (free landed proprietors) for shared purposes. 'The commune thus appears as a coming- together (Vereinigung ), not as a being-together (Verein )' (Gr., 483). 'The commune exists only in the interrelations among these individual landed proprietors as such' (Gr., 484). Communal property, as distinct from individual property, also occurs amongst Germanic tribes taking 'the form of hunting land . . . etc., the part of the land which cannot be divided if it is to serve as means of production in this specific form.' It appears, however, 'merely as a complement to individual property' and 'is so used by each individual proprietor as such' (Gr., 485).
The main point here is this: In the Germanic relations of property 'the existence of the commune and of communal property appears as mediated by, i.e. as a relation of, the independent subjects to one another' (Gr., 484). Read instead the 'individual landed proprietor' as the 'free worker', the 'commune' as an 'association of free workers' and 'communal property' as the 'common property of free workers', then you obtain a clearer picture of Marx's 'individual property', 'social property' and 'common property'.

D. Conclusion

The capitalist mode of production and appropriation is based on the appropriation of alien labour, the social power of immediate workers. Marx's communism is the movement to replace this mode of production with 'an association of free men, working with the means of production held in common, and expending their many different forms of labour-power in full self-awareness as one single social labour force.' Thus the new mode of 'appropriation' as the mode of 'production' is both 'individual' and 'social' at once, so far as the 'association' is a 'society' mediated by its free individual members. The main points here are the following:
1) 'Appropriation' should not be understood exclusively as 'possession of the means of production'.
2) 'Individuals produce in society and for society as social-beings and subsume the community (cooperation and social intercourse among them) into themselves with the consciousness of a community-being.'[18]
3) 'Individual = social property' is the mode of production which forms the basis of the free development of human abilities, organic and inorganic, and of the human senses, i.e. of the universal development of their individuality.
4) Consequently, in due course, the meaning of 'social' will alter from mere relations among private men into the relations among individual human-beings who affirm each other as truly equal.[19]
In the next chapter I would like to examine the innermost principle of Marx's system which Engels failed to understand.

IV. The Nature of Capital as the Principle of Marx's System

A. The Nature of Capital & The Concept of Capital

1. 'The Twofold Proof' of Capital

In 1843 Marx left the Rheinishe Zeitung to 'withdraw from the public stage into the study'. The reasons are clear: he faced a twofold historical problem with private property; but his 'previous studies did not permit [him] even to venture any judgment on the content of the French tendencies'. On the one hand, private property was establishing itself in Germany, producing 'so-called material interests'. In England and in France, however, 'the content of the . . . tendencies' was the abolition of private property. Thus Marx's withdrawal from the public stage means that he began to examine the twofold proof of private property on the one hand that human life required it for the realisation of civilisation and on the other that it now requires the supersession of it. To answer this question only Hegel's Philosophy of Right, an exceptional critique of modern civil society in Germany, would do.

If we wanted to start with the German status quo itself, the result would still be an anachronism even if one did it in the only adequate way. . . .
Even the denial of our political present is already a dusty fact in the historical lumber-room of modern peoples (3 MEC 176).

To raise criticism to the level of 'the question of which the present age says: that is the question' is to criticise the socio-political circumstances of England and of France and adress the controversy between political economists and French socialists. Marx aimed to analyse the nature of capital and to abolish it positively. The first work in which he undertook for this solution was his EPM, [20] which will be examined closely in this chapter. I need not remind readers that Marx was never on the socialists' side, however strange it may sound. He has already declared himself against its 'amateurism' and had begun to study classical political economy critically.

2. The Nature of Capital & The Concept of Capital

The nature of something is clearer at its maturity than at its embryo. Capital is the high point of private property, which started historically with the form of landed property. Consequently, the nature of capital is the nature of private property of all forms. Classical political economy understood it as 'labour in general', as is well known. What about Marx? 'Estranged labour'! Let me show this by distinguishing the 'nature of private property' from the 'concept of private property' in EPM.
IN the 'First Manuscript: Latter Part' (so-called 'Estranged Labour') and in the 'Second Manuscript' of EPM, Marx analyses the immediate production process of capital in terms of 'two components which depend on one another, or which are but different expression of one and the same relationship' (3 MEC 281):
(1) 'the direct relationship between the worker and production' (3 MEC 273)
= 'relationship of labour to its products' and 'the relationship of the worker to the objects of his production' (3 MEC 274)
= the relation in which 'appropriation appears as estrangement, as alienation' (3 MEC 281)
= 'the relation of the worker to labour and to the product of his labour'
= 'alienated labour in relation to the worker himself, i.e. the relation of alienated labour to itself' (3 MEC 281)
= 'the relation of private property as labour' (3 MEC 285)
= 'the production of human activity as labour that is, as an activity quite alien to itself, to man and to nature' (3 MEC 285)
(2) 'the relationship of the man of means to the objects of production and to production itself' (3 MEC 274)
= 'the relation to it [labour] of the capitalist' (3 MEC 279)
= the relationship in which 'alienation appears as appropriation, estrangement as truly becoming a citizen' (3 MEC 281)
= 'the relation of the non-worker to the worker and to the product of his labour'
= 'the property relation of the non-worker to the worker and to labour' (3 MEC 281)
= '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)
= 'the relation of private property as capital' (3 MEC 285)
= 'the production of the object of human activity as capital in which all natural and social characteristics of the object is extinguished' (3 MEC 285)
It is already known that the second relation is the logical 'result, the necessary consequence' (3 MEC 279) or 'the necessary outcome' (3 MEC 281) of the first. It is not well known, however, that the second relation is the 'concept of private property'. Marx writes that 'just as we have derived the concept of private property from the concept of estranged, alienated labour by analysis' (3 MEC 281), the second one is the concept of capital. This can be supported by his Grundrisse in which he criticised Smith by saying 'the appropriation of alien labour is not itself included in its [capital's] concept' (Grundrisse, Pelican ed., p.330). The appropriation of alien labour in the production process is the concept of capital.[21]
What is less known is that the first relation of alienated labour is the '(general) nature [Wesen] of private property' (3 MEC 281). In the English version of EPM, Wesen is translated as 'nature' in some cases and as 'essence' in others, preventing readers from following Marx's views. We find, if we read EPM very carefully, that Marx writes on the preceding page that 'private property thus results by analysis from the concept of alienated labour, i.e. of alienated man, of estranged labour, of estranged life, of estranged man' (3 MEC 279). The 'nature of private property' is the 'activity quite alien to itself, to man and to nature' (3 MEC 285). This is supported by the concept of the 'subjective essence [Wesen] of private property' in the 'Third Manuscript' of EPM and is consistent with the description in the 'First Manuscript: First Part' of EPM. The column 'Profit of Capital' begins by saying 'what is the basis of capital, that is, of private property in the products of other men's labour?', followed by a rereading of Smith's concept of 'command'. Marx concludes 'capital is thus the governing power over labour and its products' (3 MEC 273-4)[22]. Marx's Manuscripts of 1861-63 also supports this, because Marx comments 'here at last, the nature of capital is understood correctly' as he notes Hodgskin's remark that 'fixed capital is bringing its owner a profit . . .but because it is a measure of obtaining command over labour'[23]. Let me repeat.The 'nature of capital' is 'command over labour', the 'alien activity of the worker' or the 'alienated labour', if you like. The 'concept of capital', i.e. the property relation of the capitalist to the worker, is a mere result of this 'nature'.
Some commentators criticise Marx's use of 'private property' rather than 'capital' by saying that the early Marx cannot distinguish capital from private property in general. However, the 'nature of capital', derived from the immediate production process, is the 'nature of private property in general' or the 'general nature of private property', which allows Marx to analyse 'the economic process as such . . . in its real concreatness' (3 MEC 317).
Firstly: 'It is clear that if the subjective nature of industry [read as: capital] is now grasped [as 'labour in general'], this nature includes within itself its opposite' (3 MEC 293), i.e. agricultural labour. Consequently, we can see 'how it is only at this point that private property can complete its dominion over man and become, in its most general form, a world-historical power'(ibid.), and how 'this process repeats itself in the scientific analysis of the subjective nature of private property' as the development from F. Quesnay to A. Smith.
Secondly: If the subjective nature of private property is grasped as estranged labour, we can easily see that the abolition of capital is the abolition of all forms of private property, in other words all class struggles.

From the relationship of estranged labour to private property it follows further that the emancipation of society from private property, et., from servitude , is expressed in the political form of the emancipation of the workers . . . (3 MEC 280).

Thirdly: If the subjective nature of capital is grasped as 'estranged labour', as labour not in its natural nor eternal form but in its historical, we can resolve the controversy between the political economists and the French socialists by following Marx in EPM.

B. The Nature of Capital & A Critique French Socialism

1. Contradiction between Capital and Labour

Labour is the real source of wealth. This is the principle of classical political economy and its starting point. Therefore the workers are the rich and the non-workers (capitalists) the poor. On the contrary, however, the workers are the poor and the non-workers are actually the rich. A. Smith did not see any contradiction between his principle and his theoretical results and, on the other hand, he describes the miserable situations of the working class. Faced with the misery of the workers, the French socialists support labour and give labour everything.

Political economy starts from labour as the real soul of production; yet to labour it gives nothing, and to private property everything. Confronting this contradiction, Proudhon has decided in favour of labour against private property (3 MEC).

Proudhon's What is Private Property? (1841) and Philosophy of Misery (1846) represent his critique of political economy. He criticises economic categories from his standpoint of 'equality' and tries to show that all products would be exchanged according to an equal 'value'. For him economic categories are not scientific reflections of capitalistic production relations. He thinks that he can change the situation only by replacing the present mode of exchange with 'equal' exchange, without the abolition of the capitalist mode of production itself.
Political economy is not directly responsible for the misery of the workers. It is a necessary result of the alienation of their labour-power, i.e. the only source of all wealth, to the capitalists. What political economists did was to analyse the real movement of capital (production and consumption) scientificallyand formulate it as laws (3 MEC 270 and 280). Thus Marx criticises Proudhon by saying:

We understand, however, that this apparent contradiction is the contradiction of estranged labour with itself, and that political economy has merely formulated the laws of estranged labour (3 MEC 280).

From Marx's viewpoint, Proudhon does not understand the 'nature of capital' and its positive aspect at all. Without capital, neither modern civilisation nor the political emancipation of man is possible. Incidentally, Marx's critique of Proudhon's 'equality' is very interesting as well as important to understand Marx's socialism. According to Marx, 'equality is man's consciousnessof himself in the element of practice, i.e. man's consciousness of other men as his equals and man's attitude to other men as his equals' (4 MEC 39). Thus Proudhon is criticised by Marx in that 'Proudhon did not succeed in giving this thought appropriate development' (4 MEC 43). On the other hand, Marx characterised the communistic movement of production and consumption as 'social = human' in so-called 'Private Property and Communism' in [Third Manuscript] of EPM. The Holy Family (1845) explains the concept as follows:

Equality is the French expression for the unity of human essence, for man's consciousness of his species and his attitude towards his species, for the practical identity of man with man, i.e. for the social or human relation of man to man (4 MEC 39).

Marx's socialism as humanism is human intercourse in which men relate equally and to each other with products as an essential bond. It is the kind of social intercourse in which man realises his species-being.

2. Three Forms of Communism

Consequently Marx considers Proudhon to represent the first and crudest form of communism. The second form of communism is that which is 'still political in nature democratic or despotic; with the abolition of the state, yet still incomplete, and being still affected by private property' (3 MEC 296). Marx criticised this communism in that 'it has grasped its [private property's] concept, but not its nature' (ibid.). This seems to be 'a communist society . . . as it emerges from capitalist society'[24] as far as it is mediated through the negation of private property. Nevertheless the meaning of this criticism is clear for us by now, as we have already examined both the 'concept of private property' and its 'nature'. It is not enough merely to abolish the private property rights of capitalists. A new stage of society, i.e. the positive abolition of modern capitalist relations of production, must be the abolition of 'estranged labour'. Thus Marx formulates his communism as 'communism as the real appropriation of the human essence by and for man' (3 MEC 296) or 'socialism as socialism' (3 MEC 306), which does not require a negation (such as despotic inroads on the right of private property) any longer.

C. The Nature of Capital & A Critique of Political Economy

1. The Limit of Classical Political Economy and Marx's Task

Political economy is not directly responsible for the misery of the worker. Its theoretical results could not be more cynical, the more it analyses the movement of present relations. 'There is a dis-proportionate growth in the cynicism of political economy from Smith through Say to Ricardo, Mill, etc.', because 'their science develops more consistently and truthfully' (3 MEC 291). However, readers must understand that Marx does not agree with political economy completely, or rather, he shows us the limits of political economy here.I will do my best to illustrate Marx' critique of political economy in EPM.

2. Economic Laws as the Laws of Estranged Labour

Political economy derived its laws through an analysis of the movement of capital. It is, without any doubt, an aspect of scientism. It does not and cannot, however, 'comprehend these laws, i.e. it does not demonstrate how they arise from the very nature of private property' (3 MEC 271). It cannot, because it does not grasp the 'nature of private property' fully. It is good of them to grasp 'labour (in general)' as the nature of capital. It sees wage-labour as the only 'natural', consequently, eternal form of labour, not as a historical form. This means that it cannot grasp the historical features of wage-labour, but only as the source of profit of capital. Just as Luther 'superseded external religiosity by making religiosity the inner substance of man', Smith superseded the 'external, mindless objectivity of wealth' (gold and silver of the mercantile system). As a result, however, just as 'man is brought within the orbit of religion' by Luther, man is brought within the orbit of wage- labour by Smith. It is no wonder that political economy is 'under the semblance of recognising man, the political economy whose principle is labour rather carries to its logical conclusion the denial of man' (3 MEC 291). This is the necessary result of its insufficiency in grasping the nature of capital. Marx writes:

Because they make private property in its active form the subject, thus simultaneously turning man into the nature and at the same time turning man as non-natural into the nature the contradiction of reality corresponds completely to the contradictory being which they accept as their principle (3 MEC 291-2).

Marx can easily explain that 'the apparent contradiction is the contradiction of estranged labour with itself, and political economy has merely formulated the laws of estranged labour' by grasping the nature of capital as 'estranged labour', a non- natural form of human labour. A similar statement appears in the Manuscripts of 1861-63 in the same context. Though lengthy I would like to quote his remark here to show that Marx is consistent from EPM to Capital.

In this contradiction, political economy merely expressed the nature of capitalist production or, if you like, of wage-labour, of labour alienated from itself, which stands confronted by the wealth it has created as alien wealth, by its won productive power as the productive power of its product, by its enrichment as its own impoverishment and by its social power as the power of society[25].

The main conclusion here is that Marx's starting point is where political economy ends its analysis, i.e. its limit. Although Marx could not complete his comprehension of economic laws as the laws of estranged labour, one thing is clear: he is at the right starting point in EPM by grasping estranged labour as the 'nature of capital'.

D. The Nature of Capital & A Critique of German Philosophy

1. A Critique of Hegel's Dialectic

'In the three years 1842-45 more was cleared away in Germany than at other times in three centuries' (5 MEC 27). Feuerbach, in particular is 'the only one who has at least made some progress and whose works can be examined de bonne foi' (5 MEC 27-28) in the field of critique of Hegelian dialectic. Marx counts three great achievement of Feuerbach, including 1) 'The establishment of true materialism and of real science, by making the social relationship of 'man to man' the basic principle of the theory'; 2) 'His opposing to the negation of the negation, which claims to be the absolute positive, . . . positively based on itself' (3 MEC 328).
As a matter of fact, the only social relationship Feuerbach knows and recognises is at most friendship and relationships between men; consequently he does not criticise social relations in the Germany of his day. Marx reads in Feuerbach that 'sense- perception must be the basis of all science' (3 MEC 303) and human history must be understood as starting from 'sense- perception in the twofold form of sensuous consciousness and sensuous need' (ibid.). Actually Marx sees the 'open book of man's essential powers' (3 MEC 302) in the history of industry[26].
Thus Marx's critique of political economy should not be understood as his political economy. It includes so-called political economy, but it is wider ranging than that. He expected it to be the complete human science unifying natural and social sciences. Material production and consumption are observed as the manifestation of human life and 'appropriation for and by man of the human nature' (3 MEC 299). Private property is understood by Marx as 'only the perceptible expression of the fact that man becomes objective for himself and at the same time becomes to himself a strange and inhuman object'. If capital is civilisation itself, what workers are losing is not the products but civilisation. The positive negation of private property should not be conceived in the sense of immediate enjoyment but also of the complete emancipation of all human senses and qualities, in short the formation of 'a whole man' (3 MEC 299).

2. Marx's Answer to 'The Twofold Proof'

Feuerbach, on the other hand, fails to match the outstanding achievement of Hegel's dialectic of negation, i.e. Hegel 'conceives the self-creation of man as a process' (3 MEC 332). In Hegelian philosophy objectification, estrangement and appropriation, in short everything, happens in pure thought. For example, when wealth and state power are understood by Hegel as entities estranged from the human being, this only happens in their form as thoughts. Consequently, the appropriation of man's essential powers, which have become objects indeed, alien objects is in the first place only an appropriation occurring in consciousness, in pure thought[27]. Marx examines Hegel here:

Hegel . . . conceives objectification as loss of the object, as alienation and as transcendence of this alienation; that he thus grasps the nature of labour and comprehends objective man true, because real man as the outcome of man's own labour (3 MEC 332-33).

Marx presents Hegel's speculative dialectic of negation as 'the twofold proof' of private property. Let us investigate the matter for a while. Both 'division of labour and exchange', as Smith says, are specifically human activities. Animals are unable to combine differences in their attributes in the same species but not in different breeds. In this sense, division of labour and exchange show that human beings are community- beings and that each of them is the species-being. 'Division of labour' is 'the mutual completion and exchange of the activity itself' (3 MEC 220), and 'exchange' is the mutual completion of the products. Division of labour and exchange reveal the social character of human labour or the social labour. However, 'the unity of human labour' appears as 'division of labour', because its 'social nature only comes into existence as its opposite, in the form of estrangement' (3 MEC 220-221). The social character of labour does not appear directly and is not under the control of the individuals. The development of the division of labour and exchange represent the development of human social powers in estranged form. When they are carried out as the conscious activities of the members under their control, they are worth calling 'social' and 'human' activities.

Exchange, both of human activity within production itself and of human products against one another, is equivalent to species- activity and species-enjoyment[28], the real, conscious and true mode of existence of which is social activity and social enjoyment (3 MEC 216-7).

The division of labour is the economic expression of the social character of labour within the estrangement. Or rather, 'since labour is only an expression of human activity within alienation, . . . the division of labour, too, is therefore nothing but the estranged, alienated position of human activity as . . . activity of man as a species-being' (3 MEC 317). Division of labour and exchange are 'perceptibly alienated expression of human activity and essential power as a species activity and species of power' (3 MEC 321). These human activities can be realised as social powers of individuals and be reorganised as their own conscious activities, and only when they are universally produced by their own life activity. Truly social and human movement in production and consumption not only produces men and nature as social men and social nature but also requires social men and social nature as a starting point. In this very point lies the twofold proof of private property. Human beings needed it to develop their social powers, and now it should be put under the control of their conscious association.

Likewise, . . ., both the material of labour and man as the subject, are the point of departure as well as the result of the movement (and precisely in this fact, that they must constitute the point of departure, lies the historical necessity of private property). Thus the social character is the general character of the whole movement' (3 MEC 298).
Precisely in the fact that division of labour and exchange are aspects of private property lies the twofold proof, on the one hand that human life required private property for its realisation, and on the other hand that it now requires the supersession of private property (3 MEC 321).

Marx can see this result through his analysis of the 'nature of capital' (estranged labour). Thus it is natural that Soviet Marxism and its followers who deny EPM cannot see that. They have nothing to do with Marx in Grundrisse, in Notes on James Mill and in EPM.

Equally certain is it that individuals cannot gain mastery over their own social interconnections before they have created them. But it is an insipid notion to conceive of this merely objective bond as a spontaneous, natural attribute inherent in individuals and inseparable from their nature (in antithesis to their conscious knowing and willing). This bond is their product. It is a historical product. It belongs to a specific phase of their development (Grundrisse, Pelican ed., p.161-62).

'Universally developed individuals, whose social relations, as their own communal [gemeinschaftlich] relations, are hence also subordinated to their own communal control' (ibid., p.162) and are the product of social production and social consumption. Communism as the negation of the negation is nothing more than the basis for this movement.

Communism is the position as the negation of the negation, and is hence the actual phase necessary for the next stage of historical development in the process of human emancipation and rehabilitation. Communism is the necessary form and the dynamic principle of the immediate future, but communism as such is not the goal of human development, the form of human society (3 MEC 306).

V. Conclusion

We started our investigation of Marx's communism with dis- similarities between Anti and Capital, i.e. the concepts of 'individual property', 'social property', the 'realm of necessity' and the 'realm of freedom'. When we examine the sourses of those dissimilarities, we uncovered dissimilarities in the concepts 'appropriation' and thus 'appropriation of productive forces'.
Marx means by 'appropriation' the relationship of labour to its natural conditions, or production. As productive forces lie only in the relations of individuals, he means by 'appropriation of productive forces' the reorganisation of the social intercourse of men into conscious activity as human beings. 'Social = human' is used as the real existence of species-beings. Engels, on the other hand, understands by 'appropriation' taking over products as means of production or consumption. Thus he interprets the 'appropriation of productive forces' as taking over the means of production. Consequently, his communism is 'community of property' and lacks the content in terms of cooperation and free intercourse amongst workers, which is the basis of the universal development of individuals. In his concept of 'social property' the popularisation and the vulgarisation of Marx's communism is openly declared.
So-called existing socialism is the vulgarlisation of Engels' communism, i.e. 'crude communism' or the 'state capitalism' in EPM. It is not the proletariat who appropriated political power and control over production, but the Communist Party. The concept 'private property' advanced by some reformists during Perestroika, e.g. by Pavel Bunichy, is more like Marx's 'common property' than 'capitalist private property', but less like 'individual property'. This also means that even the best and the brightest of Soviet Marxists cannot understand Marx's 'individual and social property' at all. They might have grasped and done away with the 'concept of private property' but cannot grasp the 'nature of private property', not to mention its abolition. Estranged labour must have been at its zenith there. The collapse of existing socialism proves its theoretical deficiencies and of its followers in western countries. However, Marx's communism, in his own words, still indicates the way to more human social relations. What is needed in existing socialism is not only liberalisation of capital and of its economy, but of the mode of workers' cooperation in the production process and in their social intercourse.
In modern capitalist society, on the other hand, what is needed, is an understanding that the immense productive power of capital is our own social power and that we are producing the basis of universal individuality by producing the civilising power of capital. The problem is that very few understand the connection of Marx's theories to the 'nature of capital'.

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[1]. I need not remind readers that this paper suggests indirectly what should be done away with in modern capitailism and 'existing socialism' in China, another daughter of Soviet Marxism.

[2]. In his Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875) Marx distinguished 'a communist society . . . just as it emerges from capitalist society' (24 MEC 85) from 'a communist society . . . as it has developed on its own foundations' (ebd.). Lenin termed these 'socialism' and 'communism'.
Although these are widely accepted, I do not follow this terminology here, but rather Marx's in EPM where 'socialism as socialism' is taken to be higher than 'communism' which requires the negation of private property.
Engels called himself a communist to distinguish himself from the French reformists known as 'socialists' in the 1840s. However, as far as Marx is concerned, communism and socialism as used here, have the same meaning.

[3]. Also Marx's Secret Diplomatic History of the Eighteenth Century and the Story of the Life of Lord Palmerston (edited and with introduction and notes by Lester Hutchinson, 1969, Lawrence & Wishart, London) is included.

[4]. Engels adds 'trust' to these in his Socialsim: Utopian and
Scientific (1891). See Marx-Engels Selected Works in one volume (Lawrence & Wishart, London), p.421.

[5]. Engels uses the term 'in the hands of the producers working together' once in the present version of Anti (25 MEC 267). This is a supplement to the Fourth Edition of his Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. To be fair, Marx actually writes 'in the hands of the State' in The Communist Manifesto. However, the 'State' here is equivalent to the 'individuals', because he
explains it as 'i.e. of the proletariat organised as the ruling class' (6 MEC 504).

[6]. Marx wrote the First and Second German Edition and the French version of Capital. The reason why I quote the Second German Edition of Capital here is that the underlined sentences are modified in the present German and the English editions.

[7]. Capital I, Pelican ed., p.283.

[8]. Ibid., p.284.

[9]. Ibid., p.285.

[10]. Ibid., p.290.

[11]. See also 3 MEC 276-7.

[12]. Capital I, Pelican ed., p.447.

[13]. Ibid., p.424.

[14]. Kunihiko Uemura asserts that Marx's concepts 'association', 'individual property', etc. were pioneered by Adolf Schurz. In Schurz, however, 'individual property' is based on the very low stage of German industries in the 1840's and an 'association' of workers is not the positive avolition of 'the nature of capital' at all. On the other hand, Marx's 'association' is to be based on the cooperation was which developed to the extreme by capital and is equivalent to the positive abolition of 'the nature of capital'. In this sense, for Marx, Shurz is an utopian socialist rather than a pioneer. Marx writes in EPM:

Association, applied to land, shares the economic advantage of large-scale landed property, and first brings to realisation the original tendency inherent in [land] division, namely, equality (3 MEC 268).

[15]. Capital I, Pelican ed., p.171.

[16]. Ibid., p.166.

[17]. See Marx's critique of the 'community of women' (3 MEC 294 and 6 MEC 502).

[18]. MEGA2, II-2, S.54. See also 3 MEC 298 and 312-313.

[19]. Equality between the sexes and between the labours are the basis for this. See the section "[C] VIII POSITIVE ASPECT OF WAGE LABOUR" of Wages (1847):

Secondly: the halo of sanctity is entirely gone from all relationships of the old society, since they have been resolved into pure money relationships. Likewise, all so-called higher kinds of labour, intellectual, artistic, etc., have been turned into articles of commerce and have thereby lost their old sanctity (6 MEC 436. See 3 MEC 285-8).

Marx's communism, as the reorganisation of man's relation to nature and to other men, is a critique of Christianity.

[20]. See 'two questions' (3 MEC 241). These two questions are answered 'on the basis of the above exposition, which has been presented almost in the words of the political economists' in the quotations which follow. See 'two other problems' (3 MEC 281). The way in which the "First Manuscript" ends does
suggest that Marx tries to solve those problems through an analysis of the 'property relation of capitalist' in the "Second Manuscript". See the 'distinction between . . . immovable and movable private property' (3 MEC 285-9) which shows the 'necessary victory of the capitalists over the
landowners' (3 MEC 288). See 'the movement through which these constituents [labour and capital] have to pass' (3 MEC 289). See 'the antithesis between lack of property and property' (3 MEC 293-4). See also the 'examination of division of labour and exchange' (3 MEC 321).

[21]. Compare Marx's notes in Notes on Say with Say's original text (MEGA2, IV-2, SS.316-9). Marx's 'private property' is Say's 'right of private property'. In other words, Marx is explaining the genesis of the 'right of private property'.

[22]. The following section "3. THE RULE OF CAPITAL OVER LABOUR AND THE MOTIVES OF THE CAPITALIST" has nothing but quotations from Smith and Say. However, we can understand Marx's intention in the section through the quotations, i.e. 'the plans and speculations of the employers of capital regulates and direct all the most important operations of labour, and profit is the end proposed by all those plans and projects' (3 MEC 250).

[23]. MEGA2, II-3, S.1433. Theories of Surplus Value, III, Progress Publishers, p.297 and p.306.

[24]. David McLellan, Karl Marx Selected Writings, Oxford. p.568.

[25]. MEGA2, II-3, S.1389. Theories of Surplus Value, III, Progress Publishers, p.259.

[26]. Engels misleadingly named this the 'material interpretation of history'. Marx himself, on the other hand, calls this in the Preface to A Critique of Political Economy (1859) 'the general result at which I arrived and which, once won, served as a guiding thread for my study.' I would like to examine this dissimilarity in the near future. The point is in rereading it as Marx's method of his system (a critique of political economy).

[27]. Marx writes that 'Hegel's standpoint is that of modern political economy' (3 MEC 333). Because the only labour Hegel knows and recognises is the present form of labour (wage labour) and he does not see it as estranged labour. Unless the estranged labour is abolished Hegel's real man does not
come out through human labour.

[28]. The text used to be read as 'species-spirit' but is officially corrected as 'species-enjoyment' as pointed out by Suguru Hosomi. See the following sentence in the quotation and other similar sentences (3 MEC 298 and 333).