POLI 440 Leonard Cole

Assignment 3 2/13/11

This introduction is actually the last piece of this essay to be composed, and should
therefore be the easiest to write, since I have the advantage of knowing how I have presented my
thoughts and so forth. It has proven otherwise. Please allow it to be sufficient for me to simply
state that the following is a response to the selection from The German Ideology in general, and
the assigned questions in particular.
Central to the treatise is the perspective offered concerning the division of labor. While
Marx does not deny the importance of specialization in generating real, material growth, he does
lend new insight into its historical context, stemming from sexual divisions based on men’s
physical strength over women. Marx then uses this context as a jumping-off point to extend
division of labor to ownership, and indeed synonymizes the two. Here, of course, is where
division of labor gains its import, argues Marx, becoming not simply an instrument to build a
society, but a means of controlling the growing population of that society, and indeed, setting its
members at odds with one another.
Ultimately, then, division of labor, as viewed by Marx, is the basis of interpersonal as
well as international commerce, but also renders “man’s own deed…an alien power opposed to
him (p. 10).” Thus, the division of labor is also the root of the alienation suffered by the lower
classes; Marx believes this alienation will lead to a communist revolution. Put briefly, division of
labor is the mechanism by which capitalism has risen and by which Marx predicts it will
inevitably fall.
It is crucial to refer to such things as division of labor and specialization as “instruments”
or “tools,” or to relate “alienation” to the actions of working people, lest one slips from the world
of reality to that of ideology, which Marx largely rejects. Instead, the Marxist historical
perspective “remains constantly on the real ground of history; it does not explain practice from
the idea but explains the formation of ideas from material practice; and accordingly it comes to
the conclusion that all forms and products of consciousness cannot be dissolved by mental
criticism (p.12).” Marx thusly will only permit ideology to exist as an historical descriptor, and
not a narrator, director, or agent. A “passage in time,” vocabulary again being an issue here with
Marx, can therefore be characterized by an ideological mindset but “history does not end by
being resolved into ‘self-consciousness as spirit of the spirit,’ but in it at each stage there is found
POLI 440 Leonard Cole
Assignment 3 2/13/11
a material result (p. 12).” This “material result” is the sum product of mankind, and Marx argues
that this is the real power and agent of dynamism on earth, not individual people, that
“circumstances make men just as much as men make circumstance (p. 12).”
With this premise of consciousness determined by life, that is, ideas shaped by material
realities, one comes to understand that a radical change in consciousness can only come about by
a radical change in these realities. Hence, Marx would contend that the Egyptian Revolution
could not have occurred except as a result of pervasive economic hardship so severe as to define
its own societal class. This is an allowance that seems easy to make. However, this contention
also implies that the revolution cannot end until another radical shift in material circumstances
reverts the class consciousness of the disenfranchised revolutionaries back to one of passive
citizenship.
In manners such as this, the selection from The German Ideology outlines a very unique
method of thought, revolutionary in its own right. Though Marx devotes considerable effort to
the refutation of many philosophical tenets, he ultimately backs into some very interesting
philosophical concepts. In this spirit, and although I am aware that I have already quoted perhaps
too extensively, I have selected this passage to sum up the reading (p. 14):
“…We shall, of course, not take the trouble to enlighten our wise philosophers by
explaining to them that the ‘liberation’ of man is not advanced a single step by reducing
philosophy, theology, substance and all the trash to ‘self-consciousness’ and by liberating
man from the domination of these phrases, which have never held him in thrall. Nor will
we explain to them that it is only possible to achieve real liberation in the real world and
by employing real means, that slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine and
the mule and spinning-jenny, serfdom cannot be abolished without improved agriculture,
and that, in general, people cannot be liberated as long as they are unable to obtain food
and drink, housing and clothing in adequate quality and quantity. Liberation is an
historical and not a mental act, and it is brought about by historical conditions, the
development of industry, commerce, agriculture, the conditions of intercourse…”