 Sometimes, it looks like there's a paradox in Marx. On the one hand, he seems deeply committed to changing the world for non-selfish reasons, but on the other hand he rejects talking about justice, morality and so on, which sounds like it implies that nothing really matters. How can we make sense of this? Hello, friend, and welcome to the first episode of a six-part series that will look at one strand of Marx's thought that is not very well understood, namely his ideas about human development, freedom, alienation and socialism, and the connection between them. In this first segment, we will look at his thoughts on human development. Let's begin by looking at our paradox in a bit more detail. In Capital Volume 1, Marx criticizes the mutualist Prudeau for holding up an ideal of justice that he is extracted from the legal ideas of capitalist commodity production and for trying to change, quote, the actual production of commodities and the corresponding legal system in accordance with this ideal. Similarly, in the critique of the Gotha program, Marx criticizes the early German social democrats, especially the followers of Ferdinand LaSalle, for employing moral ideals of fear and justice distribution to criticize capitalism and to advocate socialism. At the same time, however, Marx keeps talking about the value of human development and flourishing, and this is a red thread running throughout his early and his later works all the way to capital. In the Grundrisse, for example, Marx writes of, quote, the cultivation of all the qualities of the social human being as, quote, the most total and universal possible social product. He also writes, what is wealth, other than the universality of individual needs, capacities, pleasures, productive forces, etc., created through universal exchange, the full development of human mastery over the forces of nature, those of so-called nature, as well as of humanity's own nature, the absolute working out of his creative potentialities with no presupposition other than the previous historic development, which makes this totality of development, i.e. the development of all human powers as such, the end in itself, not as measured on a predetermined yardstick. Now, Marx is saying a lot here. First, he's saying that a truly rich person is a well-developed person, that is, a person with many and a wide range of different powers. Not that power here means a kind of power too, rather than power over. It doesn't mean controlling or ruling something or someone, it means being able to do and to be things. To have a wide range of powers, then, means to have the real possibility of doing, being and becoming many different things. If you think about it, this actually makes a lot of sense. Wouldn't you be a richer person in the ways that matter if, all else being equal, you could do and be more? What for example, is really the point of having more money, if not to enable you to do more things, whether it's spending time with your family, helping out your friends or doing something you enjoy doing for its own sake, whether that's writing some poetry, playing an instrument or solving some problem that you find fascinating. Having a power in this sense implies having the right combination of external and internal factors. The power to play Skyrim or Witcher 3, for example, requires external things like a computer, the game, a source of electricity, etc. But you won't be able to play the game without the right internal capacities to take advantage of these things, like knowing how to use the computer you have. Thus, having a power requires both the right external conditions and the internal capacities needed to take advantage of them. Thirdly, human development. The development of many and varied human powers, the working out for many different creative potentials, is, Marx says, an end in itself. It's not valuable just because some moral law tells us it is, because someone or something else commands it, or because some principles of morality or justice say that we deserve it or ought to have it. Importantly, all of this is not something that Marx abandons or breaks with at some sudden point. For example, he returns to these ideas in Volume 3 of Capital, writing of the, quote, true realm of freedom as the, quote, development of human powers as an end in itself. But you might wonder, doesn't the concept of human development smuggle in some moral ideal of full or true human development? And doesn't this exclude a certain kind of pluralism, that is, people valuing and pursuing different wants, needs, forms of life, and modes of individual expression? If there's a single ideal of full or true human development, what counts and what doesn't? Does being able to sing, dance and write poetry? Does being able to hunt, fish and make furniture by hand? Does being able to wrestle, box and fight well? Does understanding and doing science and philosophy? Does being a good friend and lover? Does being a good thinker and activist? And more than this, who gets to decide what counts, what gets included as part of full or true development? And how can there be a single standard or ideal thereof in a world that's constantly changing? Marx, however, is not committed to any such single ideal of full or true human development. Instead, he has an open-ended and pluralistic commitment to human development in general. This is why Marx explicitly writes about, quote, the development of all human powers as such as the end in itself, not as measured on a predetermined yardstick. This means that there are many different forms of human development, and different people value and pursue different forms of it, according to their many different individual wants and needs. These are everything from the powers of singing and dancing, hunting and crafting, boxing and fighting, doing science and philosophy, to appreciating the finer points of death metal, and many, many more. Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean that developing all human powers is necessarily good. Developing the murdering powers of a serial killer, for example, though useful for inspiring TV shows, harms many people and their development. After all, it's hard to develop and flourish very well if you are dead. As we saw at the beginning, Marx repeatedly says that he doesn't base his critique of capitalism or his support for socialism on principles of justice or morality, and he criticizes those who do. When he says that, he's talking about the kinds of philosophical schemes we see in, for example, Proudhon, where they first determine the justice distribution of goods and services, and then use this ideal as their basis for critiquing capitalism and supporting socialism. Incidentally, this kind of approach is now popular again in political philosophy, but don't ask us why. For Marx, these theories ignore the importance of social and historical context, and they sideline crucial questions of social power and agency. Focusing on principles about who gets what, ignores the more important and prior questions about who has the power to control what is made, how it's made, and who gets it. Furthermore, principles of just or fair distribution make sense only on the basis of a pre-supposed kind of society, like feudalism or capitalism. They will necessarily differ from one kind of society to another, and the principles of what is fair and just in one kind will have to be violated in the transition to another. We see this historically when, for example, the rights of feudal peasants to gather firewood in private forests or use the commons for grazing their animals were demolished in the transition to capitalism. In light of this, using the ideals of justice distribution that, say, Proudhon, gets from an inadequate and a historical understanding of capitalism is not a good way of diagnosing capitalism's problems or thinking about the socialist solutions that we need. Marx's open-ended commitment to human development as an end in itself by not being based on these kinds of rules and ideals avoids these problems. You therefore can, as he does, avoid basing your politics on theories of justice without saying that nothing really matters. If Marx thinks that human development and flourishing is what's important in itself, how does this connect with things like his concept of freedom, his diagnosis of capitalist alienation, and his support for socialism? Seeing how fundamental Marx's commitment to human development and flourishing is allows us to begin to understand his work as an interconnected web, as an organic whole. For Marx, freedom is valuable both as an important mode of human development in itself and because it positively impacts the development of many other human powers. Alienation diagnoses how capitalism is unfree and therefore restricts human development. And socialism is Marx's vision of a free society that better enables the development and flourishing of all its members. We began by seeking to resolve a paradox in Marx's writings, but the solution we found is the key we need to unlock many of his other most important and interesting ideas. The following videos in this series will look at some of them. Next up, freedom. Thank you for listening. Please like, share and subscribe for more of our stuff.