Marx on Freedom and Necessity
RODGER BEEHLER
University of Victoria
In a famous passage in volume three of Capital, Karl Marx distinguishes
between a "realm of freedom" and a "realm of necessity".1 The passage
has attracted attention as seeming to register a dismal perception by
Marx of the productive labour that will be necessary even under communism. "Dismal perception" is G. A. Cohen's verdict in his lucid essay
"Marx's Dialectic of Labour".2 Cohen has now softened the charge to
"a somewhat gloomy perception".3 But he continues to hold that the
passage reveals Marx viewing even post-capitalist labour "as bound
always to be unsatisfying",4 a marked shift from Marx's optimistic
1840s view that under communism labour would be unalienating. The
debate has recently been joined by James Klagge, who has argued
against Cohen (and others) that the volume three passage does not
disclose a shift in view, and so does not register a "deep pessimism" or
"negative appraisal" by Marx of post-capitalist labour.5
I offer here a reading of the passage which, if correct, also absolves it
of Cohen's charge, but for reasons different from those urged by Klagge.
I then consider briefly some statements by Marx in the 1875 Critique of
the Gotlia Programme," which both Cohen and Klagge judge to be
incompatible with the 1864 passage in Capital. I propose an interpretation of the Gotha remarks that reconciles the two passages.
1 Karl Marx. Capital, vol. 3 (New York: International Publishers, 1977), 820.
2 G. A. Cohen. "Marx's Dialectic of Labour", Philosophy and Public Affairs 3 (1974),
235-261. The expression occurs at 260.
3 G. A. Cohen, History, Labour and Freedom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 207.
4 Cohen, "Marx's Dialectic", 260: Cohen. History, Labour and Freedom. 207.
5 James C. Klagge. "Marx's Realms of'Freedom' and "Necessity' ", Canadian Journal
of Philosophy 16 (1986). 769-777.
6 David McLellan. ed.. Karl Marx: Selected Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1977). 569.
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The practical interest of this controversy lies in its potential influence
upon contemporary assessments of the place of work in human communities. If Karl Marx shifted about in appraising the potential of work to
constitute a part of what is good in human life, this may seem to justify
scepticism toward any suggestion that productive labour could be a
more humane and fulfilling activity in a future socialist, or non-socialist,
world. My argument, if sound, tends to stem scepticism on that ground.
1.
The sentences from volume three of Capital that are in question (hereafter denoted CIII) are these:
[T]he realm of freedom 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
sphere of actual material production. Just as the savage must wrestle with Nature to satisfy
his wants, to maintain and reproduce life, so must civilized man, and he must do so in all
social formations and under all possible modes of production. 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 socialized man, the associated producers, 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 that 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.7
I believe that to understand what Marx is affirming here, we need to
distinguish between two different kinds of "compulsion" in economic
activity; two different senses in which economic activity might be
described as freely or M«freely done. Consider the difference between
these three propositions:
1. Human beings, because they are material organisms, are compelled by physical necessity to labour, no matter what the form of their
social organization.
2. In labouring under capitalism, each labourer is directly subjected,
within the enterprise owned by his or her employer, to the dictates of a
coercive structure of capitalist production relations, and all labourers
are subjected to the unregulated workings of the market and of the
capitalist organization of the economy.
3. In labouring under communism, each labourer exercises in direct
association with other labourers a rational regulation of their immediate
economic activity within some specific work situation, and all labourers
exercise together in a society-wide association a rational regulation of
the society's overall "interchange with Nature, bringing it under their
common control".
7 See note I above.
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Marx 547
The difference between (2) and (3) is the difference between being
controlled and being in control. Nevertheless, both (2) and (3) are
consistent with (1). To put it differently, both (2) and (3) fall within the
realm of necessity. But, to repeat, "the realm of freedom actually
begins", according to Marx, "only where labour which is determined by
necessity and mundane considerations ceases". Why?
As I understand Marx's reasoning in CIII, it can be summarized as
follows:
1. That activity alone is truly "an end in itself" which is done solely
because of its attractions. No activity is describable as an end in itself if,
however attractive it may be in some of its aspects, the activity is one
that human beings cannot not choose to engage in.
2. Human beings cannot choose not to labour, even in post-capitalist
society. "Civilized man", as much as "the savage", is confronted by the
"physical necessity" of engaging in labour.
3. Labour in post-capitalist society will, however, be characterized
by freedom, up to a degree. For while human beings in post-capitalist
society cannot choose not to labour, but must labour, under the constraint of physical necessity, still, such labour will be free in two senses,
(i) The labour will be willingly done by "socialized man", working with
others as "associated producers", (ii) The labour will not be a case of
human beings being "ruled" by the process which is "their interchange
with Nature" (as "by... blind forces"), but will consist, instead, of their
"rationally regulating" their production through a self-directed, autonomous exercise of their powers in which they achieve "common control"
of their interchange with nature, rather than are controlled by it.
4. Nevertheless, socialist labour, though free in the above senses,
remains activity that human beings must perform. It is activity they are
compelled, out of necessity, to undertake. In that sense, then, it is not
freely undertaken, but is done because necessity exacts it of them. Even
in post-capitalist society, the labour of human beings, however much it is
now done in a manner and under conditions that are "most favourable to
and worthy of [my emphasis] their nature", is still activity they are
forced to perform out of "physical necessity".
5. By contrast, the "true realm of freedom", begins with activities
which human beings undertake not from necessity but wholly from
choice. These activities alone constitute "true" freedom, because there
is no compulsion, no necessity, in acting. One acts only for the sake of
being active in that way. The activity is an end in itself, whose motivation lies wholly within itself. It is done from free choice, not from
necessity.
6. Therefore, a prerequisite of human beings inhabiting (to any significant degree) the true realm of freedom is leisure: extensive respite from
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labour. This entails for the overwhelming number of persons (most
especially at the time Marx is writing) a shortening of the working day.
I submit that this is the correct reading of CM. I shall now try to show
that it does not constitute a pessimistic view of human labour.
2.
The distinction on which the passage turns is between activity which it is
necessary that human beings engage in, and activity which there is no
necessity for them to engage in. If "the nature of things" is such that
human beings must, of necessity, engage in an activity L, then L lies
outside the true realm of freedom.
Nevertheless, because, given the nature of things (which includes the
kind of things human beings are), it is necessary that human beings
engage in L, it does not follow that human beings must be unwilling to
engage in L. It is necessary that persons eat and sleep. But most persons
willingly, even eagerly, do both. Whether persons will willingly do what
it is necessary that they do must depend on the nature of the activity and
the conditions under which it is to be done.
Marx envisages under communism conditions of labouring such that
the activity involves "the least expenditure of energy" necessary to
accomplish its object, and is carried out in association with others in a
manner that is "most favourable to and worthy of their human nature".
Could labour be, in such conditions, congenial to human beings; even if
not as congenial as activity in the true realm of freedom?
G. A. Cohen, as noted above, claims that in CHI Marx conceives of
labour "as bound always to be unsatisfying". Cohen even goes so far as
to assert that Marx's view of such labour is that "it cannot be wanted".8
But to claim that a kind of activity is bound always to be necessary is
not to claim that it is bound always to be unsatisfying. (This holds even if
one regards other kinds of activity as bound always to be more satisfying.) Nor does the claim that a kind of activity is bound always to be
necessary entail the claim that it cannot be wanted. (Cohen himself
interpolates in the HLF version of his essay the observation: "Some
eating is enjoyable."9) True, Marx holds that human beings cannot be
related to such activity as to what is "an end in itself", on Marx's
construction of that phrase. But the activity may still be wanted, and be
satisfying.
Cohen at one point asserts: "Granted, [A] there will always be a set of
operations on whose completion the provisioning of the race depends.
But it does not follow, and it is not equally undeniable, that [B] there will
8 Cohen, "Marx's Dialectic", 261; Cohen, History, Labour and Freedom, 207.
9 Cohen, History, Labour and Freedom, 208.
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Marx 549
always be tasks which men perform against their inclinations because
they have to." 10
I do not see why must we accept that Marx's asserting (A) involves
him in asserting (B). From (A) all that follows is that, on Marx's
stipulated sense of "true" freedom, these operations cannot be said to
be an exercise of true freedom.
Cohen also asserts: "That a task must be and is fulfilled does not
imply that the motive for its performance is that its performance is
necessary. But Marx accepts this implication when he says that the
realm of freedom, first glossed as activity not determined by mundane
requirements, must "in the very nature of things' lie beyond the sphere
servicing those requirements."11
I do not see that Marx does accept the implication. Nothing in CHI
rules out some part of the motivation for engaging in labour being that it
is affirming of one's sense of community with the other members of
society, that it is satisfying of one's need for social intercourse and
fellowship, that it is (in some of its tasks) challenging and exercising of
sophisticated human powers, that it gives some scope for selfexpression, and so on. All CHI asserts is that whatever else is true of
human labour, it is always physically and socially necessary activity. It
always lies, therefore, outside the true realm of freedom. Marx's relegation of labour to the realm of necessity does not entail either that it must
always be unsatisfying or that human beings cannot want it. It entails
only that (to repeat) labour cannot be truly described as freely done.
True, Marx also judged that communist labour could not, as a consequence, be as satisfying or as desirable as activity that lies in the realm of
freedom. But this does not commit him to regarding it as bound always to
be unsatisfying, or incapable of being wanted. It does not, then, justify
Cohen's charge.
3.
James Klagge's reading of CHI also finds Marx undeserving of Cohen's
charge. But while Klagge rightly stresses that CHI allows labour under
communism to be "unalienated",12 he gives too little attention to the
opposition between freedom and constraint in the passage. According to
Klagge, the reason why Marx calls for the realm of necessity to be
minimized as much as possible is because Marx is "here being influenced by some perfectionistic value"; possibly the conviction that
"" activities that are ends in themselves, which mainly consist of activities
that are constitutive of all-round development of the individual, are
10 Cohen. "Marx's Dialectic", 261; Cohen, History, Labour and Freedom, 208.
11 Cohen. "Marx's Dialectic", 261; Cohen, History, Labour and Freedom, 208.
12 Klagge, "Marx's Realms", 771.
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more suited that necessary productive activity for the development of
human potential".13
Now there is evidence that Marx did hold that some activities which
are ends in themselves are more suited to develop human potential than
labouring activity. But this does not amount to holding that activities
that are ends in themselves mainly consist of such potential-developing
activity. In any case, Marx does not, in CIII, define activities that are
ends in themselves in terms of their suitability to developing human
potential. He defines them in terms of their being inescapable or
optional. The assumption activating the passage is that human beings
are potentially autonomous, se//-choosing creatures, for whom labour
(however satisfying or developing of human powers it may possibly be),
"still remains a realm of necessity", and is, therefore, strictly speaking,
unfree activity. It is, consequently, less appropriate to human beings
than "that development of human energy which is an end in itself" (my
emphasis). Note that it is the realm of freedom that Marx refers to in the
passage as "blossom[ing] forth"; not the richness of actualized potential. The emphasis throughout is on the opposition between being constrained and being unconstrained: between enjoying complete freedom
of choice of activity, and being hedged by necessity.
Cohen and Klagge, while disagreeing about CIII, do agree in seeing an
incompatibility between CIII and the following remarks by Marx a
decade or so later:
In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual
to the division of labour, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical
labour has vanished; after labour has become not only a means of life but life's prime want:
after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the
individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can
the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its
banners: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need!14
"If we take this passage seriously", Klagge asserts, "it must be said that
Marx changed his view of labour ... between 1864 and 1875", though to
"a more optimistic view of labour", in contrast to the pessimistic
change frequently alleged to have occurred between 1844 and 1864.
Klagge's reasoning is that in the Gotha passage, "Marx holds that
materially necessary labour may be not only a means to life, but iife"s
prime want' ... an end in itself, and not only an end in itself, but the
central or highest end in itself'.15 Cohen, similarly, opposes the description of labour as life's prime want to the CIII denial that labour can be an
end in itself.16
In what follows I propose, somewhat diffidently a reading of the
Gotha passage that reconciles it with CIII. But I wish to stress that here
13
14
15
16
Ibid., 774.
See note 6 above.
Klagge, "Marx's Realms", 776.
Cohen, "Marx's Dialectic", 260-261; Cohen, History, Labour ami Freedom. 207-208.
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Marx 551
my thesis is tentatively put forward as a not implausible reading of
Marx's words. I am conscious that others may think it a strained construction of the passage.17
When Marx asserts that in "a higher phase of communist society"
labour becomes "life's prime want", he may mean, I suggest, simply
that labour becomes each person's first and foremost want. It becomes
so for two reasons. First, labour under communism, being free in senses
3(i) and 3(ii) above, can admit, in some instances at least, of challenging
and satisfying activity. But secondly, the members of such a society are
fully "species beings", who want the good life not only for themselves but
for one another. They therefore want to labour before they do anything
else, because by labouring each contributes to producing what is necessary for all members of the society to be alive in a way that fulfills their
human nature. There are no "free-riders" in the society imagined by
Marx, as evidenced by the fact that each contributes according to his or
her ability, but receives (and accepts) reward only according to his or
her need. For these persons, whose powers, sensibility, and purposes
have developed within this "higher phase" of social life, labour is the
"prime want" of each, just in being the first and foremost want of each.
Now, as we have seen, labour being life's prime want may partly
consist in its being wanted because it is one more opportunity for
unalienated activity "worthy" of "human nature". In a passage from
the Grundrisse which Klagge quotes in his paper, Marx speaks of
the obstacles to its achievement that have to be overcome by labour. But ... the overcoming of such obstacles may itself constitute an exercise in liberty, and ... these external
purposes lose their character of mere natural necessities and are established as purposes
which the individual himself fixes. The result is the self-realization and objectification of
the subject, therefore real freedom, whose activity is precisely labour.18
But that this degree of freedom is now present in labouring still does not
make one's labouring an end in itself, as Marx defines these words in
CIII. One now finds in labouring things that are fulfilling of one's
nature. Yet that does not make labouring an end in itself. Nor does it
make it the case that one's motivation in labouring must be to engage in
this activity solely for its own sake. Other activities may be recognized
and experienced as more fulfilling of one's nature.
The same holds for the second feature entering into labour being
"life's prime want": its being wanted because it contributes to the fully
human existence of all members of the society. That labour is wanted for
either of these reasons does not make it an end in itself, on the CIII
definition. Neither must it make labour an end in itself on a more
ordinary, motivational construction of these words. This is because
what is a prime want is not necessarily an ultimate end.
17 James Klagge and William H. Shaw both found it to be so in reacting briefly to a shorter
version of this essay.
18 McLellan, ed.. Karl Marx: Selected Writings, 368.
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552 Dialogue
I suggest that in the society envisaged by Marx, what is especially
wanted as an end in itself is the fully human existence of each and all.
Labour, therefore, is the prime want of these persons—their first and
foremost want—because each sees labouring as not only the means by
which his or her own life is continued ("a means of life"), but as the
necessary means of continuing in existence a valued kind of human
community benefitting all. What I want first and foremost to do I may
not do for its own sake. Nevertheless, it is my first and foremost want.
Among human beings in the highest phase of communism, as Marx
envisages them, continued reproduction of the economic conditions
under which all are able to enjoy a fully human existence claims each as
having a value so high that to contribute to that reproduction is the prime
(but by no means the only) want of each. That is an intelligible priority,
and one consistent with CHI. (Or so it seems to me.)
4.
I conclude with a substantive, as distinct from exegetical, question. If I
am right, Marx, in CHI, conceives of the true realm of freedom as that in
which there is no compulsion or necessity in acting. He regards genuine
freedom as cancelled by natural necessity. This is not (in my view) a very
helpful way to characterize freedom, because it focusses attention too
much upon human relations to nature and too little upon intra-human
relations. Yet it is the position expressed by Marx in CIII (though not, or
not very often, elsewhere).
At the same time, one of the views for which Marx is most famous is
his insistence that a human being has a natural need to be active in ways
that are appropriate to his or her human nature. Failure to be so active
will be experienced as loss (when such activity has been experienced but
is now denied), and/or as lack of fulfillment (both when such activity has
been experienced, and even when it has not been experienced or is not
even recognized to be possible). Furthermore, it seems clear that the
activities that Marx regards as most especially appropriate to human
nature are those which CHI assigns to the true realm of freedom.
On such a view, then, "the nature of things" is such that it is necessary that human beings engage in activities that are in the true realm of
freedom. That is, to live a fully human life it is necessary to be active
within the true realm of freedom. At the same time, it was (on at least one
occasion) Marx's view that what it is necessary that human beings do
lies outside the true realm of freedom. Does this introduce into "the true
realm of freedom" a kind of necessity that makes it less distinct from
"the realm of necessity" than Marx in CHI allows?
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