China Social Science Review

No.3, 2022

 

The Theoretical Insights of the Young Marx

(Abstract)

 

Watanabe Norimasa

 

The theoretical insights of the young Marx can be categorized under the following points. First, Marx developed his “foundation-superstructure” theory in the German-French Yearbook; he thus underwent a theoretical transformation in 1843. Second, in Notebook I of the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, he made a critical analysis of civil society based on the theory of “forms of ownership of labor” and alienation. Third, in the section “Private Property and Communism” in Notebook III of the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx rejects the opposition between capital and labor, arguing that alienation will lead to a movement of historical change that will sublate private property and the propertyless. He understands this movement as “communism,” and this is the “logic of historical change.” Fourth, after discussing communism in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx begins to transform existing theoretical understandings of theory and practice, a transformation that marks the end of his Enlightenment critique. We cannot judge the incompleteness of Marx’s youthful theories by the standard of his later theories. Rather, we should interpret the theoretical insights of the young Marx in terms of the theoretical foundations of the research of his later years.