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To what extent is Marx right in thinking that political emancipation falls short of human emancipation?I am a white, well-educated, middle-class man. I am about as politically emancipated as one can be, but am I truly emancipated? How close to complete human emancipation does complete political emancipation bring me. According to Marx political emancipation falls far short of human emancipation. In this, I hope to show he is correct, but that the shortfall is not as great as he would suggest. The reason for the shortfall, Marx suggests, is that the alienating force of the state effectively divides a person into two aspects - the public citizen and the private individual [Marx §36; also Pike p282]. In the same way that we separate and elevate our spiritual selves into the concept of God, we elevate our communal selves into the concept of the state [Matravers p248]. The state is a part of ourselves, but it is not our whole selves. Therefore, any amount of political emancipation is only emancipation of our political selves, leaving our individual selves entirely unaffected. Thus, if political emancipation cannot emancipate our whole human self, it therefore cannot be true human emancipation. To illustrate, consider the issue of religion. In Marx's time, Prussia was a Christian state and actively discriminated against Jews [Pike, p279]. Bruno Bauer suggested that the way for Jews to achieve political emancipation was to abandon their religion. If the state is oppressive against Jews, don't be a Jew [§19; Pike p280]. This is rather like going to the doctor to say "It hurts when I do this" only to have the doctor say "Well don't do it". Through atheism one might attain a manner of religious emancipation, but even that is comparable to attaining political emancipation by leaving the country. However, this is an answer to a different question. For the Jew to attain political emancipation the state needs to abandon all its religious bias. Even if it did this though, the Jew would remain a Jew. He "was therefore not freed from religion; he received freedom of religion" [§88]. This can be seen by looking at the USA, which is an atheist state and yet in which the people are generally profoundly religious. Marx and others referred to it as "the land of religiosity par excellence" [§25]. This shows how removing religion from the state does not remove it from our lives. This in turn demonstrates how our political existence is separate and distinct from our private lives. Another example is sex equality. Woman's emancipation in Britain began in 1917 when they were granted the vote, yet in 2003 there is still great controversy surrounding their suitability for certain roles in the military, in the church, and even in sports. Sexism, while certainly less than it was, is still rife. Politically, women are equal to men, but social inequality still exists. The same follows for race. One has the same political rights regardless of race, colour or ethnic background, but this does not prevent racist attitudes. All of which goes to illustrate that we can be as politically emancipated as we can be, and yet still have large aspects of our private lives as enchained as before. Political emancipation does indeed fall short of human emancipation. This is not to diminish the significance of political emancipation. Marx is also right when he says it "is of course a great progress" [§35]. However, he goes on to say it is "the final form of human emancipation inside the present world order" [§35]. While the state still exists in its present form, we will be forever exist as bifurcated selves, and true emancipation will be impossible. "Individual man must take the abstract citizen back into himself ... Only when this has been achieved will human emancipation be complete" [§94]. It is with this that I shall take issue, questioning why a fragmented self is necessarily so bad, and whether true emancipation can be achieved despite it. Before accepting Marx's argument we must address the question, as raised by Pike, "what is wrong with a bifurcated self?" [Pike, p283]. Emancipation is about equality of rights [Wolff, p142], and so Marx attempts to anticipate this question with a discussion of the fundamental human rights 'discovered' and written in the American constitution. He discusses at length how all the so-called human rights are rights of the egoistic individual. They are rights of protection, demarcation and separation. While this remains the case, unification with the community and thus one's communal self is impossible. Yet this doesn't answer the question. Rights, like laws, are human-codified responses to specific threats to liberty. If my freedom of speech is threatened, I codify a right to free speech, and pass a law to enforce that right [Pike, p284]. The human rights specified in the American Constitution are all rights of the individual, but that is because at the time of its writing these were perceived as the prominent threats to liberty. Were it to have been drafted a hundred years later, after the model of Marx rather than that of Locke, it could just as easily have codified socialist rights such as the right to form communities or the right to meaningful work. Certainly the rights discussed promote alienation from one's communal self, but it doesn't mean all rights have to. More importantly, demonstrating that human rights reinforce the bifurcated self does nothing to answer the question of why this is bad. Marx's is a perfectionist argument [Kymlicka, p298]. It rests on the assumption that an alienated self is bad, and that unification with one's species-self is the ideal to which we should aspire. Like all perfectionist arguments, for it to be accepted its proponents must show that their view of perfection is a view that all people will share. When people have such divergent views on what is good and bad, or right and wrong, this is probably impossible. We can probably agree that a worker enslaved under a tyrannical employer, working in drudgery for minimal reward is a bad thing. While this certainly happens, and could even be regarded as common, it is by no means universal. Even in the the capitalist state there are people leading meaningful, fulfilling lives in jobs that they love. There are even people who willingly and happily undertake alienated work. Capitalism, being a highly Darwinian system, will always adopt the most efficient methods, so we can be sure alienated work is most efficient. From this we can conclude that alienated work would result in more time available for leisure [AC]. Thus we have a choice. We could unite with our species-selves and work together for the good of the community, or we could work all day in our alienated job and use the proceeds for socialising in the evenings. If I am to accept Marx's view that alienation is a bad thing, he must demonstrate that communal labour is necessarily more valuable than anything I might gain through the more efficient alienated work. This he fails to do [Kymlicka, p299]. So, if a bifurcated self is not necessarily a bad thing, does this mean we could achieve true emancipation despite it? Marx believed that true emancipation could only be achieved by uniting the self and then emancipating the whole. If true emancipation is possible while the self is separated into parts, it can only be by emancipating each part. The main obstacle to emancipation of our private lives is, Marx says, the alienation of our productivity. We have already discussed how this need not be the case. We may genuinely love our work. We may merely tolerate it, but be willing to endure for the rewards it brings. We may even be one of the idle rich, and have no need to work at all. Note however that no amount of financial emancipation is going to affect our sexual or racial emancipation. It looks like our human whole can be divided into many more aspects than simply public and private. I am an individual and a citizen. I am also a man and a worker. Another person may be a Jew, a husband and a paraplegic. Every person can be regarded in a number of aspects and to be truly emancipated each aspect must be emancipated in turn. However, only one aspect is dependent on the capitalist state, and that is our worker-selves. If we can be financially emancipated without having to abolish capitalism, then no other form of emancipation will require it. Religious, racial, sexual and other forms of emancipation merely require a tolerant society. Is such a tolerant society possible under capitalism? Is it possible at all? I believe it is, and that it is liberal capitalism that is making it so. With greater efficiencies comes greater wealth. In a society governed by wealth, greater wealth necessarily mean less suffering. It is suffering - perceived or actual - at the hands of other that breeds intolerance. A cursory glance at the path society has taken over the last century shows that tolerance has increased. Racial and religious minorities are now generally accepted. Lifestyles once considered criminal are now considered almost commonplace. There is no reason to doubt that this trend will continue. Provided society is tolerant, and the state does not discriminate, there is nothing preventing human emancipation. I am a white, well-educated, middle-class man. I am about as politically emancipated as one can be. I like my job, and I undertake it willingly. I am accepted for who I am by everyone I know. I am truly emancipated. Therefore, Marx is right in thinking that political emancipation falls short of human emancipation, but it does not fall as short as he claims. If society is tolerant, and if he loves his job, there is no reason a man cannot be truly emancipated provided his political emancipation is assured. Bibliography
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