1 These citations are from, respectively, Thesis II on Feuerbach and The German Ideology (Progress Publishers: Moscow 1968) 651 and 32 respectively.

2 We take this opportunity to point out against those who would put scientific method and concern for the oppressed at odds with one another, that the latter may, on the contrary, be a necessary condition of the former: for example, in those lines of inquiry where investigation of the conditions of the oppressed is likely to invite the retaliation of those who are benefiting from the oppression. Certainly, Marx thought the capitalist class's extraction of surplus-labour from the direct producers was such an area, (see his Afterword to the Second Edition of Capital, Volume I (Progress Publishers: Moscow 1965) 14-15 and Capital, Volume Ill (Progress Publishers: Moscow 1966) 791); and certainly his concern for the lot of these direct producers fortified his inquiry in the face of widespread defamation and persecution. It is odd, therefore, that both critics (like Tucker, Robert in Philosophy and Myth in Karl Marx (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P. 1961)Google Scholar and supporters (like Louis Althusser and the French ‘structuralists’ in general) have thought it important to assert or to deny Marx's moral concerns: as if these concerns in themselves were cause for suspecting his work, rather than for trusting it.

3 Generally, the position is that moralities, for Marx, are merely reflections of class interests and, as such, can be neither personal nor moral in what they demand. The idea of a ‘proletarian morality,’ of course, is neither personal nor truly moral, because it refers to an historically necessary, collective movement towards a new order of classless social standards (e.g., in Engels, FrederickAnti-Dühring (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House 1959Google Scholar). Here, as elsewhere, we mean by a personal morality a set of standards in accordance with which the individual can choose to act in his everyday life.

4 Two citations from very different sorts of text indicate the tendency here: The [Marxian) revolution is by nature a-moral, placing itself above any consideration of good and evil … Dostoevsky opposed the revolution and its amorality on behalf of the dignity of the human personality, and its moral value. (Berdyaev, NicholasDostoevsky (New York: Meridian Books 1964) 98Google Scholar). [What is involved in the East-West struggle] is its [the West's] free institutions based on individual human rights, in other words, its identity. (An Overview of East-West Relations (New York: The Trilateral Commission 1977) 3.)

5 The important medium of self-serving in state socialist societies is not private capital nor even annual income, but holding of upper-level State or Party office and its attached privileges (i.e., powers of hierarchical command and services, expenditures and appointments of office occupied, comforts and spaciousness of personal living quarters, ownership or control of luxury vehicles, access to low-cost foreign goods, use of holiday facilities and villas, and so on). In this way, special benefits accrue to the occupants of public office with much the same largesse as to owners of private capital, with no clear limit to what can be thus appropriated. Unfortunately, with no Marxian personal ethic, it seems now more the rule in Soviet societies to deter to, and actively aspire after, such special privileges than to censure and repudiate them.

6 The importance of these spheres of action and influence can hardly be overestimated. With upbringing we are dealing with the very formation of future labourpower and character-structure, the nature of which will largely determine the determinants of the social system itself, and the governance of which lies largely outside the Jurisdiction and rule of the capitalist class. With pattern of consumption, we are dealing with the very terminus ad quem of the commodityreproduction process which cannot, for example, continue to adulterate food stuffs and communications, or produce environmentally polluting goods (e.g., more and more motor vehicles and throwaways), if people refuse to purchase them. Finally, with recreation we are dealing with free time which can with, say, conversion from television to literature and competitive entertainment to personal participation, restructure human consciousness and capacity. In short, there are a set of socially significant fronts admitting of transformative individual decision and action which Marxists have in general failed to consider; and which together constitute a realm of action in which social advance is largely made or broken.

7 The communists do not put egoism against self-sacrifice or self-sacrifice against egoism - On the contrary they demonstrate the material basis engendering it [this conflict] with which it disappears of itself.’ (Karl Marx, The German Ideology, op. cit., 266-67) Marx's point is not, of course, that the individual is swallowed up by the collective, but that the social and the individual's interests need no longer be opposed when there is enough to go around and production and distribution are co-operatively determined. In such a material situation, it is, he holds, both in one's own interest and the society's that work is contributed in accordance to abilities and reception is determined in accordance with needs.

8 See, for example, Leszek Kolakowski's essay The Myth of Human Self-Identity: Unity of Civil and Political Society in Socialist Thought', in Kolakowski, Leszek and Hampshire, Stuart, eds., The Socialist Idea: A Reappraisal (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson 1974).Google Scholar

9 See, however, the very general outline of this development in my section on the historical modification of human nature in The Structure of Marx's, World-View (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton U. P. 1978) 37–45Google Scholar and 237-38.

10 See Capital, Volume I, 592 and Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations (London: Lawrence and Wishart 1964) 84-5.

11 Few, if any, Marxists actually say this, but their position of endorsing an inevitability which they decline to give moral grounds for has left the impression that they approve of it because of its inevitability: an impression that Isaiah Berlin has exploited at length in his work Historical Inevitability (London: Oxford U. P. 1954).

12 Marxian commentary and action, to be sure, accords great importance to the 'subjective factor’ in social transformation, but standardly this factor is conceived only in non-moral, collectivist terms (i.e., the recognized material interests of the proletarian class as a class). The evaluative core of the individual person, who identifies with this cause as good or not ‘on his own,’ that is, the individual's personal value-structure and the countless choices and effects it regulates, is simply left out of account.

13 Capital, Volume I, op. cit., 10

14 Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Moscow: 1970) 21

15 Allen Wood disagrees, or seems to. In his ‘The Marxian Critique of Justice’ (Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1 (1971-2) 244-82) and more explicitly, in his ‘Marx on Right and Justice: A Reply to Husami', (Ibid., 8 (1978-9) 267-95), he argues that ‘such’ (Marxian) essential goods as freedom, community and self-realization' are ‘non-moral goods.’ (281-3) However, Wood's brief argument for so drastically curtailing the reference of the concept ‘moral’ is, as we might expect, quite unconvincing. One of its more peculiar upshots is that moral theories like utilitarianism and naturalism are, in his view, theories which regard ‘what is morally good - as determined by non-moral goods.’ (284) For all this, however, even Wood eventually admits that a morality applied to ‘individuals,’ as opposed to 'social arrangements,’ is not in the end incompatible with Marx's thought. (289)

16 It is important that Marx in the very passage that he denies the individual's responsibility for capitalist relations, affirms the subjective freedom of the same individual to ‘raise himself above’ them. This qualification is rarely, if ever, noted, but it has a crucial consequence. If the individual is subjectively free, he may form any moral intention whatever, though only some such intentions will be practically realizable within the economic relations to which he is subject. Herein lies the ‘elective space’ required by personal morality, and accorded to the individual by Marx himself in his most deterministic utterance.

17 Because children are legally the ‘possessions’ of their adult parents or guardians, their form of upbringing is a matter of these parents’ or guardians’ individual choice, and is not dictatable by the state or the capitalist class (even compulsory school-attendance, as opposed to education, is not imposed in many Jurisdictions). Thus, the material reproduction of society's membership itself is largely or wholly under the legal and effective authority of non-capitalist agencies. That Marxists have neither theoretically nor practically focused on this central, selfregulatable realm of the social process, is an oversight of world-historical proportions. (See my ‘The Case for Children's Liberation,’ Interchange 10.3 (1979-80) 10.35.)

18 To the extent that disposable income (i.e., income beyond that required for food, clothing and shelter) rises as a percentage of workers’ total income, as it dramatically has in the West since Marx's day, Western workers have, in general, used it to consume more and more unnecessary commodities (i.e., commodities not enabling material or cognitive health and growth): thereby increasing the extension of the capital relation, the proliferation of waste and pollution, the reduction of non-renewable energy resources, and the prevention of the shortening of the working day. Other outlets for workers’ increased disposable income, such as investment in worker-owned factories, retail outlets, or mass media, have therefore been ruled out by this unnecessary and systematically deleterious consumption. It is on this account that the individual choice to consume more or less unnecessary commodities is of vast, if ignored, social consequence.

19 The total man-hours spent in any given week consuming commercial entertainment of one kind or another is, with homeworkers and children included, not very much less than that spent at wage-labour. It may be more. Here again, we see an area of discretionary choice of great social importance which Marxists have been inclined to overlook.

20 Lest we need reminder, the choice between purchasing food that is sugar- and chemical-laden, or nutritious, is a choice not only between one's own ill-health or health, but the choice between demanding and actively supporting ill-health, or health, as a channel of social investment. The same principle applies, needless to say, to the purchase of any pollutive or non-pollutive commodity, from soaps to modes of transport.

21 (v) and (vi) are choices in personal life with which most Marxists will already be acquainted. But the reach of (vii) is less obvious, and extends to such options as, for example, the way university scholars dress, or even what they write.

22 This choice might otherwise be put as that between possessiveness and nonpossessiveness in personal relations, and it is broad and intricate in its range. Forms of possessiveness which we may overlook in such relations are conflictavoidance, paternalism and institutionalized marriage. (For the latter, see 'Monogamy: A Critique’ in Baker, Robert and Ellison, Frederick, eds., Philosophy and Sex (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books 1975) 166-78)Google Scholar

23 ‘Splittism’ in the socialist movement is as old as the movement, and has done incalculable damage to its advance. We might regard it as a symptom of the movement's impotence, a way of discharging frustration in the face of overwhelming cultural opposition. But we might also see that an explicit personal imperative of maximal co-operation with those of like purpose is a way of ethically preventing it.

24 Even within one occupation place, say, that of a university faculty member, there is a choice of this sort: for example, with respect to whether one works to develop students’ literacy, or to select out those who are not already thus skilled; whether one operates to maximize others’ learning, or to achieve higher rank for oneself. Such choices admit, of course, to degrees and even mixture, but it is precisely such complexity of possibility which reveals the extent of choice involved within Just one vocational function.

25 For example, consider these two passages in Capital (my emphasis): Hence nowhere do we find a more shameful squandering of human labour-power for the most despicable purposes than in England, the land of machinery (Capital, I, 394). The English agricultural labourer receives only one quarter as much milk, and one half as much bread as the Irish … The reason is simply this, that the poor Irish farmer is incomparably more humane than the rich English (ibid., 680).

26 Something qualifies as a human material requirement if, and only if, the human organism or productive forces in their present state of historical development cannot be maintained or developed without it. Thus, for example, profit beyond the amount required to commence or to increase the use-value yield of the productive cycle is not a human material requirement; whereas a nourishing diet, maintenance of machinery or literacy are human material requirements. Marx's system is essentially a reasoned recommendation of whatever operates to meet such requirements, and repudiation of whatever operates to impede this satisfaction.

27 As we know, Kant's dictum of universalizing the maxim of one's action has come to be regarded as a criterion of a moral position as such, largely through the writings of R.M. Hare.

28 Marx even calls on the ‘classes that are for the nonce the ruling ones’ to aid society's transformation to a higher, co-operative order by ‘the removal of all removeable hindrances to the free development of the working class’ (Capital, I, 9).

29 The individual's self-realization … in no way means mere fun, mere amusement, as Fourier with grisette-like naiveté, conceives it. Really free working, e.g., composing, is at the same time the most damned seriousness, the most intense exertion (Grundrisse, trans. Martin Nicolaus ((Harmondsworth: Pelican 1973) 610). It might be replied that a utilitarian calculus would include creative strain as simply another form of happiness. But then the concept of happiness would have lost its bounds of sense.

30 I am indebted to a conversation with G.A. Cohen over an early draft of this paper for this clear-cut opposition of the utilitarian and the Marxian concepts of value.

31 Capital, I, 592

32 Marx's description of the labour process from which these cited phrases are drawn, occurs in Capital, I, 178-84. The idea of man as a ‘creative fire’ is, we might add, perhaps the most persistent image of his work. However, it is important to realize here not only the self-expressive aspect of Marx's concept of man, but the implicit self-other bridge his idea implies: that is, man expresses himself through the work he does for others, whether it be building bridges or composing artistic communications. It is in this way that Marx's notion of the ‘truly human' is both a value of self-realization and of service to others at the same time.

33 The quoted phrases occur in Capital, Volume Ill (Moscow: Progress Publishers 1966), 820-1 and Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations, trans. Cohen, Jack, ed. Hobsbawm, E.J. (London: Lawrence and Wishart 1964), 84-5.Google Scholar

34 Bear in mind the other-serving nature of this self-expressiveness: what realizes individual capacities (e.g., art forms) fulfils others at the same time (e.g., their aesthetic needs). The ‘freedom’ of such individual fulfilments is in proportion to its non-Constraint by economic form, and its ‘fullness’ is in proportion to its many-sidedness.

35 Marx conceives needs in terms relative to the standard of living of the surrounding society (e.g., in Wage-Labour and Capital (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House 1970), 56-7).

36 This is a Marxian schedule of needs (omitting that for self-realizing work) which is constructed step by step in The Structure of Marx's World-View, 30 ff.

37 Just how ethically committed Marx was to the principle of full and free development of the individual can be discerned in his qualitative leap from socialism, where the individual receives in accordance to his work, to communism, where the individual receives in accordance to his needs, with no historical materialist account by Marx of why such an economic transformation must take place.

38 For more on the compatibility of ethical choice and inevitable occurence, see The Structure of Marx's World-View, 234-9.

39 That Marx did see a choice in the capitalist's resistance to or advancement of socialist revolution is clear from his invitation in Capital to the ‘classes who are for the nonce the ruling ones’ to ‘remove all legally removeable hindrances to the free development of the working class’ (Capital) I, 9). As our text is meant to indicate, moral responsibility for such advancement or retardation obtains in direct proportion to the extent of one's social power and range of choice.

40 Maximizing one's effective demand for the world's resources and others’ labour is, of course, another way of saying getting and spending money. That such a principle of conduct does, in fact, govern capitalist society's membership as a whole, and not Just capitalists, is demonstrated by the nearly universal, automatic acceptance of, if not quest for, ever more money for oneself- whether by raise, inheritance, or lottery. This form of life, however automatic it has become, is a moral choice whose importance in sustaining the capitalist order is far greater than Marxists’ have so far recognized.

41 There is no matter of greater concern in Marxian thought than the concern for its application: for its praxis. Perhaps the most sustained recent emphasis on the theory-practice connection is by Anderson, Perry in his Considerations on Western Marxism (London: New Left Books 1976),Google Scholar where he laments the century-old ethico-political paralysis of the Western Marxist movement as a whole. But Anderson, like others, only conceives of Marxian practice in mass terms, exclusively in terms of a collective ‘them', the workers (e.g., 106). The entire realm of personal action is, in line with the Marxian tradition generally, simply precluded from consideration.

42 It might be thought that a utilitarian ethic, in its non-egoistic forms, is also too demanding in its imperative of maximizing human happiness. But it is well to remember that this ethic is classically a ‘moral science of legislation', not a code of everyday personal life, and is by no means opposed in its method or commendations to the established social order, which it everywhere presupposes.

43 More productive development has occurred since Marx's death in 1883 than in the entire industrial revolution up to then. It follows, then, that the possibilities of individual and social life, which Marx saw as determined ultimately by productive force development, have grown, according to his own theory, to a correspondingly vast extent since his death. It is this striking implication which must be kept firmly in mind when assessing the revolutionary possibilities of a Marxian personal morality from a historical materialist standpoint.