Utopia in 19th Century Thought: Utopian images in Marx and Engels

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Utopia in 19th Century ThoughtUtopian images in
Marx and Engels The German Ideology
by Professor Terrell Carver,University of Bristol
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Utopian Imagesin Marx and EngelssThe German
Ideology

• Terrell Carver
• Professor of Political Theory
• Department of Politics
• University of Bristol
• t.carver_at_bristol.ac.uk

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Current revisions

• Marx and Engelss relation to the utopians of
  1845-46
• Understanding of the text and its presentation
  elements of debate
• Critique of the interpretive tradition and
  editorial process from 1923 to date
• Critical assessment of Marx and Engels as
  utopians

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Relationship to utopians

• Read retrospectively through Engelss 1880
  Socialism Utopian and Scientific
• Sharp binary and harsh judgements of commentators
  recently questioned
• More nuanced position in 1845-46
• Makes The Communist Manifesto, Part IV (1848),
  rather more exciting

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Take-away points

• Interpretive traditions are often retrospective
  and anachronistic
• Changing the interpretive lens makes familiar
  texts say things differently
• Texts do not say one thing even at the time
  of writing or publication
• The understanding of politics, and what counts as
  a (legal or acceptable) political idiom, alters
  with structural and cultural change
• Beware timeless pastiche in intellectual
  history!

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Hunting, fishing, criticising
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German text 2004
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German apparat
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Japanese edn (1974)
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New translation/presentation

• Therefore as soon as the division of labour IS
  starts to develop, each
  exclusiveman has a particular,
  area of activity that constrains him,
  that he cannot get out of he is a hunter,
  fisherman or or critical
  criticherdsman must
  remainas such unless he wants to lose HIS the

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Cont.

• means to live whereas in communist society,
  where each man does not have an exclusive area
  of activity, RATHER but can rather develop
  himself in any branchES he likes, society
  MERELY regulates the general production thus
  makes it possible for me to do one thing today
  and another

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Cont.

• to
  hunt,tomorrow, in the morning TO BE A
  SHOEMAKER AT MIDDAY IN THE AFTERNOON A to
  fish, to herd
  livestock,GARDNER, in the evening TO BE A
  PLAYWRIGHT,and to criticise after dinner,
  just as
  I have

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Cont.

• without ever becoming hunter,a
  mind, or
  critic.fisherman or herdsman.

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Smooth text with handwriting

• another tomorrow, in the morning to hunt, in
  the afternoon to fish, in the evening to herd
  livestock and to criticise after dinner, just
  as I have a mind, without ever becoming
  hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.

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Commentators reactions to this passage over the
years

• 1. Sharp criticism
• 2. Sympathetic reconciliation
• 3. Sympathetic omission
• 4. Puzzlement

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Marx and Engels as utopians critical assessment

• Hi-tech, high productivity
• Anti-money
• Anti-consumption
• Pro-leisure time
• Compatible with feminism, anti-colonialism,
  ecologism
• How much high tech do we need?