Erich Fromm

Publisher: Continuum Impacts (2005)

Marx wrote (in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts) that 'free conscious activity' (i.e., human activity) is 'the species character of man.' Labor, for him, represents human activity, and human activity is life. Capital, on the other hand, represents for Marx the amassed, the past, and in the last analysis, the dead (Grundrisse). One cannot fully understand the affective charge which the struggle between capital and labor had for Marx unless one considers that for him it was the fight between aliveness and deadness, the present versus the past, people versus things, being versus having. For Marx the question was: Who should rule whom - should life rule the dead, or the dead rule life? Socialism, for him, represented a society in which life had won over the dead.\r\n \r\nMarx's whole critique of capitalism and his vision of socialism are rooted in the concept that human self-activity is paralyzed in the capitalist system and that the goal is to restore full humanity by restoring activity in all spheres of life.