The German Ideology

Abstract

Despite the emergence of historical materialism in The German Ideology, several themes broached in the earlier works remain central to this text and none more so than the close identification of class and the division of labour. While the notion of man’s ‘essence’ and alienation — and, correspondingly, the inspiration these had provided for the doctrine of total emancipation — had been crucial in enabling Marx to produce a close theoretical link between class and the division of labour, the transcendence of anthropologism led to no significant adjustment in this respect. The idea of complete liberation remained a strong motif, although this time underpinned not by a conception of human nature but by a theoretical structure which left no room for doubt that class and the division of labour both derived from private property and that the abolition of the latter necessarily implied the disappearance of the former. Thus there is a significant continuity in the (reductionist) structure of Marx’s discourse between the 1844 Manuscripts and The German Ideology. The assimilation of class to the division of labour now independently performs the discursive function which had previously been accomplished by combining this form of reductionism with an essentialist anthropology.