Marx & The Individual: Work As Primary Means Of Self-Actualization

There are numerous assumptions when it comes to Karl Marx and his peculiar brand of philosophy/enquiry. Thanks to our friends Stalin and Mao there has come to be an insinuation that Marx is to be equated with 'collectivism'--and, as such, is against the individual. Nothing could be further from the truth though. When one actually takes the time to read Marx what one notices, again and again, is a deep and abiding concern with the specific human-being and his or her capacity to derive the fullest benefit (read, value) from his or her labours. Marx's philosophy--the spirit of his own labour--was the farthest thing from the sort of collectivism and state-controlled communism that has come to be associated with his name. Karl Marx was for the individual and the actualization of each individual's unique gifts.

One of the things that was often noted about the former Soviet Union was the way in which each individual's work was decided for them by the State. The individual had no freedom to decide or determine his or her own working-existence. What one gave birth was not up to the individual and his or her peculiar passions, as much as it was up to the State itself. One was plugged into the 'system' and made to 'fit in' to the network of a pure socialist system. The individual suffered. Dreams died. Passions became pathologies.

The peculiar thing--at least to me--is that the assumptions has been that this is only the fate of the individual in the pure 'socialist system.' The fate of the individual within Communism is a burdensome one. As Ken Wilber might put it, pathological communion rules the day. And being a forced communion it is really no communion at all.

Of course, all of that does not happen here in America does it? Nor does it happen in Western Europe, where free democratic republics rule supreme, where Capitalism holds favour. Or at least that is what we have been told. The assumption is that the individual is able to follow his or her bliss to a much greater degree in Capitalist systems than in Communist ones. And that is largely true. However, it does not mean that there are not in-born tendencies which conspire to generate the same sort of fate for the individual as was suffered by those in the former Soviet Union. It does not mean that Capitalism has its own pathologies that afflict the indiviaul with the burden of 'fitting in.'

One has only to consider the 'Self-Help' aisle of any majour bookstore and you can see instantly the burdends of work within the Capitalist system that everyday people struggle with. One has only to consider the fate of the teenager faced with the option of only joining the military and being shipped off to fight in a War he or she barely understands--if at all. One has to only consider the elderly gentleman who realizes too late that he never lived his life--the life he wanted to, the life he was given, the leife he had dreamt of, because he was too busy always 'fitting in' and measuring himself against the standards of the 'System' and not against the call of his own Heart. One has only to look around one's self as you sit in the office reading these words while on an unsolicited break from crunching numbers to realize that Capitalism is not anymore innately concerned with the fate of the individual than was/is Communism.

But Karl Marx was. He was interested in asking how one could self-actualize one's unique gifts in a world where there seemed to be a constant conspiracy against the individual doing so. And that is a thread within Marx's body of work that has been little noticed--let alone a story that has been told.