INDIA-CHINA : THE PILGRIM AMBASSADORS - 2

THE PILGRIM AMBASSADORS – 2

SEVENTH CENTURY AD TO THE ELEVENTH CENTURY AD

BHASKER ANAND SALETORE

A greater name than that of Sanghavarman was that of I-Tsing, the well known pilgrim ambassador who, in AD 641, when he was only seven, was admitted into the Buddhist cloister, evidently at Fan-yang, his birth-place, and who in his eighteenth year (AD 652) thought of travelling to India. This wish he actually carried out only when he was thirty-seven years of age (AD 671). Setting out for Yan-Chow in a Persian boat, he reached in twenty days Sumatra, where he remained for eight months. Then he passed six months at Srivijaya (Palembang), two months at Malaya; then crossed the Bay of Bengal in a Sumatra vessel, and, finally, reached Tamralipti in AD 673. He first visited Bodh Gaya and Kusinagara, and, then, lived at Nalanda for ten years. Here in that great University he collected four hundred Sanskrit texts. He visited Varanasi, Sravasti, Kanyakubja, Rajagrha, Vaisali, and then returned to China by way of Srivijaya, where he stayed for four years, studying further and translating Buddhist books, both in Sanskrit and Pali. Since this work was too heavy for him, he returned to China in AD 689 in order to seek collaborators. Four months after landing at Canton he returned to Sumatra with his disciples. He then remained for five years at Srivijaya, editing his personal notes and translating Sanskrit texts. Finally in AD 695 he returned to China, where he was received by the Empress Wai-Hou. In China he resided at the monastery of Great Happiness at Loyang, and at the monastery of Western Bright at the Imperial T’ang capital, Changnan. In the course of his strenuous life, I-Tsing had translated fifty-six works in two hundred and thirty volumes. He died in his seventy-ninth year in AD 713. It was a great tribute which the T’ang Emperor Chung-Tsung (AD 684-710) paid to him, when the Emperor greatly commended his life and works in the preface to the Tripitaka Catalogue. I-Tsing’s teachers in India were Jnanacandra, Ratnasimha, Divakarasimha, Tathagatha-garbha, who were evidently the luminaries of the University of Nalanda, and Sakyakuti of Srivijaya.

One or two of the above deserve a passing note. Divakara was a Sramana of central India, who visited China in AD 676. There he translated into Chinese eighteen Buddhist texts in thirty-four volumes. This was done between the years AD 676 and AD 688. Along with him must be mentioned Buddhapala, a Sramana of Kubha, who reached China also in the year AD 676. He translated a Buddhist text into Chinese.

I-Tsing ranks with Yuan-Chwang as one of the most remarkable Chinese pilgrim ambassadors who has left behind him not only a valuable account of the countries which he visited, a rich collection of Buddhist works, but a following of thirty-seven disciples. ....

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Empress Wu-Hou
www.tumblr.com

The eighth century also witnessed many pilgrim ambassadors travelling between India and China. It opened with the happy co-operation of Indian and Chinese pilgrims in the matter of adding to Buddhist literature. In AD 705 Pramati, a Sramana of central India, Meghasikha of Udyana, and Huai-Ti, a Chinese Sramana, all translated a Buddhist work into Chinese.

An instance of an envoy being sent in search of a pilgrim ambassador is afforded in the history of the reign of the Empress Wou mentioned above. She was a great patron of the Mahayana Buddhism. It was discovered in China at this time that certain sections of the Avatamsaka Sutra were missing in the Sanskrit copy preserved in China. The Empress was told that in Khoten there lived a Saka by race name Siksananda. He was profoundly learned in both the Mahayana and Hinayana Schools. In Khoten, so the Empress was informed, there was a complete text of the Sutra in question; and Siksananda was the proper person who could translate it. So the Empress sent an envoy to Khoten to procure the manuscript as well as the services of Siksananda. The mission proved successful, and Siksananda took with him a complete copy of the Avatamsaka Sutra which he rendered into Chinese. He died in China at the age of fifty-nine. This Sutra, we may note by the way, became the basis of the Avatamsaka School in China.

In AD 716 Subhakarasimha, a Sramana of central India and a professor of the Nalanda University, arrived at the Imperial capital Changnan. This was in the reign of the T’ang Emperor Ming-Ti. He brought with him many Sanskrit texts. From AD 717 till AD 735 he translated Buddhist texts into Chinese. He died in AD 735. ....

Vajrabodhi and his pupil Amoghavajra, a Sramana of northern India, arrived in China in AD 719, during the reign of the same T’ang Emperor Ming-Ti. Vajrabodhi translated four Buddhist works between AD 723 and AD 730, and died in AD 732 aged seventy. His disciple Amoghavajra visited India and Ceylon in AD 714, and then, returned to China in AD 746. Between that date and AD 774, when he died, he had translated seventy-seven works.

About the middle of the eighth century (AD 747), we come across a great name. It is that of the Mahayana Tantric scholar Padmasambhava. ..He was a great professor in the Nalanda University. He was invited by the Tibetan king Khri-Ide-Srong-btsan, also called Ral-pa-ean who has extended his dominion from Mongolia in the north to the Ganges, including Nepal. Padmasambhava, also called Padjung, went to Tibet, and along with Santaraksita, erected a monastery after the model of the monastery at the Odantapuri University.

I-Tsing (Yijing)
en.wikipedia.org

Four years later (AD 751) a Chinese Buddhist pilgrim by name U-K’ong (Dharmadhatu) left China for India. Travelling through central Asia, he reached Gandhara in AD 753, and Kashmir in AD 759. Here in the latter country he took his final vows as a Buddhist Sramana, and spent four years in study. He returned to Gandhara but in AD 764 he left for central India. Visiting Kapilavastu, Varanasi, Sravasti and Kusinagara, he finally came to Nalanda where he remained for three years. In AD 783 or 784 he set out for China, which he reached in AD 790. He took with him the Sanskrit texts of the Dasabhumi and Dasabala Sutras and other works. ....

(The first ruler of the Sung dynasty) Emperor Tai-Tsou (960-976 AD) opened a new era in the history of China. Emperor Tai-Tsou, whose earlier name was Chow-Kuang-Yn, was a great ruler who gave peace to the country, raised the public spirit that had fallen low, believed that knowledge was good and that its acquisition was beneficial to the best interests of the people, and that his chief duty was to secure happiness of the greatest number of his subjects. He had reunited the Empire as it had not been done for ages past; and handed down to his brother Chow Kuang Y, the prince of Tsin, a strong Empire with the tradition of a good and impartial government. Chow Kuang Y succeeded to his brother’s Empire under the title of Tai Tsong (AD 976-998). He completed the work of his illustrious brother; and in spite of the reverses at the hands of the Tartars, was able to maintain the unity of the Empire, the tradition of wise administration, and the promotion of the best interests of the people. It was to the court of such an illustrious ruler that the Indian pilgrim ambassadors went.

The most prominent among them were Danapala, Dharmadeva and a third one who is known only by his Chinese name T’ien Hsi Tsai. Danapala was a Sramana of Ujjain, who arrived in China in AD 980. That Indian pilgrim was honoured by the Chinese Emperor Tai Tsong in AD 982 with the title of Hsien Chao Ta Shih or The Great Guru of General Teaching. Danapala translated in all one hundred and eleven works, most of which were Dharanis. He was also instrumental in recreating interest in Nagarjuna some of whose works he translated into Chinese. ....

The next name in the list of Indian pilgrim ambassadors is that of Dharmadeva, who was a professor in the Nalanda University. He took the Chinese name of Fa-tien, which he changed into Fa-Hien. Between AD 972 and AD 1001 he is said to have translated numerous works. ....In AD 982 he received from the Chinese Emperor the title of Chuan Chao Ta Shih or the Great Guru for Transmitting the Buddhist Doctrines, and the membership of the Imperial Board for Translating Indian Buddhist Texts. He died in AD 1001, and was awarded the posthumous title of Hsuan Chiao Chan Shih (or the Dhyan Teacher of Profound Learning) by the Emperor Chin-Tsong (AD 998-1023), so that other scholars might emulate his great example of unrivalled devotion to the cause of Buddhist literature. ....

The third name is that of the Indian pilgrim ambassador who is known only by his name of T’ien Hsi Tsai. According to some, he was a native either of Jalandhara or of Kashmir, but, according to others, he hailed from Gandhara. He arrived in China in AD 980 in the reign of the Emperor Tai-Tsong; and died in AD 1001 in the same year which saw the passing away of Dharmadeva. (He was also conferred the title of Ming Chiao Ta Shih, the Great Guru of Manifestation of Buddha’s Teachings in AD 982 by the Emperor Tai-Tsong. After his death, the Emperor Chin-Tsong conferred on him the title of Hui Pien Fa Shih, The Dharma Teacher of the Argument of Wisdom.) He translated eighteen works on the Buddhist Tripitakas. Among them the most important were the Tantra called Manjusrimulatantra and Dharmapadaudanavarga. ....

Atisa Dipamkara
rigpawiki.org

The Sung Emperor Chin Tsong I (AD 998-1023) continued the noble tradition of his illustrious predecessors. ....The Indian pilgrim ambassadors continued to visit his court. Two of them may be noted here. One was Dharmaraksa, known also by his Chinese name of Fa-Hu, who was a Sramana of Magadha. He arrived in China in AD 1004. He worked at the translation from that date till AD 1056, when he died in his ninety-sixth year. ....His contemporary was Suryayasas, whose other name was Jih-Cheng (AD 1004). He is credited with the translation of two Sanskrit books into Chinese. These were said to have been composed by Asvaghosa. ....

The last quarter of the tenth century is memorable in the history of pilgrim ambassadors because it produced one of the greatest figures among them. The year AD 980 is noteworthy because it was the year when Dipamkara Sarvajnana, better known as Atisa, was born. He became later on the Rector of the Vikramasila University which had been founded by king Dharmapala of Magadha (AD 769-815). Dipamkara was born at Vikramapura in Bengal, and came of the royal stock of Gaur. He studied first under Jetari and then under Rahula Gupta, the five minor sciences, then, the three Pitakas of the Hinayana and the Mahayana Schools, and became an expert in the four classes of the Tantras and in the mysteries of Esoteric Buddhism. He was ordained in the highest order of the Bhiksus when he was thirty-one years old, and given the vows of Bodhisattva by Dharmaraksita. He went to Suvarnadvipa (Sumatra), where he lived for twelve years studying Buddhism. Returning to Magadha, he was unanimously awarded the title of Dharmapala of Magadha. It was then that the Pala king Nayapala (AD 1040-1055) made him the Rector of the Vikramasila University. .... Atisa would not go to Tibet, even though twice plenty of gold was offered to him. But the persuasion of the Sthavira Ratnakara and the entreaties of the Tibetan ambassador finally prevailed and Atisa, now aged fifty-nine, went to Tibet in AD 1038. There he spent thirteen years reviving the Mahayana Buddhism by writing books and delivering discourses. He died at Nethang near Lhasa in AD 1053. His name is remembered with deep veneration all over Asia where Tibetan Buddhism prevails. .......

Concluded.

(Extracts from BHASKER ANAND SALETORE’S INDIA’S DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH THE EAST, APPENDIX A, BOMBAY, 1960)

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INDIA-CHINA : THE PILGRIM AMBASSADORS - 1

THE PILGRIM AMBASSADORS - 1

SEVENTH CENTURY AD TO THE ELEVENTH CENTURY AD

BHASKER ANAND SALETORE

Silabhadra, Rector of the Universiry of Nalanda, and Yuan Chwang
www.flickr.com

The traditions of goodwill existing between India and China which came as a result of the pious and persistent effort of pilgrims for over five centuries (second century till the sixth century AD) continued to be maintained in the succeeding centuries. ....

The seventh century opened with a brisk movement of pilgrim ambassadors. One of the earliest in this century was Prabhakaramitra. He was a Sramana of central India, who went to China in AD 627, and who was warmly received by the T’ang Emperor T’ai Tsung the Great in that year. In China Prabhakaramitra translated three Buddhist works. He died in that country in AD 633.

The same great Chinese Emperor T’ai Tsung (AD 627-650) is said to have received in an equally warm manner Yuan Chwang, when the latter returned to China from his memorable sojourn in India. Yuan Chwang has been rightly considered as the prince among pilgrims. Starting on his travels when he was only twenty-nine (AD 629), he arrived in Gandhara in AD 630. Between that date and the last year of his stay in India, AD 643, Yuan Chwang has visited almost every province in India, leaving to posterity a most valuable record of the history of India. This great Master of the Law, a title which was bestowed upon him by universal consent, has left behind him a memory in the Buddhist world which is as green as ever. On reaching China in AD 645 he set himself to the noble task of translating and working at the results of his memorable sojourn in India. From that date till his death in AD 664 he is reputed to have translated seventy-four or seventy-five Buddhist works into Chinese.

Ruins of the University of Nalanda
en.wikipedia.org

Between AD 629 and 671, about fifty-seven pilgrim ambassadors had visited the celebrated University of Nalanda. They came from China, Japan and Korea. A few among them may be noted here. Almost immediately after Yuan Chwang had returned to China, there came the pilgrim Aryavarman (A-li-ye-po-mouo). He was a native of Korea (Sin-lo), and had left Changman in AD 638 for India with a view to receive the true teaching of Buddha, and to adore the sacred relics. He was engaged in the University of Nalanda in copying many Sutras. He was well versed in the Vinaya and the Abhidhamma doctrines. At the age of about seventy, he died in Nalanda. Contemporaneous with Aryavarman was another Korean pilgrim, Hwui Nieh, a Doctor of Law. He also died at the same University, at the age of about sixty. The Sanskrit works which he wrote were preserved at Nalanda. Perhaps to the same age is to be assigned another Doctor of Law, Taou Hi, but named Srideva in Sanskrit. He belonged to the district of Lih-shing in the department of Tsa’i-Chau. He had travelled through Tibet to India, visited Mahabodhi tree, where he paid respects to the sacred relics, and engraved one tablet in Chinese giving an account of things, old and new, in China. He then dwelt for some years at Nalanda, and then in the Kusi (Kusinagara) country. The Mung king of Amravat paid him great respect. While in the Nalanda University, he had studied the books on the Great Vehicle (Mahayana); and while in the Chu-po-pun-na (Davavana) temple (the temple of cremation), he had studied the Vinaya Pitaka, and practised himself in the Sabdavidya, a summary of which he wrote in square and grass characters. He also wrote (or copied) about 400 chapters of the Sutras and Sastras while at Nalanda. I-Tsing did not see him, but while travelling in the Amravat country, Srideva sickened and died, aged fifty years.

Likewise to the same age to which the above pilgrim ambassadors belonged, have to be assigned the following – Tang; Taou-Hin of King-Chou, called Silaprabha; Hwui-Ta from Kung-Chau, and Wou-King – all of whom were at Nalanda studying Sanskrit subjects like yoga, kosa, etc. Of these Tang, the ‘Lamp’ (dipa) was a priest of the Mahayana School, who had gone when young with his parents to the land of Dvarapati (Sandoway in Burma), there to become a priest. He returned with the Chinese envoy to the capital. Then he travelled by the southern sea route to Ceylon, where he worshipped the Tooth; and then journeying to southern India, he came to eastern India, and finally arrived at Tamralipti. Here he barely escaped with his life at the hands of robbers. At Tamralipti he lived for twelve years perfecting himself in Sanskrit. He then proceeded to Nalanda and Bodh Gaya, thence to Vaisali and the Kusi country, and died in the Pari Nirvana temple at Kusinagara.

Tang Emperor T'ai Tsung
en.wikipedia.org

The Nalanda University’s great attraction was, among other things, the galaxy of celebrated Buddhist scholars, whose fame and piety brought to that centre Chinese and Korean pilgrims. It is necessary to name here a few of these Buddhist luminaries, since without them any account of the pilgrim ambassadors would be incomplete. Indeed, their greatness was one of the causes which made foreign Buddhist pilgrims come to Magadha. Among the numerous Buddhist intellectual celebrities at Nalanda, was Silabhadra, the Rector of the University, and pupil and successor of Dharmapal. His contemporary was perhaps Bhavaviveka, who might have lived about this time or a little earlier. Then there were the following – Jayasena; Candragomin, the opponent of Candrakirti; Gunamati, author of a commentary on Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakosa; his disciple Vasumitra (the third of that name), author of a commentary on the Abhidharmakosa-vyakhya; Jnanacandra, and Ratnasimha, the latter being the teacher of Hsuan Chao, who will figure presently. The scholars, Jnanacandra and Ratnasimha, are mentioned by the later Chinese traveller, I-Tsing, as his teachers as well.

Before we proceed with the story of the pilgrim ambassadors in the seventh century AD, it may be worthwhile to note as to when exactly Buddhism was introduced in Korea and Siam, from where, particularly from the former country, pilgrims in large numbers came to study at Nalanda. Buddhism is said to have been introduced in Korea in AD 372 in the reign of the Chinese Emperor Chien Wen (Kien Wen-Ti, AD 371-373). But the spread of Buddhism in Siam was only in the middle of the seventh century AD. According to tradition, it was introduced in Siam in the year 1181 of the Siamese sacred era, under a king called Krek who, in its honour, instituted the popular era which, according to some, began in AD 642.

We may now continue with the history of the pilgrim ambassadors, whom we left in the middle of the seventh century AD. In AD 649 the Chinese Sramana Tao-sheng (Candradeva) visited India by way of Tibet. He remained in India for several years but while on his way back to China died in Nepal. We mentioned above one of the learned professors at the Nalanda University, Ratnasimha. One of his pupils was Hsuan-Chao (Hiuen-Chin) called in Sanskrit Prakasamati. He was a Master of the Law and a native of Sin-Chang in Ta-Chau. He had become a Buddhist at a very early age, and had decided that when he would come to age, he would visit the holy places and worship the holy shrines in India. Accordingly in the course of the Cheng-Kuan period (AD 627-650), he took his residence at the Chinese capital, where he applied himself to the study of the Fan (Sanskrit) language. With a staff in hand he travelled westwards, crossed Kin-Fu, and the desert sands, arrived at the Iron Gates over the Snowy Peaks, thence travelled through Tukhara into Tibet from where he crossed over to India. He then reached the Jalandhara country, having narrowly escaped death at the hands of bandits. He lived in Jalandhara for four years. He received all attention at the hands of the king of the Mung country (identified by the Rev. Beal with Balarai, who seems to have succeeded the last of the Siladityas); and having mastered Sanskrit, he went southwards until he reached the Mahabodhi monastery where he lived for four years. Thence he travelled to Nalanda, where he stayed for three years. Then following the course of the Ganges, he received the religious offerings of the country. After visiting the Buddhist temples in the land, he returned through Nepal and Tibet to Loyang, the Imperial Chinese capital, after having travelled about 10,000 li. This was the end of the first chapter of the pilgrimage of this remarkable pilgrim ambassador.

Mahabodhi Temple, Bodh Gaya
en.wikipedia.org

In AD 664 Hsuan Chao again returned to Kashmir, where he found an aged Brahman named Lokayata. Accompanied by him Hsuan Chao returned to Loyang. And then for the third time, urged by the desire to see again the land of the Holy Relics, he went over all the steep and craggy rocks that led across rope bridges into Tibet. Here again he escaped with his life having been attacked by a band of robbers. He then arrived at the borders of northern India. There he met with a Chinese envoy who accompanied him and Lokayata to western India. Here we are informed he met the Mung king, and, in accordance with the latter’s wishes, remained in the Mung country for three years. He then proceeded to southern India, taking with him various medicines, and proposing to return to Tangut. He reached the Vajrasana monastery and thence Nalanda, where he met I-Tsing. Having thus fulfilled the purpose of his life, he wished to return home, but found that the way through Nepal was blocked by the Tibetans, and that through Kapisa, by the Arabs. He, therefore, returned to the Grhadkuta peak and the Bamboo Garden but could not find any solution to his doubts. He then retired to the Amravat country in Mid-India, where he died at the age of about sixty.

In the year Yung-hwei (AD 650) Hiuen-Ta’i, a Doctor of the Law, and a Korean, known also by his Sanskrit name Sarvajnadeva, came to India through Tibet and Nepal. Here in Mid-India (Magadha) he worshipped the relics of the Bodhi Tree. Afterwards he left for the Tukhara country, where he met Taou-Hi with whom he returned to the Ta-hsio (Mahabodhi) temple. Then he returned to China and was not heard of again.

In AD 652, Atigupta, a Sramana of central India, arrived in China during the reign of the T’ang ruler, Emperor Kao-Tsung (AD 650-684). In the next two years he translated the Sutra of Dharani Sangraha into Chinese. Thirteen years later (AD 665) another Sramana of central India, by name Nadi, went to China, also in the reign of the same T’ang Emperor. He took with him from India a rich collection of more than 1,500 different texts of both the Mahayana and the Hinayana doctrines, which he had secured in India and Ceylon. The T’ang Emperor Kao-Tsong sent him in AD 656 to the country of K’un-lun, i.e., Pulo Condore Island in the Chinese Sea, in search of a strange medicine. He is said to have returned, obviously from this errand, in AD 663 to China. In AD 658 S’eng-ki-po-ma (Sanghavarman), a Chinese Sramana, visited India.

Continued.

(Extracts from BHASKER ANAND SALETORE’S ‘INDIA’S DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH THE EAST’, APPENDIX A, BOMBAY, 1960.)

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स्मरण : प्रशान्त कुमार चौधरी

REMEMBERING PRASHANT KUMAR CHOUDHARY

स्मरण : प्रशान्त कुमार चौधरी

प्रशान्त कुमार चौधरी (23.12.1950-04.05.1976)
PRASHANT KUMAR CHOUDHARY
TODAY (MAY 4) IS THE 37TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS MARTYRDOM

[प्रशान्त कुमार चौधरी का जन्म 23 दिसम्बर, 1950 को झारखण्ड के प. सिंहभूम जिला स्थित निश्चिन्तपुर केरा आश्रम में हुआ था । किशोरावस्था में ही प्रशान्त क्रान्तिकारी कम्युनिस्ट आन्दोलन (नक्सलबाड़ी आन्दोलन) से जुड़ गये और 1970 में उन्होंने एम बी बी एस (अन्तिम वर्ष, पटना मेडिकल कॉलेज एण्ड हॉस्पिटल) की पढ़ाई छोड़ दी तथा भारत की कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी (मार्क्सवादी-लेनिनवादी) के पूर्णकालिक कार्यकर्ता बन गये। वे पटना में भारत की कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी (मार्क्सवादी-लेनिनवादी) के संस्थापक सदस्यों में थे । पार्टी की नवादा-बिहार आंचलिक कमिटी के सचिव के रूप में उन्होंने इस अंचल के खेत मजदूरों तथा गरीब किसानों के बीच राजनीतिक-सांगठनिक काम किया । वे पार्टी की बिहार राज्य कमिटी के भी सदस्य थे । 1970 में पहली बार गिरफ्तार हुए । नवम्बर 1974 में अपने अनेक साथियों के साथ बांकीपुर केन्द्रीय कारा (पटना) से जेल तोड़कर बाहर आये । पुनः अगस्त, 1975 में मोकामा रेलवे स्टेशन से गिरफ्तार कर लिये गये । तब तक देश में आपात्काल की घोषणा हो चुकी थी ।

4 मई, 1976 को भागलपुर स्पेशल जेल में पन्द्रह साथियों के साथ उनकी बर्बरतापूर्वक हत्या कर दी गई । प्रेस सेंसरशिप के कारण तब इस सामूहिक हत्याकाण्ड की घटना का समुचित प्रसारण भी नहीं हुआ । आपात्काल के खात्मे के बाद ही 1977 में विभिन्न पत्र-पत्रिकाओं में इस सामूहिक हत्याकाण्ड का विस्तृत विवरण प्रकाशित हो पाया ।

आज (4 मई) प्रशान्त की शहादत की 37वीं वर्षगांठ है ।

नीचे प्रस्तुत है मैथिली के मूर्धन्य साहित्यकार डॉक्टर ब्रजकिशोर वर्मा मणिपद्म के दो निजी पत्र, प्रशान्त के पिता (राधाकृष्ण चौधरी) और माँ (शान्ति देवी) के नाम ।]

बहेड़ा

11.05.1976

दिप्तिमान पाहुन,

हमरा लागैत आछि जे जइ वलिवेदी लग सै हम घूरि एलौं ततय हमर भागिन पहुच कै अपन महावलिदान देलक ।

सांझ खन ध्रुवतारा दिस ताकलौं तै लागल जेना ओ हमरा शहीद भागिन क ज्योतिर्मय मुखमंडल हो ।

अमर शहीद कखनउ नहिं, कहियो नहिं आ किन्नहुँ ने चिन्तनीय होइत छथि । ओ पूजनीय होइत छथि ।

हुतात्मा क जय हो ।

सस्नेह

ब्रजकिशोर

चिर सौभाग्यवती शान्ती,

तों स्वं धरती छ आ वीर जननी छः । तों परिवार क आधार छः । संसार में के रहि ऐल अछि । तों धैर्य नहिं टारिह ।

पाहुन सन क महिमामय व्यक्ति कै पावि कोनो देश आ समाज गौरवान्वित होइत छैक । तइ पाहुन कै सम्हारि कै राखिह । तोरे धैर्य आ अपार क्षमता सै श्री पाहुन एतेक उपर उठैत गेला । से धैर्य राखिह ।

तोरा हमरा कुल क देशभक्ति आ त्याग क परम्परा कै निवाहैक छः ।

हमर भागिन अमर अछि ।

सस्नेह

लालभाई

****

    

MARX, STIRNER AND ANARCHISM - 1

MARX, STIRNER AND ANARCHISM - 1

UNIQUE INDIVIDUAL AND ANARCHISM

EXTRACTS FROM KARL MARX-FREDERICK ENGELS’ ‘THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY’

Johann Casper Schmidt
(Max Stirner, 1806-1856)
moonmentum.com

ORGANISATION OF LABOUR

“The organisation of labour concerns only such work as can be done for us by others, such as cattle-slaughtering, ploughing, etc.; other work remains egoistical because, for example, no one can compose your music for you, complete the sketches for your painting, etc. No one can do Raphael’s work for him. These are works of a unique individual which only this unique person is capable of producing, whereas the former work deserves to be called human (...this is made identical with ‘generally useful’), since peculiarity is of little consequence here and almost every person can be trained to do it.

It is always expedient for us to come to an agreement about human labour, in order that it should not claim all our time and effort, as is the case under competition..... For whom, however, should time be gained? For what purpose does a human being need more time than is required to restore his exhausted labour-power? To this communism gives no reply. For what purpose? In order to enjoy himself as the unique, having done his share as a human being.

Through work I can fulfil the official duties of a president, minister, etc.; these posts require only a general education, namely, the education that is generally accessible.... Although, however, anyone could occupy these posts, it is only the unique power of the individual, peculiar to him alone, that gives them, as it were, life and significance. For performing his duties not as an ordinary man would do, but by exerting the power of his uniqueness, he does not get paid, if he is paid only as an official or minister. If he has acted to your satisfaction and you wish for your benefit to retain this power of the unique person, which is worthy of gratitude, then you ought to pay him not simply as a man who performs a merely human task, but as one who accomplishes something unique.

If you are in a position to afford joy to thousands of people, then thousands will remunerate you for it; for it is in your power not to do it and therefore they have to pay you for the fact that you do it.

One cannot establish any general rate of payment for my uniqueness, as canbe done for work I perform as a man. Only for the latter can a tariff be fixed. Therefore you may fix a general tariff for human work, but do not deprive your uniqueness of what is due to it.” [“Recensenten Stirners” In: Wigand’s Vierteljahrsschrift, Bd.3, 1845. Max Stirner, pseudonym of Johann Caspar Schmidt (1806-1856), was a German philosopher, Young Hegelian, one of the ideologists of individualism and anarchism. Marx-Engels in his critique of Stirner’s book ‘Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum, describe him as Saint Max and Saint Sancho, alluding to Sancho Panza, a character in Cervantes’ Don Quixote. This critique forms a large part of Karl Marx-Frederick Engels’ ‘The German Ideology’.]

First of all human labour must be organised and thereby shortened so that Brother Straubinger¹, having finished his work early, can ‘enjoy himself as the unique’, but (then) the ‘enjoyment’ of the unique  one is reduced to his extra earnings. It is stated that the vital activity of the unique person does not have to take place subsequently to human labour; the latter can be performed as unique labour, and in that case it requires an additional wage. Otherwise the unique one, who is interested not in his uniqueness but in a higher wage, could shelve his uniqueness and to spite society be satisfied with acting as an ordinary person, at the same time playing a trick on himself.

(On one hand) human labour coincides with generally useful labour, but (on the other hand) unique labour shows its worth by being paid for additionally as generally useful or, at least, useful to many people.

Mozart (1756-1791) on death-bed tended by
Franz Xaver Sussmayr
last.fm

Thus, the organisation of labour in the union consists in the separation of human labour from unique labour, in the establishment of a tariff for the former and in haggling for an additional wage for the latter. This addition again is twofold, one part being for the unique performance of human labour and the other for the unique performance of unique labour. The resulting book-keeping is the more complicated because what was unique labour yesterday (e.g., spinning cotton thread No. 200) becomes human labour today, and because the unique performance of human labour requires a continual moucharderie (spying) upon oneself in one’s own interest and universal moucharderie in the public interest. Hence this whole great organisational plan amounts to a wholly petty-bourgeois appropriation of the law of supply and demand, which exists at present and has been expounded by all economists. The law which determines the price of those types of labour that Sancho declares unique (e.g., that of a dancer, a prominent physician or lawyer), he could have found already explained by Adam Smith (‘An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations), and a tariff fixed for it by the American Cooper (Thomas Cooper, Lectures on the Elements of Political Economy). Modern economists explain on the basis of this law the high payment for what they call travail improductif and the low wages of the agricultural day-labourers, and in general all inequalities in wages. ....

What Sancho here calls human labour is, apart from his bureaucratic fantasies, the same thing as is usually meant by machine labour, labour which, as industry develops, devolves more and more on machines. True, because of the (described earlier in the text) organisation of landownership, machines are an impossibility in the “union” and therefore the corvee peasants in agreement with themselves prefer to reach an agreement with one another about this work. As regards “presidents” and “ministers”, Sancho – this poor localised being, as Owen puts it – forms his opinion only by his immediate environment. Here, as always, Sancho is again unlucky with his practical examples. He thinks that “no one can compose your music for you, complete the sketches for your paintings. No one can do Raphael’s works for him.” Sancho could surely have known, however, that it was not Mozart himself, but someone else who composed the greater part of Mozart’s Requiem and finished it (Mozart’s Requiem was completed, on the basis of his manuscript notes, by Franz Xaver Sussmayer), and that Raphael himself “completed” only an insignificant part of his own frescoes.

Portrait of Raphael
en.wikipedia.org

He imagines that the so-called organisers of labour² wanted to organise the entire activity of each individual and yet it is precisely they who distinguish between directly productive labour, which has to be organised, and labour which is not directly productive. In regard to the latter, however, it was not their view, as Sancho imagines, that each should do the work of Raphael, but that anyone in whom there is a potential Raphael should be able to develop without hindrance. Sancho imagines that Raphael produced his pictures independently of the division of labour that existed in Rome at the time. If he were to compare Raphael with Leonardo da Vinci and Titian, he would see how greatly Raphael’s works of art depended on the flourishing of Rome at that time, which occurred under Florentine influence, while the works of Leonardo depended on the state of things in Florence, and the works of Titian, at a later period, depended on the totally different development of Venice. Raphael as much as any other artist was determined by the technical advances in art made before him, by the organisation of society and the division of labour in his locality, and , finally, by the division of labour in all the countries with which his locality had intercourse. Whether an individual like Raphael succeeds in developing his talent depends wholly on demand, which in turn depends on the division of labour and the conditions of human culture resulting from it.

In proclaiming the uniqueness of work in science and art, Stirner adopts a position far inferior to that of the bourgeoisie. At the present time it has already been found necessary to organise this “unique” activity. Horace Vernet would not have had time to paint even a tenth of his pictures if he regarded them as works which ‘only this unique person is capable of producing’. In Paris, the great demand for vaudevilles and novels brought about the organisation of work for their production; this organisation at any rate yields something better than its “unique” competitors in Germany. In astronomy, people like Arago, Herschel, Encke and Bessel considered it necessary to organise joint observations and only after that obtained some moderately good results. In historical science, it is absolutely impossible for the “unique” to achieve anything at all, and in this field, too, the French long ago surpassed all other nations thanks to organisation of labour. Incidentally, it is self evident that all these organisations based on modern division of labour still lead to extremely limited results, and they represent a step forward only compared with the previous narrow isolation.

Moreover, it must be specially emphasised that Sancho confuses the organisation of labour with communism and is even surprised that “communism” gives him no reply to his doubts about this organisation. Just like a Gascon village lad is surprised that Arago cannot tell him on which star God Almighty has built his throne.

Sketch of Max Stirner
Drawn by Frederick Engels

The exclusive concentration of artistic talent in particular individuals, and its suppression in the broad mass which is bound up with this, is a consequence of division of labour. Even if in certain social conditions, everyone were an excellent painter, that would by no means exclude the possibility of each of them being also an original painter, so that here too the difference between “human” and “unique” labour amounts sheer nonsense. In any case, with a communist organisation of society, there disappears the subordination of the artist to local and national narrowness, which arises entirely from division of labour, and also the subordination of the individual to some definite art, making him exclusively a painter, sculptor, etc.; the very name amply expresses the narrowness of his professional development and his dependence on division of labour. In a communist society there are no painters but only people who engage in painting among other activities.

Sancho’s organisation of labour shows clearly how much all these philosophical knights of “substance” content themselves with mere phrases. The subordination of “substance” to the “subject” about which they all talk so grandiloquently, the reduction of “substance” which governs the “subject” to a mere “accident” of this subject, is revealed to be mere “empty talk”. Hence they wisely refrain from examining division of labour, material production and material intercourse, which in fact make individuals subordinate to definite relations and modes of activity. For them it is in general only a matter of finding new phrases for interpreting the existing world – phrases which are the more certain to consist only of comical boasting, the more these people imagine they have risen above the world and the more they put themselves in opposition to it. Sancho is a lamentable example of this.

¹ Straubinger: a name for German travelling journeymen. In their works and letters Marx and Engels frequently applied it ironically to artisans who remained under the influence of backward guild notions and believed that society could abandon large-scale capitalist industry and return to the petty handicraft stage of production.

² Organisers of labour – an allusion to the utopian socialists (in particular Fourier and his followers) who put forward a plan for the peaceful transformation of society by means of associations, that is, by “organisation of labour”, which they opposed to the anarchy of production under capitalism. Some of these ideas were used by French petty-bourgeois socialist Louis Blanc in his book Organisation du travail (Paris, 1839) in which he proposed that bourgeois state should transform contemporary society into a socialist society.

(Continued)

****

MARX, STIRNER AND ANARCHISM - 3

MARX, STIRNER AND ANARCHISM – 3

EXTRACTS FROM KARL MARX-FREDERICK ENGELS’ ‘THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY’

MY SELF-ENJOYMENT

www.marxists.org

The philosophy which preaches enjoyment is as old in Europe as the Cyrenaic school.¹ Just as in antiquity it was the Greeks who were the protagonists of this philosophy, so in modern times it is the French, and indeed for the same reason, because their temperament and their society made them most capable of enjoyment. The philosophy of enjoyment was never anything but the clever language of certain social circles who had the privilege of enjoyment. Apart from the fact that the manner and content of their enjoyment was always determined by the whole structure of the rest of society and suffered from all its contradictions, this philosophy became a mere phrase as soon as it began to lay claim to a universal character and proclaimed itself the outlook on life of society as a whole. It sank then to the level of edifying moralizing, to a sophistical palliation of existing society, or it was transformed into its opposite, by declaring compulsory asceticism to be enjoyment.

In modern times the philosophy of enjoyment arose with the decline of feudalism and with the transformation of the feudal landed nobility into the pleasure-loving and extravagant nobles of the court under the absolute monarchy. Among these nobles this philosophy still has largely the form of a direct, naïve outlook on life which finds expression in memoirs, poems, novels, etc. It only becomes a real philosophy in the hands of a few writers of the revolutionary bourgeoisie, who, on the one hand, participated in the culture and mode of life of the court nobility and, on the other hand, shared the more general outlook of the bourgeoisie, based on the more general conditions of existence of this class. This philosophy was, therefore, accepted by both classes, although from totally different point of view. Whereas among the nobility this language was restricted exclusively to its estates and to the conditions of life of this estate, it was given a generalized character by the bourgeoisie and addressed to every individual without distinction. The condition s of life of these individuals were thus disregarded and the theory of enjoyment thereby transformed into an insipid and hypocritical moral doctrine. When, in the course of further development, the nobility was overthrown and the bourgeoisie brought into conflict with its opposite, the proletariat, the nobility became devoutly religious, and the bourgeoisie solemnly moral and strict in its theories, or else succumbed to the above-mentioned hypocrisy, although the nobility in practice by no means renounced enjoyment, while among the bourgeoisie enjoyment even assumed an official, economic form – that of luxury.

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

It was only possible to discover the connection between the kinds of enjoyment open to individuals at any particular time and the class relations in which they live, and the conditions of production and intercourse which give rise to these relations, the narrowness of the hitherto existing forms of enjoyment, which were outside the actual content of the life of people and in contradiction to it, the connection between every philosophy of enjoyment and the enjoyment actually present and the hypocrisy of such a philosophy which treated all individuals without distinction – it was, of course, only possible to discover all this when it became possible to criticize the conditions of production and intercourse in the hitherto existing world, i.e., when the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat had given rise to communist and socialist views. This shattered the basis of all morality, whether the morality of asceticism or of enjoyment.

Our insipid, moralizing Sancho believes, of course, as his whole book shows, that it is merely a matter of a different morality, of what appears to him a new outlook on life, of “getting out of one’s head” a few “fixed ideas”, to make everyone happy and able to enjoy life. Hence the chapter on self-enjoyment could at most reproduce under a new label the same phrases and maxims which he had already so frequently had the “self-enjoyment” of preaching to us. This chapter has only one original feature, namely that he deifies and turns into philosophical German all enjoyment, by giving it the name “self-enjoyment”. ………

“What an individual can become he will become. A born poet may be prevented, owing to unfavorable circumstances, from being abreast of the times and creating great works of art, for which much study is indispensible; but he will compose poetry whether he is an agricultural labourer or has the good fortune to live at the Weimar Court. A born musician will occupy himself with music, no matter whether on all instruments or only on a shepherd’s reed. A born philosophical intellect can prove its worth either as a university philosopher or a village philosopher. Finally, a born dunce always remains a blockhead. Indeed innate limited intellects undoubtedly form the most numerous class of mankind. And why should not the same difference occur in the human species as are unmistakably seen in every species of animals?” (Page 434).

Frederick Engels (1820-1895)
commons.wikimedia.org

Sancho has again chosen his example with his usual lack of skill. If all his nonsense about born poets, musicians and philosophers is accepted, then this example only proves, on the one hand, that a born poet, etc., remains what he is from birth – namely a poet, etc.; and, on the other hand, that born poet, etc., in so far as he becomes, develops, may, “owing to unfavorable circumstances”, not become what he could become. His example, therefore, on the one hand, proves nothing at all, and, on the other hand, proves the opposite of what it was intended to prove; and taking both aspects together it proves that either from birth or owing to circumstances, Sancho belongs to “the most numerous class of mankind”. However, he shares the consolation of being a unique “blockhead” with this class and with his own blockheadedness. …..

Individuals have always and in all circumstances “proceeded from themselves”, but since they were not unique in the sense of not needing any connections with one another, and since their needs, consequently their nature, and the method of satisfying their needs, connected them with one another (relation between the sexes, exchange, division of labor), they had to enter into relations with one another. Moreover, since they entered into intercourse with one another not as pure egos, but as individuals at a definite stage of development of their productive forces and requirements, and since this intercourse, in its turn, determined production and needs, it was, therefore, precisely the personal, individual behavior of individuals, their behavior to one another as individuals, that created the existing relations and daily reproduces them anew. …..

Thus, “uniqueness” – taken in the sense of genuine development and individual behavior – presuppose not only things quite different from goodwill and right consciousness, but even the direct opposite of Sancho’s fantasies. With him “uniqueness” is nothing more than an embellishment of existing conditions, a little drop of comforting balm for the poor, impotent soul that has become wretched through wretchedness. ….

********

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedre
(1547-1616)
commons.wikimedia.org

After all these adventures our “unique” squire again sails into the harbor of his native serf’s cottage. “The title specter of his book” (an allusion to Stirner’s wife, Marie Dahnhardt) rushes out to meet him “joyfully”. Her first enquiry is: how is the ass?

Better than his master, replies Sancho.

Thanks be to God for so much goodness. But tell me now, my friend, what profit have you got out of your squiredom? What new dress have you brought me?

I have brought nothing like that, replies Sancho, but I have brought “the creative nothing, the nothing from which I myself as creator create everything.” This means you will yet see me in the capacity of church father and archbishop of an island and, indeed, one of the best it is possible to find.

God grant it, my treasure, and may it be soon, for we sorely need it. But as regards the island you mention, I do not know what you mean.

Honey is not for the ass’s mouth, replies Sancho. You will see it for yourself in due course, wife. But even now I can tell you that nothing is more pleasant in the world than the honor of seeking adventures as an egoist in agreement with himself and as the squire of the rueful countenance. True, most of these adventures do not “reach the final goal” so that “human requirement is satisfied”, for ninety-nine adventures out of a hundred go awry and follow a tangled course. I know this from experience, for in some of them I was cheated and from others I went home soundly pounded and thrashed. But in spite of all that , it is a fine thing, for at any rate the “unique” requirement is always satisfied when one wanders through the whole of history, quoting all the books in the Berlin reading-room, getting an etymological night’s lodging in all languages, falsifying political acts in all countries, boastfully throwing down gages to all dragons and ostriches, elfs, field hobgoblings and “specters”, exchanging blows with all church fathers and philosophers and yet, finally, paying for it only with your own body. (cf. Cervantes, I, Chapter 52).

¹ The Cyrenaic school – a school of ancient Greek philosophy founded at the beginning of the 4^th century BC by Aristippus of Cyrene, a pupil of Socrates. The Cyrenaics were agnostics, adopted a critical attitude to religion and regarded pleasure (hedone) as the aim of life.

(Concluded).

****

MARX, STIRNER AND ANARCHISM - 2

MARX, STIRNER AND ANARCHISM - 2

EXTRACTS FROM KARL MARX-FREDERICK ENGELS’ ‘THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY’

MORALITY, INTERCOURSE, THEORY OF EXPLOITATION

Claude Adrien Helvetius
(1715-1771)
French philosopher, atheist
and Enlightener
en.wikipedia.org

“You believe egoistically when you regard one another neither as owners nor as ragamuffins or workers, but as part of your wealth, as useful creatures. Then you will not give anything either to the owner, the proprietor, for his property, or to the one who works, but only to him whom you can make use of. Do we need a king? The North Americans ask themselves, and then reply: ‘He and his work are not worth a farthing to us.’ ” (Page 352)

On the other hand, on Page 229, he reproaches the “bourgeois period” for the following:

“Instead of taking me as I am, attention is paid only to my property, my qualities, and a marriage alliance is concluded with me only for the sake of what I possess. The marriage is concluded, so to speak, with what I have and not with what I am.”

That is to say, attention is paid solely to what I am for others, to my usefulness, I am dealt with as a useful creature. Sancho spits into the “bourgeois period’s” soup, so that in the union he alone can devour it.

If the individuals of modern society regard one another as owners, as workers and, if Sancho wishes, as ragamuffins, this only means that they treat one another as useful creatures, a fact which can only be doubted by such a useless individual as Sancho. The capitalist, who “regards” the workers “as a worker”, shows consideration for him only because he needs workers; the worker treats the capitalist in the same way, and the Americans too, in Sancho’s opinion (we would like him to point out the source from which he took this historic fact), have no use for a king, because he is useless to them as a worker. Sancho has chosen his example with his usual clumsiness, for it is supposed to prove exactly the opposite of what it actually proves.

“For me, you are nothing but food, just as I am eaten up and consumed by you. We stand in only one relation to one another: that of usefulness, utility, use.” (Page 395) “No one is to me a person to be held in respect, not even my fellow-man; but, like other beings” (!), he is solely an object, for which I may or may not have sympathy, an interesting or uninteresting object, a useful or useless creature.” (Page 416)

The relation of “usefulness”, which is supposed to be the sole relation of the individuals to one another in the union, is at once paraphrased as “eating” one another. The “perfect Christian” of the union, of course, also celebrate the holy communion, only not by eating together but by eating one another.

Baron d' Paul Henri Dietrich Holbach
(1723-1789)
French philosopher, atheist, Enlightener
en.wikipedia.org

The extent to which this theory of mutual exploitation, which Bentham expounded ad nauseam, could already at the beginning of the present century be regarded as a phase of the previous one is shown by Hegel in his Phanomenologie. See there the chapter “The Struggle of Enlightenment with Superstition”, where the theory of usefulness is depicted as the final result of enlightenment. The apparent absurdity of merging all the manifold relationships of people in the one relation of usefulness, this apparently metaphysical abstraction arises from the fact that in modern bourgeois society all relations are subordinated in practice to the one abstract monetary-commercial relation. This theory came to the fore with Hobbes and Locke, at the same time as the first and second English revolutions, those first battles by which the bourgeois won political power. It is to be found even earlier, of course, among writers of political economy, as a tacit presupposition. Political economy is the real science of this theory of utility; it acquires its content among the Physiocrats, since they were the first to treat political economy systematically. In Helvetius and Holbach one can already find an idealisation of this doctrine, which fully corresponds to the attitude of opposition adopted by the French bourgeoisie before the revolution. Holbach depicts the entire activity of individuals in their mutual intercourse, e.g., speech, love, etc., as a relation of utility and utilisation. Hence the actual relations that are presupposed here are speech, love, definite manifestations of definite qualities of individuals. Now these relations are supposed not to have the meaning of peculiar to them but to be the expression and manifestation of some third relation attributed to them, the relation of utility or utilisation. .....

Holbach’s theory is the historically justified philosophical illusion about the bourgeoisie just then developing if France, whose thirst for exploitation could still be regarded as a thirst for the full development of individuals in conditions of intercourse freed from the old feudal fetters. Liberation from the standpoint of the bourgeoisie, i.e., competition, was, of course, for the eighteenth century the only possible way of offering the individuals a new career for freer development. The theoretical proclamation of the consciousness corresponding to this bourgeois practice, of the consciousness of mutual exploitation as the universal mutual relation of all individuals, was also a bold and open step forward. It was a kind of enlightenment which interpreted the political, patriarchal, religious and sentimental embellishment of exploitation under feudalism in a secular way; the embellishment corresponded to the form of exploitation existing at that time and it had been systematised especially by the theoretical writers of the absolute monarchy.

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
English sociologist and
theoretician of Utilitarianism
en.wikipedia.org

Even if Sancho had done the same thing in his “book” as Helvetius and Holbach did in the last century, the anachronism would still have made it ridiculous. .... His sole service – rendered against his will and without realising it – was that he expressed the aspirations of the German petty-bourgeois of today whose aim it is to become bourgeois. It was quite fitting that the petty, shy and timid behaviour of these petty bourgeois should have as its counterpart the noisy, blustering and impertinent public boasting of “the unique” among their philosophical representatives. It is quite in accordance with the situation of these petty bourgeois that they do not want to know about their theoretical loud-mouthed champion, and that he knows nothing about them; that they are at variance with one another, and he is forced to preach egoism in agreement with itself. Now Sancho will realise the sort of umbilical cord that connects his “union” with the Customs Union.¹

The advances made by the theory of utility and exploitation, its various phases are closely connected with the various periods of development of the bourgeois. ....Hobbes and Locke had before their eyes not only the earlier development of the Dutch bourgeois (both of them had lived for some time in Holland) but also the first political actions by which the English bourgeois emerged from local and provincial limitations, as well as a comparatively highly developed stage of manufacture, overseas trade and colonisation. This particularly applies to Locke, who wrote during the first period of the English economy, at the time of the rise of joint-stock companies, the Bank of England and England’s mastery of the seas. In their case, and particularly in that of Locke, the theory of exploitation was still direcly connected with the economic content.

Helvetius and Holbach had before them, besides English theory and the preceding development of the Dutch and English bourgeois, also the French bourgeois which was still struggling for its free development. The commercial spirit, universal in all eighteenth century, had especially in France taken possession of all classes in the form of speculation. The financial difficulties of the government and the resulting disputes over taxation occupied the attention of all France even at that time. In addition, Paris in the eighteenth century was the only world city, the only city where there was personal intercourse among individuals of all nations. These premises, combined with the more universal character typical of the French in general, gave the theory of Helvetius and Holbach its peculiar universal colouring, but at the same time deprived it of the positive economic content that was still to be found among the English. .....

The content of the theory of exploitation that was neglected by Helvetius and Holbach was developed and systematised by the Physiocrats – who worked at the same time as Holbach – but because their basis was the undeveloped economic relations of France where feudalism, under which landownership plays the chief role, was still unshaken, they remained in thrall to the feudal outlook insofar as they declared landownership and land cultivation to be that [productive force] which determines the whole structure of society.

The theory of exploitation owes its further development in England to Godwin, and especially to Bentham. As the bourgeois succeeded in asserting itself more and more both in England and in France, the economic content, which the French had neglected, was gradually, re-introduced by Bentham. Godwin’s Political Justice was written during the terror, and Bentham’s chief works during and after the French Revolution and the development of large-scale industry in England. The complete union of the theory of utility with political economy is to be found, finally, in Mill.

James Mill (1773-1836)
Scottish philosopher and
follower of Bentham
en.wikipedia.org

At an earlier period political economy had been the subject of inquiry either by financiers, bankers and merchants, i.e., in general by persons directly concerned with economic relations, or by persons with an all-round education like Hobbes, Locke and Hume, for whom it was of importance as a branch of encyclopaedic knowledge. Thanks to Physiocrats, political economy for the first time was raised to the rank of special science and has been treated as such ever since. As a special branch of science it absorbed the other relations – political, juridical, etc. – to such an extent that it reduced them to economic relations. But it regarded this subordination of all relations to itself as only one aspect of these relations, and thereby allowed them for the rest an independent significance outside political economy. The complete subordination of all existing relations to the relation of utility, and its unconditional elevation to the sole content of all relations, occurs for the first time in Bentham’s works, where, after the French Revolution and the development of large-scale industry, the bourgeoisie is no longer presented as a special class, but as the class whose conditions of existence are those of the whole society. ....

The whole criticism of the existing world by the utility theory was consequently restricted within a narrow range. Remaining within the confines of bourgeois conditions, it could criticise only those relations which had been handed down from a past epoch and were an obstacle to the development of the bourgeoisie. Hence, although the utility theory does expound the connection of all existing relations with economic relations, it does so only in a restricted way.

John Locke (1632-1704)
English philosopher
en.wikipedia.org

From the outset the utility theory had the aspect of a theory of general utility, yet this aspect only became fraught with meaning when economic relations, especially division of labour and exchange, were included. With division of labour, the private activity of the individual becomes generally useful; Bentham’s general utility becomes reduced to the same general utility which is asserted in competition as a whole. By taking into account the economic relations of rent, profit and wages, the definite relations of exploitation of the various classes were introduced, since the manner of exploitation depends on the social position of the exploiter. Up to this point the theory of utility was able to base itself on definite social facts; its further account of the manner of exploitation amounts to a mere recital of catechism phrases.

The economic content gradually turned the utility theory into mere apologia for the existing state of affairs, an attempt to prove that under existing conditions the mutual relations of people today are the most advantageous and generally useful. It has this character among all modern economists.

But whereas the utility theory had thus at least the advantage of indicating the connection of all existing relations with the economic foundations of society, in Sancho the theory has lost all positive content; it is divorced from all actual relations and is restricted to the mere illusion cherished by the isolated bourgeois about his “cleverness”, by means of which he reckons to exploit the world. Incidentally, it is only in a few passages that Sancho deals with the theory of utility even in this diluted form; almost the entire “book” is taken up, as we have seen, with egoism in agreement with itself, i.e., with an illusion about this illusion of the petty-bourgeois. Even these few passages are finally reduced by Sancho to mere vapour. .....

(Continued)

¹ The Customs Union (Zollverein) of German states (initially they numbered 18), which established a common customs frontier, was set up in 1834 and headed by Prussia. By the 1840s the Union embraced most of the German states, with the exception of Austria, the Hanseatic cities (Bremen, Hamburg, Lubeck) and a few small states. Brought into being by the necessity to create an all-German market, the Customs Union became a factor conducive to the political unification of Germany.

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