On "Private Property and Communism,"

In this essay, Marx attempts to articulate how the internalized and essentially appropriated obsession of owning, having private property alienates woman from herself: "All the physical and intellectual senses have been replaced by the simple estrangement of these senses--the sense of having. So that it might give birth to its inner wealth, human nature had to be reduced to this absolute poverty" (229). There is something fundamentally problematic about this perspective because it posits a fundamental, essential way of being. However, Marx qualifies this assertion by noting the way in which human, while creating an essence, reacts at the same time to the state of society: "just as society itself produces man as man, so it is produced by him" (228). The reciprocal relationship human engages in with society prevents any answer to the question "who begot the first man" (232). In that sense, Marx anticipates the Hermeneutic discipline (think Gadamer). He does not attempt to ground his analysis with an origin; instead, his analysis incites a ceaseless reflection upon the relationship humans has to their society, and, importantly, to themselves. He also limits his epistemology to sensuous experience. Rather than doing away with sensation, he respects and acknowledges its limitations, which directly anticipates 20th century phenomenology: "sense perception must be the basis of all science" (231). This movement reorients human beings understanding of sensation. Rather than sight, tough, taste, ect., being simply attributes that compliment experiences, Marx argues that they are the extent of experience. We cannot know anything about the world that has not been filtered through this lens. Seemingly, this implication frustrates the potential for objectivity, shown through Cartesianism and enlightenment empiricism; however, according to Marx, this in fact breaks down the barrier between Natural Science and Philosophy--and by extension, aesthetics. Furthermore, the consistency of sensation--from human to human--makes experience a social gathering. Art, too, then becomes a very social activity. Humans can share in the accomplishments of other humans, while simultaneously maintaining their individuality. This serves in large part as a response to caricatures of communism. This interpretation impedes efforts to create a diminutive account of communism proper. Communism becomes in fact a humanism (sorry Sartre, I stole it).