On the Jewish Question
{"WorkMasterId":6469,"WpPageId":282460,"ParentWpPageId":189644,"Slug":"marx-on-the-jewish-question","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/karl-marx/marx-on-the-jewish-question/","RelativeUrl":"theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/karl-marx/marx-on-the-jewish-question/","HasFullText":true,"RawHtmlLength":156237,"CleanHtmlLength":98896,"Kicker":"Philosophy Work","Title":"On the Jewish Question","Deck":"Marx distinguishes political emancipation from human emancipation while criticizing religion, rights, citizenship, and bourgeois civil society.","BackLink":{"Text":"Back to Karl Marx","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/karl-marx/"},"AuthorCard":{"Label":"Author","Title":"Karl Marx","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/karl-marx/","MediaHref":"","ImageSrc":"https://chrisdeasy.com/wp-content/uploads/karl-marx-01-mayall-1875-standard-portrait.jpg","ImageAlt":"Karl Marx, Mayall portrait, 1875","FilterTerra":"Western Europe","ClickText":"Karl Marx","ClickHref":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/karl-marx/","Copies":["1818 CE – 1883 CE","Trier, Rhine Province, Kingdom of Prussia","German philosopher of historical materialism, alienation, class struggle, ideology critique, political economy, capitalism, communism, religion critique, and social transformation."]},"ContextCards":[{"Label":"Period","Key":"Period:4","Title":"Modern History","DateText":"1800 CE – 1944 CE","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/eras-of-thought/philosophers-of-modern-history/"},{"Label":"Era","Key":"Era:11","Title":"Long 19th Century","DateText":"1870 CE – 1913 CE","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/eras-of-thought/philosophers-of-modern-history/philosophers-of-the-long-19th-century/"},{"Label":"Composition","Title":"1843 CE","Url":"","DateText":""}],"DateNote":"Displayed as 1843 CE for publication in the Deutsch-Franzoesische Jahrbuecher.","GeoCards":[{"Label":"Region","Key":"Region:1"},{"Label":"Terra Avita","Key":"TerraAvita:1"},{"Label":"Terra Avita Region","Key":"TerraAvitaRegion:3"},{"Label":"Modern Country","Key":"Country:DEU:1"}],"OriginalTitle":"Zur Judenfrage","Language":"German / French / English","DisciplineCards":[{"Label":"Primary Discipline","Key":"Discipline:political-philosophy"},{"Label":"Secondary Discipline","Key":"Discipline:philosophy-of-religion"}],"Tradition":"Historical materialism / critique of political economy","FullText":{"Title":"Full Text","Copy":"Full text from Marxists Internet Archive: On the Jewish Question .","Url":"","Label":"","Kicker":"","Cards":[]},"CoreThesis":["Marx distinguishes political emancipation from human emancipation while criticizing religion, rights, citizenship, and bourgeois civil society."],"Classification":{"AlternateTitles":"On the Jewish Question","KeyConcepts":"emancipation; religion; citizenship; rights; civil society; Judaism; state; alienation","Methodology":"Historical-materialist analysis, critique of political economy, dialectical critique, philosophical polemic, archival manuscript work, journalism, and social theory.","Structure":"The page records an approved Marx work with explicit year, source evidence, and visible coauthorship, manuscript, posthumous, or Engels-edited status where needed."},"Arguments":["Marx distinguishes political emancipation from human emancipation while criticizing religion, rights, citizenship, and bourgeois civil society."],"Influence":{"InfluencedBy":"Hegel, Feuerbach, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Aristotle, Epicurus, French socialism, British political economy, and nineteenth-century revolutionary politics.","InfluenceOn":""},"Significance":["Included as one of the twenty-seven direct Karl Marx work pages approved for the Karl Marx full-process repair.","The work anchors Marx\u0027s continuing relevance for capitalism, labor, alienation, class, ideology, religion critique, political economy, state power, social transformation, and historical explanation."],"EvidenceNote":["Accepted through SEP, Britannica, Marxists archive, catalog, and scholarship evidence; 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religion; citizenship; rights; civil society; Judaism; state; alienation"},{"Label":"Methodology","Value":"Historical-materialist analysis, critique of political economy, dialectical critique, philosophical polemic, archival manuscript work, journalism, and social theory."},{"Label":"Structure","Value":"The page records an approved Marx work with explicit year, source evidence, and visible coauthorship, manuscript, posthumous, or Engels-edited status where needed."}]},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Arguments","Paragraphs":["Marx distinguishes political emancipation from human emancipation while criticizing religion, rights, citizenship, and bourgeois civil society."]},{"Kind":"FieldSection","Title":"Influence","Fields":[{"Label":"Influenced By","Value":"Hegel, Feuerbach, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Aristotle, Epicurus, French socialism, British political economy, and nineteenth-century revolutionary politics."},{"Label":"Influence On","Value":"Marxism, socialism, communism, critical theory, labor movements, political economy, sociology, social philosophy, philosophy of history, and twentieth-century continental thought."}]},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Significance","Paragraphs":["Included as one of the twenty-seven direct Karl Marx work pages approved for the Karl Marx full-process repair.","The work anchors Marx\u0027s continuing relevance for capitalism, labor, alienation, class, ideology, religion critique, political economy, state power, social transformation, and historical explanation."]},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Evidence Note","Paragraphs":["Accepted through SEP, Britannica, Marxists archive, catalog, and scholarship evidence; HasFullText remains false."]},{"Kind":"RawSection","Title":"Full Text","BodyHtml":"\u003cp class=\"dz-philo__section-copy dz-philo__full-text-source\"\u003eFull text from \u003ca href=\"https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/index.htm\"\u003eMarxists Internet Archive: On the Jewish Question\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003carticle class=\"dz-philo__full-text-body\"\u003e\n\u003ch1\u003eOn \u003cem\u003eThe Jewish Question\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/h1\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003chr /\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u003cspan\u003eWritten\u003c/span\u003e: Autumn 1843;\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cspan\u003eFirst Published\u003c/span\u003e: February, 1844 in \u003ci\u003eDeutsch-Franz\u0026ouml;sische Jahrb\u0026uuml;cher\u003c/i\u003e;\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cspan\u003eProofed and Corrected\u003c/span\u003e: by Andy Blunden, Matthew Grant and Matthew Carmody, 2008/9.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u003cspan\u003eOther formats:\u003c/span\u003e\r\n\u003ca href=\"../../download/doc/On-Jewish-Question.doc\"\u003edoc\u003c/a\u003e\r\n\u003ca href=\"../../download/pdf/On%20The%20Jewish%20Question.pdf\"\u003epdf\u003c/a\u003e\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nSee \u003ca href=\"../../../../../glossary/terms/c/i.htm#citizen\"\u003eCitizen\u003c/a\u003e in the Encyclopedia of Marxism, for an explanation of the various words for \u0026#8220;citizen.\u0026#8221;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003chr /\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch3\u003eI\u003cbr /\u003e\r\nBruno Bauer,\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cem\u003eThe Jewish Question\u003c/em\u003e,\u003cbr /\u003e\r\nBraunschweig, 1843\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe German Jews desire emancipation. What kind of\r\nemancipation do they desire? \u003cem\u003eCivic, political\u003c/em\u003e emancipation.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eBruno Bauer replies to them: No one in Germany is politically\r\nemancipated. We ourselves are not free. How are we to free you? You Jews\r\nare \u003cem\u003eegoists\u003c/em\u003e if you demand a special emancipation for yourselves\r\nas Jews. As Germans, you ought to work for the political emancipation of\r\nGermany, and as human beings, for the emancipation of mankind, and you\r\nshould feel the particular kind of your oppression and your shame not as\r\nan exception to the rule, but on the contrary as a confirmation of the\r\nrule.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eOr do the Jews demand the same status as \u003cem\u003eChristian subjects\r\nof the state\u003c/em\u003e? In that case, they recognize that the \u003cem\u003eChristian state\u003c/em\u003e\r\nis justified and they recognize, too, the regime of general oppression.\r\nWhy should they disapprove of their special yoke if they approve of the\r\ngeneral yoke? Why should the German be interested in the liberation of\r\nthe Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003cem\u003eChristian\u003c/em\u003e state knows only \u003cem\u003eprivileges\u003c/em\u003e. In this\r\nstate, the Jew has the privilege of being a Jew. As a Jew, he has rights\r\nwhich the Christians do not have. Why should he want rights which he does\r\nnot have, but which the Christians enjoy?\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eIn wanting to be emancipated from the Christian state, the Jew\r\nis demanding that the Christian state should give up its \u003cem\u003ereligious\u003c/em\u003e\r\nprejudice. Does he, the Jew, give up \u003cem\u003ehis\u003c/em\u003e religious prejudice? Has\r\nhe, then, the right to demand that someone else should renounce his religion?\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBy its very nature\u003c/em\u003e, the Christian state is incapable of emancipating\r\nthe Jew; but, adds Bauer, by his very nature the Jew cannot be emancipated.\r\nSo long as the state is Christian and the Jew is Jewish, the one is as\r\nincapable of granting emancipation as the other is of receiving it.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe Christian state can behave towards the Jew only in the way\r\ncharacteristic of the Christian state \u0026#8211; that is, by granting privileges,\r\nby permitting the separation of the Jew from the other subjects, but making\r\nhim feel the pressure of all the other separate spheres of society, and\r\nfeel it all the more intensely because he is in \u003cem\u003ereligious\u003c/em\u003e opposition\r\nto the dominant religion. But the Jew, too, can behave towards the state\r\nonly in a Jewish way \u0026#8211; that is, by treating it as something alien to him,\r\nby counterposing his imaginary nationality to the real nationality, by\r\ncounterposing his illusory law to the real law, by deeming himself justified\r\nin separating himself from mankind, by abstaining on principle from taking\r\npart in the historical movement, by putting his trust in a future which\r\nhas nothing in common with the future of mankind in general, and by seeing\r\nhimself as a member of the Jewish people, and the Jewish people as the\r\nchosen people.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eOn what grounds, then, do you Jews want emancipation? On account\r\nof your religion? It is the mortal enemy of the state religion. As citizens?\r\nIn Germany, there are no citizens. As human beings? But you are no more\r\nhuman beings than those to whom you appeal.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eBauer has posed the question of Jewish emancipation in a new form,\r\nafter giving a critical analysis of the previous formulations and solutions\r\nof the question. What, he asks, is the \u003cem\u003enature\u003c/em\u003e of the Jew who is\r\nto be emancipated and of the Christian state that is to emancipate him?\r\nHe replies by a critique of the Jewish religion, he analyzes the \u003cem\u003ereligious\u003c/em\u003e\r\nopposition between Judaism and Christianity, he elucidates the essence\r\nof the Christian state \u0026#8211; and he does all this audaciously, trenchantly,\r\nwittily, and with profundity, in a style of writing that is as precise\r\nas it is pithy and vigorous.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eHow, then, does Bauer solve the Jewish question? What is the result?\r\nThe formulation of a question is its solution. The critique of the Jewish\r\nquestion is the answer to the Jewish question. The summary, therefore,\r\nis as follows:\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eWe must emancipate ourselves before we can emancipate others.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe most rigid form of the opposition between the Jew and the\r\nChristian is the \u003cem\u003ereligious\u003c/em\u003e opposition. How is an opposition resolved?\r\nBy making it impossible. How is \u003ci\u003ereligious\u003c/i\u003e opposition made impossible? By\r\n\u003cem\u003eabolishing religion\u003c/em\u003e. As soon as Jew and Christian recognize that\r\ntheir respective religions are no more than \u003cem\u003edifferent stages in the\r\ndevelopment of the human mind\u003c/em\u003e, different snake skins cast off by \u003cem\u003ehistory\u003c/em\u003e,\r\nand that man is the snake who sloughed them, the relation of Jew and Christian\r\nis no longer religious but is only a critical, \u003cem\u003escientific\u003c/em\u003e, and human\r\nrelation. \u003cem\u003eScience\u003c/em\u003e, then, constitutes their unity. But, contradictions\r\nin science are resolved by science itself.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003cem\u003eGerman\u003c/em\u003e Jew, in particular, is confronted by the general\r\nabsence of political emancipation and the strongly marked Christian character\r\nof the state. In Bauer\u0026#8217;s conception, however, the Jewish question has a\r\nuniversal significance, independent of specifically German conditions.\r\nIt is the question of the relation of religion to the state, of the \u003cem\u003econtradiction\r\nbetween religious constraint and political emancipation\u003c/em\u003e. Emancipation\r\nfrom religion is laid down as a condition, both to the Jew who wants to\r\nbe emancipated politically, and to the state which is to effect emancipation\r\nand is itself to be emancipated.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;Very well,\u0026#8221; it is said, and the Jew himself says it, \u0026#8220;the Jew is to\r\nbecome emancipated not as a Jew, not because he is a Jew, not because he\r\npossesses such an excellent, universally human principle of morality; on\r\nthe contrary, the \u003cem\u003eJew\u003c/em\u003e will retreat behind the \u003cem\u003ecitizen\u003c/em\u003e and\r\nbe a \u003cem\u003ecitizen\u003c/em\u003e, although he is a Jew and is to remain a Jew. That\r\nis to say, he is and remains a \u003cem\u003eJew\u003c/em\u003e, although he is a \u003cem\u003ecitizen\u003c/em\u003e\r\nand lives in universally human conditions: his Jewish and restricted nature\r\ntriumphs always in the end over his human and political obligations. The\r\n\u003cem\u003eprejudice\u003c/em\u003e remains in spite of being outstripped by \u003cem\u003egeneral\u003c/em\u003e\r\nprinciples. But if it remains, then, on the contrary, it outstrips everything\r\nelse.\u0026#8221; \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;Only sophistically, only apparently, would the Jew be able to\r\nremain a Jew in the life of the state. Hence, if he wanted to remain a\r\nJew, the mere appearance would become the essential and would triumph;\r\nthat is to say, his \u003cem\u003elife in the state\u003c/em\u003e would be only a semblance\r\nor only a temporary exception to the essential and the rule.\u0026#8221; (\u0026#8220;The Capacity\r\nof Present-Day Jews and Christians to Become Free,\u0026#8221; \u003cem\u003eEinundzwanzig Bogen\u003c/em\u003e,\r\npp. 57)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nLet us hear, on the other hand, how Bauer presents the task of the state.\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;France,\u0026#8221; he says, \u0026#8220;has recently shown us\u0026#8221; (Proceedings of the Chamber\r\nof Deputies, December 26, 1840) \u0026#8220;in the connection with the Jewish question\r\n\u0026#8211; just as it has continually done in all other \u003cem\u003epolitical\u003c/em\u003e questions\r\n\u0026#8211; the spectacle of a life which is free, but which revokes its freedom\r\nby law, hence declaring it to be an appearance, and on the other hand contradicting\r\nits free laws by its action.\u0026#8221; (\u003cem\u003eThe Jewish Question\u003c/em\u003e, p. 64)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;In France, universal freedom is not yet the law, the Jewish question\r\ntoo has \u003cem\u003enot\u003c/em\u003e yet been solved, because legal freedom \u0026#8211; the fact that\r\nall citizens are equal \u0026#8211; is restricted in actual life, which is still\r\ndominated and divided by religious privileges, and this lack of freedom\r\nin actual life reacts on law and compels the latter to sanction the division\r\nof the citizens, who as such are free, into oppressed and oppressors.\u0026#8221; \r\n(p. 65)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nWhen, therefore, would the Jewish question be solved for France?\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;The Jew, for example, would have ceased to be a Jew if he did not\r\nallow himself to be prevented by his laws from fulfilling his duty to the\r\nstate and his fellow citizens, that is, for example, if on the Sabbath\r\nhe attended the Chamber of Deputies and took part in the official proceedings.\r\nEvery \u003cem\u003ereligious privilege\u003c/em\u003e, and therefore also the monopoly of a\r\nprivileged church, would have been abolished altogether, and if some or\r\nmany persons, or even the overwhelming majority, still believed themselves\r\nbound to fulfil religious duties, this fulfilment ought to be left to them\r\nas a purely private matter.\u0026#8221; (p. 65)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;There is no longer any religion when there is no longer any privileged\r\nreligion. Take from religion its exclusive power and it will no longer\r\nexist.\u0026#8221; (p. 66)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;Just as M. Martin du Nord saw the proposal to omit mention of\r\nSunday in the law as a motion to declare that Christianity has ceased to\r\nexist, with equal reason (and this reason is very well founded) the declaration\r\nthat the law of the Sabbath is no longer binding on the Jew would be a\r\nproclamation abolishing Judaism.\u0026#8221; (p. 71)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBauer, therefore, demands, on the one hand, that the Jew should renounce\r\nJudaism, and that mankind in general should renounce religion, in order\r\nto achieve \u003cem\u003ecivic\u003c/em\u003e emancipation. On the other hand, he quite consistently\r\nregards the \u003cem\u003epolitical\u003c/em\u003e abolition of religion as the abolition of\r\nreligion as such. The state which presupposes religion is not yet a true,\r\nreal state.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;Of course, the religious notion affords security to the state. But\r\nto what state? To what kind of state?\u0026#8221; (p. 97)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAt this point, the \u003cem\u003eone-sided\u003c/em\u003e formulation of the Jewish question\r\nbecomes evident.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eIt was by no means sufficient to investigate: Who is to emancipate?\r\nWho is to be emancipated? Criticism had to investigate a third point. It\r\nhad to inquire: \u003cem\u003eWhat kind of emancipation\u003c/em\u003e is in question? What conditions\r\nfollow from the very nature of the emancipation that is demanded? Only\r\nthe criticism of \u003cem\u003epolitical emancipation\u003c/em\u003e itself would have been the\r\nconclusive criticism of the Jewish question and its real merging in the\r\n\u0026#8220;\u003cem\u003egeneral question of time\u003c/em\u003e.\u0026#8221;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eBecause Bauer does not raise the question to this level, he becomes\r\nentangled in contradictions. He puts forward conditions which are not based\r\non the nature of \u003cem\u003epolitical\u003c/em\u003e emancipation itself. He raises questions\r\nwhich are not part of his problem, and he solves problems which leave this\r\nquestion unanswered. When Bauer says of the opponents of Jewish emancipation:\r\n\u0026#8220;Their error was only that they assumed the Christian state to be the only\r\ntrue one and did not subject it to the same criticism that they applied\r\nto Judaism\u0026#8221; (op. cit., p. 3), we find that his error lies in the fact that\r\nhe subjects to criticism \u003cem\u003eonly\u003c/em\u003e the \u0026#8220;Christian state,\u0026#8221; not the \u0026#8220;state\r\nas such,\u0026#8221; that he does not investigate \u003cem\u003ethe relation of political emancipation\r\nto human emancipation\u003c/em\u003e and, therefore, puts forward conditions which\r\ncan be explained only by uncritical confusion of political emancipation\r\nwith general human emancipation. If Bauer asks the Jews: Have you, from\r\nyour standpoint, the right to want \u003cem\u003epolitical emancipation\u003c/em\u003e? We ask\r\nthe converse question: Does the standpoint of \u003cem\u003epolitical\u003c/em\u003e emancipation\r\ngive the right to demand from the Jew the abolition of Judaism and from\r\nman the abolition of religion?\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe Jewish question acquires a different form depending on the\r\nstate in which the Jew lives. In Germany, where there is no political state,\r\nno state as such, the Jewish question is a purely \u003cem\u003etheological\u003c/em\u003e one.\r\nThe Jew finds himself in \u003cem\u003ereligious\u003c/em\u003e opposition to the state, which\r\nrecognizes Christianity as its basis. This state is a theologian \u003cem\u003eex\r\nprofesso\u003c/em\u003e. Criticism here is criticism of theology, a double-edged criticism\r\n\u0026#8211; criticism of Christian theology and of Jewish theology. Hence, we continue\r\nto operate in the sphere of theology, however much we may operate \u003cem\u003ecritically\u003c/em\u003e\r\nwithin it.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eIn France, a \u003cem\u003econstitutional\u003c/em\u003e state, the Jewish question\r\nis a question of constitutionalism, the question of the \u003cem\u003eincompleteness\r\nof political emancipation\u003c/em\u003e. Since the \u003cem\u003esemblance\u003c/em\u003e of a state religion\r\nis retained here, although in a meaningless and self-contradictory formula,\r\nthat of a \u003cem\u003ereligion of the majority\u003c/em\u003e, the relation of the Jew to the\r\nstate retains the \u003cem\u003esemblance\u003c/em\u003e of a religious, theological opposition.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eOnly in the North American states \u0026#8211; at least, in some of them\r\n\u0026#8211; does the Jewish question lose its \u003cem\u003etheological\u003c/em\u003e significance and\r\nbecome a really \u003cem\u003esecular\u003c/em\u003e question. Only where the political state\r\nexists in its completely developed form can the relation of the Jew, and\r\nof the religious man in general, to the political state, and therefore\r\nthe relation of religion to the state, show itself in its specific character,\r\nin its purity. The criticism of this relation ceases to be theological\r\ncriticism as soon as the state ceases to adopt a theological attitude toward\r\nreligion, as soon as it behaves towards religion as a state \u0026#8211; \u003cem\u003ei.e.\u003c/em\u003e,\r\n\u003cem\u003epolitically\u003c/em\u003e. Criticism, then, becomes criticism of the political\r\nstate. At this point, where the question ceases to be theological, Bauer\u0026#8217;s\r\ncriticism ceases to be critical.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;In the United States there is neither a state religion nor a religion\r\ndeclared to be that of the majority, nor the predominance of one cult over\r\nanother. The state stands aloof from all cults.\u0026#8221; (\u003ci\u003eMarie ou l\u0026#8217;esclavage\r\naux Etats-Unis, etc.\u003c/i\u003e, by G. de Beaumont, Paris, 1835, p. 214)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIndeed, there are some North American states where \u0026#8220;the constitution\r\ndoes not impose any religious belief or religious practice as a condition\r\nof political rights.\u0026#8221; (op. cit., p. 225)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nNevertheless, \u0026#8220;in the United States people do not believe that\r\na man without religion could be an honest man.\u0026#8221; (op. cit., p. 224)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nNevertheless, North America is pre-eminently the country of religiosity,\r\nas Beaumont, Tocqueville, and the Englishman Hamilton unanimously assure\r\nus. The North American states, however, serve us only as an example. The\r\nquestion is: What is the relation of complete political emancipation to\r\nreligion? If we find that even in the country of complete political emancipation,\r\nreligion not only exists, but displays a fresh and vigorous vitality, that\r\nis proof that the existence of religion is not in contradiction to the\r\nperfection of the state. Since, however, the existence of religion is the\r\nexistence of defect, the source of this defect can only be sought in the\r\nnature of the state itself. We no longer regard religion as the \u003cem\u003ecause\u003c/em\u003e,\r\nbut only as the manifestation of secular narrowness. Therefore, we explain\r\nthe religious limitations of the free citizen by their secular limitations.\r\nWe do not assert that they must overcome their religious narrowness in\r\norder to get rid of their secular restrictions, we assert that they will\r\novercome their religious narrowness once they get rid of their secular\r\nrestrictions. We do not turn secular questions into theological ones. History\r\nhas long enough been merged in superstition, we now merge superstition\r\nin history. The question of the relation of political emancipation to religion\r\nbecomes for us the question of the relation of political emancipation to\r\nhuman emancipation. We criticize the religious weakness of the political\r\nstate by criticizing the political state in its secular form, apart from\r\nits weaknesses as regards religion. The contradiction between the state\r\nand a particular religion, for instance Judaism, is given by us a human\r\nform as the contradiction between the state and \u003cem\u003eparticular\u003c/em\u003e secular\r\nelements; the contradiction between the state and religion in general as\r\nthe contradiction between the state and its presuppositions in general.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe political emancipation of the Jew, the Christian, and, in\r\ngeneral, of religious man, is the emancipation of the \u003cem\u003estate\u003c/em\u003e from\r\nJudaism, from Christianity, from religion in general. In its own form,\r\nin the manner characteristic of its nature, the state as a state emancipates\r\nitself from religion by emancipating itself from the state religion \u0026#8211;\r\nthat is to say, by the state as a state not professing any religion, but,\r\non the contrary, asserting itself as a state. The \u003cem\u003epolitical\u003c/em\u003e emancipation\r\nfrom religion is not a religious emancipation that has been carried through\r\nto completion and is free from contradiction, because political emancipation\r\nis not a form of \u003cem\u003ehuman\u003c/em\u003e emancipation which has been carried through\r\nto completion and is free from contradiction.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe limits of political emancipation are evident at once from\r\nthe fact that the state can free itself from a restriction without man\r\nbeing really free from this restriction, that the state can be a \u003cem\u003efree\r\nstate\u003c/em\u003e \u003cspan\u003e[pun on word Freistaat, which also means republic]\u003c/span\u003e without\r\nman being a \u003cem\u003efree man\u003c/em\u003e. Bauer himself tacitly admits this when he\r\nlays down the following condition for political emancipation:\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;Every religious privilege, and therefore also the monopoly of a privileged\r\nchurch, would have been abolished altogether, and if some or many persons,\r\nor even the overwhelming majority, still believed themselves bound to fulfil\r\nreligious duties, this fulfilment ought to be left to them as a purely\r\nprivate matter.\u0026#8221; [\u003cem\u003eThe Jewish Question\u003c/em\u003e, p. 65]\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIt is possible, therefore, for the \u003cem\u003estate\u003c/em\u003e to have emancipated itself\r\nfrom religion even if the \u003cem\u003eoverwhelming majority\u003c/em\u003e is still religious.\r\nAnd the overwhelming majority does not cease to be religious through being\r\nreligious in private.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eBut, the attitude of the state, and of the \u003ci\u003erepublic\u003c/i\u003e \u003cspan\u003e[free state]\u003c/span\u003e in particular, to religion is, after all, only the attitude to religion\r\nof the \u003cem\u003emen\u003c/em\u003e who compose the state. It follows from this that man\r\nfrees himself through the \u003ci\u003emedium of the state\u003c/i\u003e, that he frees himself\r\n\u003ci\u003epolitically\u003c/i\u003e from a limitation when, in contradiction with himself, he raises\r\nhimself above this limitation in an \u003ci\u003eabstract, limited\u003c/i\u003e, and partial way.\r\nIt follows further that, by freeing himself \u003ci\u003epolitically\u003c/i\u003e, man frees himself\r\nin a \u003ci\u003eroundabout way\u003c/i\u003e, through an \u003ci\u003eintermediary\u003c/i\u003e, although an \u003ci\u003eessential intermediary\u003c/i\u003e.\r\nIt follows, finally, that man, even if he proclaims himself an atheist\r\nthrough the medium of the state \u0026#8211; that is, if he proclaims the state to\r\nbe atheist \u0026#8211; still remains in the grip of religion, precisely because\r\nhe acknowledges himself only by a roundabout route, only through an \u003ci\u003eintermediary\u003c/i\u003e.\r\nReligion is precisely the recognition of man in a roundabout way, through\r\nan intermediary. The state is the intermediary between man and man\u0026#8217;s freedom.\r\nJust as Christ is the intermediary to whom man transfers the burden of\r\nall his divinity, all his \u003ci\u003ereligious constraint\u003c/i\u003e, so the state is the intermediary\r\nto whom man transfers all his non-divinity and all his \u003ci\u003ehuman unconstraint\u003c/i\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003ci\u003epolitical\u003c/i\u003e elevation of man above religion shares all the defects\r\nand all the advantages of political elevation in general. The state as\r\na state annuls, for instance, private property, man declares by political\r\nmeans that private property is abolished as soon as the property qualification\r\nfor the right to elect or be elected is abolished, as has occurred in many\r\nstates of North America. Hamilton quite correctly interprets this fact\r\nfrom a political point of view as meaning:\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;the masses have won a victory over the property owners and financial\r\nwealth.\u0026#8221; [Thomas Hamilton, \u003cem\u003eMen and Manners in America\u003c/em\u003e, 2 vols, Edinburgh,\r\n1833, p. 146]\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIs not private property abolished in idea if the non-property owner has\r\nbecome the legislator for the property owner? The property qualification\r\nfor the suffrage is the last political form of giving recognition to private\r\nproperty.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eNevertheless, the political annulment of private property not\r\nonly fails to abolish private property but even presupposes it. The state\r\nabolishes, in its own way, distinctions of birth, social rank, education,\r\noccupation, when it declares that birth, social rank, education, occupation,\r\nare non-political distinctions, when it proclaims, without regard to these\r\ndistinction, that every member of the nation is an \u003cem\u003eequal\u003c/em\u003e participant\r\nin national sovereignty, when it treats all elements of the real life of\r\nthe nation from the standpoint of the state. Nevertheless, the state allows\r\nprivate property, education, occupation, to \u003cem\u003eact\u003c/em\u003e in \u003cem\u003etheir\u003c/em\u003e\r\nway \u0026#8211; \u003cem\u003ei.e.\u003c/em\u003e, as private property, as education, as occupation, and\r\nto exert the influence of their \u003cem\u003especial\u003c/em\u003e nature. Far from abolishing\r\nthese real distinctions, the state only exists on the presupposition of\r\ntheir existence; it feels itself to be a political state and asserts its\r\nuniversality only in opposition to these elements of its being. Hegel,\r\ntherefore, defines the relation of the political state to religion quite\r\ncorrectly when he says:\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;In order […] that the state should come into existence as the self-knowing,\r\nmoral reality of the mind, its distinction from the form of authority and\r\nfaith is essential. But this distinction emerges only insofar as the ecclesiastical\r\naspect arrives at a separation within itself. It is only in this way that\r\nthe state, above the particular churches, has achieved and brought into\r\nexistence universality of thought, which is the principle of its form\u0026#8221; \r\n(Hegel\u0026#8217;s \u003cem\u003e\u003ca href=\"../../../../../reference/archive/hegel/works/pr/prstate.htm#PRn270fd\"\u003ePhilosophy of Right\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/em\u003e, 1st edition, p. 346).\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nOf course! Only in this way, \u003cem\u003eabove\u003c/em\u003e the \u003cem\u003eparticular\u003c/em\u003e elements,\r\ndoes the state constitute itself as universality.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe perfect political state is, by its nature, man\u0026#8217;s species-life,\r\nas opposed to his material life. All the preconditions of this egoistic\r\nlife continue to exist in \r\n\u003ca href=\"../../../../../glossary/terms/c/i.htm#civil-society\"\u003ecivil society\u003c/a\u003e \r\noutside the sphere of the state,\r\nbut as qualities of civil society. Where the political state has attained\r\nits true development, man \u0026#8211; not only in thought, in consciousness, but\r\nin reality, in life \u0026#8211; leads a twofold life, a heavenly and an earthly\r\nlife: life in the political community, in which he considers himself a\r\ncommunal being, and life in civil society, in which he acts as a private\r\nindividual, regards other men as a means, degrades himself into a means,\r\nand becomes the plaything of alien powers. The relation of the political\r\nstate to civil society is just as spiritual as the relations of heaven\r\nto earth. The political state stands in the same opposition to civil society,\r\nand it prevails over the latter in the same way as religion prevails over\r\nthe narrowness of the secular world \u0026#8211; \u003cem\u003ei.e.\u003c/em\u003e, by likewise having\r\nalways to acknowledge it, to restore it, and allow itself to be dominated\r\nby it. In his most immediate reality, in civil society, man is a secular\r\nbeing. Here, where he regards himself as a real individual, and is so regarded\r\nby others, he is a fictitious phenomenon. In the state, on the other hand,\r\nwhere man is regarded as a species-being, he is the imaginary member of\r\nan illusory sovereignty, is deprived of his real individual life and endowed\r\nwith an unreal universality.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eMan, as the adherent of a \u003ci\u003eparticular\u003c/i\u003e religion, finds himself in\r\nconflict with his citizenship and with other men as members of the community.\r\nThis conflict reduces itself to the \u003cem\u003esecular\u003c/em\u003e division between the\r\n\u003cem\u003epolitical\u003c/em\u003e state and \u003ci\u003ecivil society\u003c/i\u003e. For man as a \u003ci\u003ebourgeois\u003c/i\u003e\r\n\u003cspan\u003e[i.e., as a member of civil society,\r\n \u0026#8220;bourgeois society\u0026#8221; in German]\u003c/span\u003e, \u0026#8220;life in the\r\nstate\u0026#8221; is \u0026#8220;only a semblance or a temporary exception to the essential and\r\nthe rule.\u0026#8221; Of course, the \u003ci\u003ebourgeois\u003c/i\u003e, like the Jew, remains only sophistically\r\nin the sphere of political life, just as the \u003ci\u003ecitoyen\u003c/i\u003e \r\n\u003cspan\u003e[\u0026#8216;citizen\u0026#8217; in French, \u003ci\u003ei.e.\u003c/i\u003e, the participant in \u003ci\u003epolitical\u003c/i\u003e life]\u003c/span\u003e only sophistically\r\nremains a Jew or a \u003ci\u003ebourgeois\u003c/i\u003e. But, this sophistry is not personal. It is\r\nthe \u003ci\u003esophistry of the political state\u003c/i\u003e itself. The difference between the\r\nmerchant and the citizen \u003cspan\u003e[\u003ci\u003eStaatsb\u0026uuml;rger\u003c/i\u003e]\u003c/span\u003e, between the day-laborer and the citizen, between\r\nthe landowner and the citizen, between the merchant and the citizen, between\r\nthe \u003cem\u003eliving individual\u003c/em\u003e and the \u003cem\u003ecitizen\u003c/em\u003e. The contradiction\r\nin which the religious man finds himself with the political man is the\r\nsame contradiction in which the bourgeois finds himself with the \u003ci\u003ecitoyen\u003c/i\u003e,\r\nand the member of civil society with his \u003ci\u003epolitical lion\u0026#8217;s skin\u003c/i\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThis secular conflict, to which the Jewish question ultimately\r\nreduces itself, the relation between the political state and its preconditions,\r\nwhether these are material elements, such as private property, etc., or\r\nspiritual elements, such as culture or religion, the conflict between the\r\ngeneral interest and private interest, the schism between the political\r\nstate and civil society \u0026#8211; these secular antitheses Bauer allows to persist,\r\nwhereas he conducts a polemic against their religious expression.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;It is precisely the basis of civil society, the need that ensures\r\nthe continuance of this society and guarantees its necessity, which exposes\r\nits existence to continual dangers, maintains in it an element of uncertainty,\r\nand produces that continually changing mixture of poverty and riches, of\r\ndistress and prosperity, and brings about change in general.\u0026#8221; (p. 8)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nCompare the whole section: \u0026#8220;Civil Society\u0026#8221; (pp. 8-9), which has been drawn\r\nup along the basic lines of Hegel\u0026#8217;s philosophy of law. Civil society, in\r\nits opposition to the political state, is recognized as necessary, because\r\nthe political state is recognized as necessary.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003ePolitical emancipation is, of course, a big step forward. True,\r\nit is not the final form of human emancipation in general, but it is the\r\nfinal form of human emancipation within the hitherto existing world order.\r\nIt goes without saying that we are speaking here of real, practical emancipation.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eMan emancipates himself \u003ci\u003epolitically\u003c/i\u003e from religion by banishing\r\nit from the sphere of public law to that of private law. Religion is no\r\nlonger the spirit of the state, in which man behaves \u0026#8211; although in a limited\r\nway, in a particular form, and in a particular sphere \u0026#8211; as a species-being,\r\nin community with other men. Religion has become the spirit of \u003ci\u003ecivil society\u003c/i\u003e,\r\nof the sphere of egoism, of \u003ci\u003ebellum omnium contra omnes\u003c/i\u003e. It is no longer\r\nthe essence of \u003ci\u003ecommunity\u003c/i\u003e, but the essence of \u003ci\u003edifference\u003c/i\u003e. It has become\r\nthe expression of man\u0026#8217;s \u003ci\u003eseparation\u003c/i\u003e from his \u003ci\u003ecommunity\u003c/i\u003e, from himself and\r\nfrom other men \u0026#8211; as it was originally. It is only the abstract avowal\r\nof specific perversity, \u003ci\u003eprivate whimsy\u003c/i\u003e, and arbitrariness. The endless\r\nfragmentation of religion in North America, for example, gives it even\r\n\u003ci\u003eexternally\u003c/i\u003e the form of a purely individual affair. It has been thrust among\r\nthe multitude of private interests and ejected from the community as such.\r\nBut one should be under no illusion about the limits of political emancipation.\r\nThe division of the human being into a \u003ci\u003epublic man\u003c/i\u003e and a \u003ci\u003eprivate\r\nman\u003c/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003edisplacement\u003c/i\u003e of religion from the state into civil society, this\r\nis not a stage of political emancipation but its completion; this emancipation,\r\ntherefore, neither abolished the \u003ci\u003ereal\u003c/i\u003e religiousness of man, nor strives\r\nto do so.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003ci\u003edecomposition\u003c/i\u003e of man into Jew and citizen, Protestant and\r\ncitizen, religious man and citizen, is neither a deception directed \u003cem\u003eagainst\u003c/em\u003e\r\ncitizenhood, nor is it a circumvention of political emancipation, it is\r\n\u003ci\u003epolitical emancipation itself\u003c/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003epolitical\u003c/i\u003e method of emancipating oneself\r\nfrom religion. Of course, in periods when the political state as such is\r\nborn violently out of civil society, when political liberation is the form\r\nin which men strive to achieve their liberation, the state can and must\r\ngo as far as the \u003ci\u003eabolition of religion\u003c/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003edestruction\u003c/i\u003e of religion. But\r\nit can do so only in the same way that it proceeds to the abolition of\r\nprivate property, to the maximum, to confiscation, to progressive taxation,\r\njust as it goes as far as the abolition of life, the \u003ci\u003eguillotine\u003c/i\u003e. At times\r\nof special self-confidence, political life seeks to suppress its prerequisite,\r\ncivil society and the elements composing this society, and to constitute\r\nitself as the real species-life of man, devoid of contradictions. But,\r\nit can achieve this only by coming into \u003cem\u003eviolent\u003c/em\u003e contradiction with\r\nits own conditions of life, only by declaring the revolution to be permanent,\r\nand, therefore, the political drama necessarily ends with the re-establishment\r\nof religion, private property, and all elements of civil society, just\r\nas war ends with peace.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eIndeed, the perfect Christian state is not the so-called \u003cem\u003eChristian\u003c/em\u003e\r\nstate \u0026#8211; which acknowledges Christianity as its basis, as the state religion,\r\nand, therefore, adopts an exclusive attitude towards other religions. On\r\nthe contrary, the perfect Christian state is the \u003cem\u003eatheistic\u003c/em\u003e state,\r\nthe \u003cem\u003edemocratic\u003c/em\u003e state, the state which relegates religion to a place\r\namong the other elements of civil society. The state which is still theological,\r\nwhich still officially professes Christianity as its creed, which still\r\ndoes not dare to proclaim itself \u003cem\u003eas a state\u003c/em\u003e, has, in its \u003ci\u003ereality\u003c/i\u003e\r\nas a state, not yet succeeded in expressing the \u003ci\u003ehuman\u003c/i\u003e basis \u0026#8211; of which\r\nChristianity is the high-flown expression \u0026#8211; in a \u003ci\u003esecular, human\u003c/i\u003e form.\r\nThe so-called Christian state is simply nothing more than a non-state,\r\nsince it is not Christianity as a religion, but only the \u003cem\u003ehuman background\u003c/em\u003e\r\nof the Christian religion, which can find its expression in actual human\r\ncreations.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe so-called Christian state is the Christian negation of the\r\nstate, but by no means the political realization of Christianity. The state\r\nwhich still professes Christianity in the form of religion, does not yet\r\nprofess it in the form appropriate to the state, for it still has a religious\r\nattitude towards religion \u0026#8211; that is to say, it is not the \u003ci\u003etrue implementation\u003c/i\u003e\r\nof the human basis of religion, because it still relies on the \u003ci\u003eunreal,\r\nimaginary\u003c/i\u003e form of this human core. The so-called Christian state is the\r\n\u003ci\u003eimperfect\u003c/i\u003e state, and the Christian religion is regarded by it as the \u003ci\u003esupplementation\u003c/i\u003e\r\nand \u003ci\u003esanctification\u003c/i\u003e of its imperfection. For the Christian state, therefore,\r\nreligion necessarily becomes a \u003ci\u003emeans\u003c/i\u003e; hence, it is a \u003ci\u003ehypocritical\u003c/i\u003e state.\r\nIt makes a great difference whether the \u003ci\u003ecomplete\u003c/i\u003e state, because of the\r\ndefect inherent in the general \u003ci\u003enature\u003c/i\u003e of the state, counts religion among\r\nits \u003ci\u003epresuppositions\u003c/i\u003e, or whether the \u003ci\u003eincomplete\u003c/i\u003e state, because of the defect\r\ninherent in its \u003ci\u003eparticular existence\u003c/i\u003e as a defective state, declares that\r\nreligion is its basis. In the latter case, religion becomes \u003ci\u003eimperfect politics\u003c/i\u003e.\r\nIn the former case, the imperfection even of consummate \u003ci\u003epolitics\u003c/i\u003e becomes\r\nevident in religion. The so-called Christian state needs the Christian\r\nreligion in order to complete itself \u003ci\u003eas a state\u003c/i\u003e. The democratic state,\r\nthe real state, does not need religion for its political completion. On\r\nthe contrary, it can disregard religion because in it the human basis of\r\nreligion is realized in a secular manner. The so-called Christian state,\r\non the other hand, has a political attitude to religion and a religious\r\nattitude to politics. By degrading the forms of the state to mere semblance,\r\nit equally degrades religion to mere semblance.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eIn order to make this contradiction clearer, let us consider Bauer\u0026#8217;s\r\nprojection of the Christian state, a projection based on his observation\r\nof the Christian-German state.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;Recently,\u0026#8221; says Bauer, \u0026#8220;in order to prove the \u003ci\u003eimpossibility\u003c/i\u003e or \u003ci\u003enon-existence\u003c/i\u003e\r\nof a Christian state, reference has frequently been made to those sayings\r\nin the Gospel with which the [present-day] state \u003ci\u003enot only does not\u003c/i\u003e comply,\r\nbut \u003ci\u003ecannot possibly comply, if it does not want to dissolve itself completely\u003c/i\u003e\r\n[as a state].\u0026#8221; \u0026#8220;But the matter cannot be disposed of so easily. What do these\r\nGospel sayings demand? Supernatural renunciation of self, submission to\r\nthe authority of revelation, a turning-away from the state, the abolition\r\nof secular conditions. Well, the Christian state demands and accomplishes\r\nall that. It has assimilated the \u003ci\u003espirit of the Gospel\u003c/i\u003e, and if it does not\r\nreproduce this spirit in the same terms as the Gospel, that occurs only\r\nbecause it expresses this spirit in political forms, \u003cem\u003ei.e.\u003c/em\u003e, in forms\r\nwhich, it is true, are taken from the political system in this world, but\r\nwhich in the religious rebirth that they have to undergo become degraded\r\nto a mere semblance. This is a turning-away from the state while making\r\nuse of political forms for its realization.\u0026#8221; (p. 55)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBauer then explains that the people of a Christian state is only a non-people,\r\nno longer having a will of its own, but whose true existence lies in the\r\nleader to whom it is subjected, although this leader by his origin and\r\nnature is alien to it \u0026#8211; \u003cem\u003ei.e.\u003c/em\u003e, given by God and imposed on the people\r\nwithout any co-operation on its part. Bauer declares that the laws of such\r\na people are not its own creation, but are actual revelations, that its\r\nsupreme chief needs privileged intermediaries with the people in the strict\r\nsense, with the masses, and that the masses themselves are divided into\r\na multitude of particular groupings which are formed and determined by\r\nchance, which are differentiated by their interests, their particular passions\r\nand prejudices, and obtain permission as a privilege, to isolate themselves\r\nfrom one another, etc. (p. 56)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eHowever, Bauer himself says:\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;Politics, if it is to be nothing but religion, ought not to be politics,\r\njust as the cleaning of saucepans, if it is to be accepted as a religious\r\nmatter, ought not to be regarded as a matter of domestic economy.\u0026#8221; (p. 108)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIn the Christian-German state, however, religion is an \u0026#8220;economic matter\u0026#8221; \r\njust as \u0026#8220;economic matters\u0026#8221; belong to the sphere of religion. The domination\r\nof religion in the Christian-German state is the religion of domination.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe separation of the \u0026#8220;spirit of the Gospel\u0026#8221; from the \u0026#8220;letter\r\nof the Gospel\u0026#8221; is an \u003ci\u003eirreligious\u003c/i\u003e act. A state which makes the Gospel speak\r\nin the language of politics \u0026#8211; that is, in another language than that of\r\nthe Holy Ghost \u0026#8211; commits sacrilege, if not in human eyes, then in the\r\neyes of its own religion. The state which acknowledges Christianity as\r\nits supreme criterion, and the \u003ci\u003eBible\u003c/i\u003e as its \u003ci\u003eCharter\u003c/i\u003e, must be confronted\r\nwith the \u003ci\u003ewords\u003c/i\u003e of Holy Scripture, for every word of Scripture is holy.\r\nThis state, as well as the \u003ci\u003ehuman rubbish\u003c/i\u003e on which it is based, is caught\r\nin a painful contradiction that is insoluble from the standpoint of religious\r\nconsciousness when it is referred to those sayings of the Gospel with which\r\nit \u0026#8220;not only does not comply, but \u003ci\u003ecannot possibly comply, if it does not\r\nwant to dissolve itself completely as a state\u003c/i\u003e.\u0026#8221; And why does it not want\r\nto dissolve itself completely? The state itself cannot give an answer either\r\nto itself or to others. In its \u003ci\u003eown consciousness\u003c/i\u003e, the official Christian\r\nstate is an \u003ci\u003eimperative\u003c/i\u003e, the realization of which is unattainable, the state\r\ncan assert the reality of its existence only by lying to itself, and therefore\r\nalways remains in its own eyes an object of doubt, an unreliable, problematic\r\nobject. Criticism is, therefore, fully justified in forcing the state that\r\nrelies on the Bible into a mental derangement in which it no longer knows\r\nwhether it is an \u003ci\u003eillusion\u003c/i\u003e or a \u003ci\u003ereality\u003c/i\u003e, and in which the infamy of its\r\n\u003ci\u003esecular\u003c/i\u003e aims, for which religion serves as a cloak, comes into insoluble\r\nconflict with the sincerity of its \u003ci\u003ereligious\u003c/i\u003e consciousness, for which religion\r\nappears as the aim of the world. This state can only save itself from its\r\ninner torment if it becomes the \u003cem\u003epolice agent\u003c/em\u003e of the Catholic Church.\r\nIn relation to the church, which declares the \u003ci\u003esecular\u003c/i\u003e power to be its servant,\r\nthe state is powerless, the secular power which claims to be the rule of\r\nthe religious spirit is powerless.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eIt is, indeed, \u003cem\u003eestrangement\u003c/em\u003e which matters in the so-called\r\nChristian state, but not \u003ci\u003eman\u003c/i\u003e. The only man who counts, the king, is a being\r\nspecifically different from other men, and is, moreover, a religious being,\r\ndirectly linked with heaven, with God. The relationships which prevail\r\nhere are still relationships dependent of \u003cem\u003efaith\u003c/em\u003e. The religious spirit,\r\ntherefore, is still not really secularized.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eBut, furthermore, the religious spirit cannot be \u003cem\u003ereally\u003c/em\u003e\r\nsecularized, for what is it in itself but the \u003ci\u003enon-secular\u003c/i\u003e form of a stage\r\nin the development of the human mind? The religious spirit can only be\r\nsecularized insofar as the stage of development of the human mind of which\r\nit is the religious expression makes its appearance and becomes constituted\r\nin its \u003ci\u003esecular\u003c/i\u003e form. This takes place in the democratic state. Not Christianity,\r\nbut the \u003cem\u003ehuman basis\u003c/em\u003e of Christianity is the basis of this state.\r\nReligion remains the ideal, non-secular consciousness of its members, because\r\nreligion is the ideal form of the \u003ci\u003estage of human development\u003c/i\u003e achieved in\r\nthis state.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe members of the political state are religious owing to the\r\ndualism between individual life and species-life, between the life of civil\r\nsociety and political life. They are religious because men treat the political\r\nlife of the state, an area beyond their real individuality, as if it were\r\ntheir true life. They are religious insofar as religion here is the spirit\r\nof civil society, expressing the separation and remoteness of man from\r\nman. Political democracy is Christian since in it man, not merely one man\r\nbut everyman, ranks as \u003cem\u003esovereign\u003c/em\u003e, as the highest being, but it is\r\nman in his uncivilized, unsocial form, man in his fortuitous existence,\r\nman just as he is, man as he has been corrupted by the whole organization\r\nof our society, who has lost himself, been alienated, and handed over to\r\nthe rule of inhuman conditions and elements \u0026#8211; in short, man who is not\r\nyet a \u003cem\u003ereal\u003c/em\u003e species-being. That which is a creation of fantasy, a\r\ndream, a postulate of Christianity, \u003cem\u003ei.e.\u003c/em\u003e, the sovereignty of man\r\n\u0026#8211; but man as an alien being different from the real man \u0026#8211; becomes, in\r\ndemocracy, tangible reality, present existence, and secular principle.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eIn the perfect democracy, the religious and theological consciousness\r\nitself is in its own eyes the more religious and the more theological because\r\nit is apparently without political significance, without worldly aims,\r\nthe concern of a disposition that shuns the world, the expression of intellectual\r\nnarrow-mindedness, the product of arbitrariness and fantasy, and because\r\nit is a life that is really of the other world. Christianity attains, here,\r\nthe \u003cem\u003epractical\u003c/em\u003e expression of its universal-religious significance\r\nin that the most diverse world outlooks are grouped alongside one another\r\nin the form of Christianity and still more because it does not require\r\nother people to profess Christianity, but only religion in general, any\r\nkind of religion (cf. Beaumont\u0026#8217;s work quoted above). The religious consciousness\r\nrevels in the wealth of religious contradictions and religious diversity.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eWe have, thus, shown that political emancipation from religion\r\nleaves religion in existence, although not a privileged religion. The contradiction\r\nin which the adherent of a particular religion finds himself involved in\r\nrelation to his citizenship is only \u003cem\u003eone aspect\u003c/em\u003e of the universal\r\n\u003ci\u003esecular contradiction between the political state and civil society\u003c/i\u003e. The\r\nconsummation of the Christian state is the state which acknowledges itself\r\nas a state and disregards the religion of its members. The emancipation\r\nof the state from religion is not the emancipation of the real man from\r\nreligion.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eTherefore, we do not say to the Jews, as Bauer does: You cannot\r\nbe emancipated politically without emancipating yourselves radically from\r\nJudaism. On the contrary, we tell them: Because you can be emancipated\r\npolitically without renouncing Judaism completely and incontrovertibly,\r\n\u003ci\u003epolitical emancipation\u003c/i\u003e itself is not \u003cem\u003ehuman\u003c/em\u003e emancipation. If you\r\nJews want to be emancipated politically, without emancipating yourselves\r\nhumanly, the half-hearted approach and contradiction is not in you alone,\r\nit is inherent in the \u003cem\u003enature\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003ecategory\u003c/em\u003e of political emancipation.\r\nIf you find yourself within the confines of this category, you share in\r\na general confinement. Just as the state \u003ci\u003eevangelizes\u003c/i\u003e when, although it\r\nis a state, it adopts a Christian attitude towards the Jews, so the Jew\r\n\u003ci\u003eacts politically\u003c/i\u003e when, although a Jew, he demands civic rights.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e[ * ]\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eBut, if a man, although a Jew, can be emancipated politically\r\nand receive civic rights, can he lay claim to the so-called \u003cem\u003erights of\r\nman\u003c/em\u003e and receive them? Bauer \u003ci\u003edenies\u003c/i\u003e it.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;The question is whether the Jew as such, that is, the Jew who himself\r\nadmits that he is compelled by his true nature to live permanently in separation\r\nfrom other men, is capable of receiving the \u003ci\u003euniversal rights of man\u003c/i\u003e and\r\nof conceding them to others.\u0026#8221; \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;For the Christian world, the idea of the rights of man was only\r\ndiscovered in the last century. It is not innate in men; on the contrary,\r\nit is gained only in a struggle against the historical traditions in which\r\nhitherto man was brought up. Thus the rights of man are not a gift of nature,\r\nnot a legacy from past history, but the reward of the struggle against\r\nthe accident of birth and against the privileges which up to now have been\r\nhanded down by history from generation to generation. These rights are\r\nthe result of culture, and only one who has earned and deserved them can\r\npossess them.\u0026#8221; \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;Can the Jew really take possession of them? As long as he is\r\na Jew, the restricted nature which makes him a Jew is bound to triumph\r\nover the human nature which should link him as a man with other men, and\r\nwill separate him from non-Jews. He declares by this separation that the\r\nparticular nature which makes him a Jew is his true, highest nature, before\r\nwhich human nature has to give way.\u0026#8221; \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;Similarly, the Christian as a Christian cannot grant the rights\r\nof man.\u0026#8221; (p. 19-20)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAccording to Bauer, man has to sacrifice the \u0026#8220;\u003ci\u003eprivilege of faith\u003c/i\u003e\u0026#8221; to be\r\nable to receive the universal rights of man. Let us examine, for a moment,\r\nthe so-called rights of man \u0026#8211; to be precise, the rights of man in their\r\nauthentic form, in the form which they have among those who \u003cem\u003ediscovered\u003c/em\u003e\r\nthem, the North Americans and the French. These rights of man are, in part,\r\n\u003ci\u003epolitical\u003c/i\u003e rights, rights which can only be exercised in community with\r\nothers. Their content is \u003cem\u003eparticipation\u003c/em\u003e in the \u003ci\u003ecommunity\u003c/i\u003e, and specifically\r\nin the \u003ci\u003epolitical\u003c/i\u003e community, in the \u003ci\u003elife of the state\u003c/i\u003e. They come within\r\nthe category of \u003ci\u003epolitical freedom\u003c/i\u003e, the category of \u003cem\u003ecivic rights\u003c/em\u003e,\r\nwhich, as we have seen, in no way presuppose the incontrovertible and positive\r\nabolition of religion \u0026#8211; nor, therefore, of Judaism. There remains to be\r\nexamined the other part of the rights of man \u0026#8211; the \u003cem\u003edroits de l\u0026#8217;homme\u003c/em\u003e,\r\ninsofar as these differ from the \u003cem\u003edroits du citoyen\u003c/em\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eIncluded among them is freedom of conscience, the right to practice\r\nany religion one chooses. The \u003ci\u003eprivilege of faith\u003c/i\u003e is expressly recognized\r\neither as a \u003ci\u003eright of man\u003c/i\u003e or as the consequence of a right of man, that\r\nof liberty.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u003ci\u003eD\u0026eacute;claration des droits de l\u0026#8217;homme et du citoyen\u003c/i\u003e, 1791, Article\r\n10: \u0026#8220;No one is to be subjected to annoyance because of his opinions, even\r\nreligious opinions.\u0026#8221; \u0026#8220;The freedom of every man to practice the religion of which he\r\nis an adherent.\u0026#8221; \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u003ci\u003eDeclaration of the Rights of Man\u003c/i\u003e, etc., 1793, includes among the rights\r\nof man, Article 7: \u0026#8220;The free exercise of religion.\u0026#8221; Indeed, in regard to\r\nman\u0026#8217;s right to express his thoughts and opinions, to hold meetings, and\r\nto exercise his religion, it is even stated: \u0026#8220;The necessity of proclaiming\r\nthese rights presupposes either the existence or the recent memory of despotism.\u0026#8221; \r\nCompare the Constitution of 1795, Section XIV, Article 354.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u003ci\u003eConstitution of Pennsylvania\u003c/i\u003e, Article 9, \u0026#167; 3: \r\n\u0026#8220;All men have received from nature the imprescriptible right to worship\r\nthe Almighty according to the dictates of their conscience, and no one\r\ncan be legally compelled to follow, establish, or support against his will\r\nany religion or religious ministry. No human authority can, in any circumstances,\r\nintervene in a matter of conscience or control the forces of the soul.\u0026#8221; \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u003ci\u003eConstitution of New Hampshire\u003c/i\u003e, Article 5 and 6: \u0026#8220;Among these natural rights some are by nature inalienable since nothing can replace them. The rights of conscience are among them.\u0026#8221; (Beaumont, op. cit., pp. 213,214)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIncompatibility between religion and the rights of man is to such a degree\r\nabsent from the concept of the rights of man that, on the contrary, a man\u0026#8217;s\r\n\u003cem\u003eright to be religious\u003c/em\u003e, in any way he chooses, to practise his own particular religion, \r\nis expressly included among the rights of man. The \u003ci\u003eprivilege of faith\u003c/i\u003e is a \u003ci\u003euniversal right of man\u003c/i\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003ci\u003edroits de l\u0026#8217;homme\u003c/i\u003e, the rights of man, are, as such, distinct\r\nfrom the \u003ci\u003edroits du citoyen\u003c/i\u003e, the rights of the citizen. Who is \u003ci\u003ehomme\u003c/i\u003e as\r\ndistinct from \u003ci\u003ecitoyen\u003c/i\u003e? None other than the \u003ci\u003emember of civil society\u003c/i\u003e. Why\r\nis the member of civil society called \u0026#8220;man,\u0026#8221; simply man; why are his rights\r\ncalled the \u003ci\u003erights of man\u003c/i\u003e? How is this fact to be explained? From the relationship\r\nbetween the political state and civil society, from the nature of political\r\nemancipation.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eAbove all, we note the fact that the so-called rights of man,\r\nthe \u003ci\u003edroits de l\u0026#8217;homme\u003c/i\u003e as distinct from the \u003ci\u003edroits du citoyen\u003c/i\u003e, are nothing\r\nbut the rights of a \u003ci\u003emember of civil society\u003c/i\u003e \u0026#8211; \u003cem\u003ei.e.\u003c/em\u003e, the rights\r\nof egoistic man, of man separated from other men and from the community.\r\nLet us hear what the most radical Constitution, the Constitution of 1793,\r\nhas to say: \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u003ci\u003eDeclaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen\u003c/i\u003e.\u003cbr /\u003e\r\nArticle 2. \u0026#8220;These rights, etc., (the natural and imprescriptible rights) are: equality,\r\nliberty, security, property.\u0026#8221;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eWhat constitutes liberty?\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nArticle 6. \u0026#8220;Liberty is the power which man has to do everything\r\nthat does not harm the rights of others,\u0026#8221; or, according to the \u003ci\u003eDeclaration\r\nof the Rights of Man\u003c/i\u003e of 1791: \u0026#8220;Liberty consists in being able to do everything\r\nwhich does not harm others.\u0026#8221; \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eLiberty, therefore, is the right to do everything that harms no\r\none else. The limits within which anyone can act \u003cem\u003ewithout harming\u003c/em\u003e\r\nsomeone else are defined by law, just as the boundary between two fields\r\nis determined by a boundary post. It is a question of the liberty of man\r\nas an isolated monad, withdrawn into himself. Why is the Jew, according\r\nto Bauer, incapable of acquiring the rights of man?\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;As long as he is a Jew, the restricted nature which makes him a Jew\r\nis bound to triumph over the human nature which should link him as a man\r\nwith other men, and will separate him from non-Jews.\u0026#8221; \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nBut, the right of man to liberty is based not on the association of man\r\nwith man, but on the separation of man from man. It is the \u003ci\u003eright\u003c/i\u003e of this\r\nseparation, the right of the \u003cem\u003erestricted\u003c/em\u003e individual, withdrawn into\r\nhimself.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe practical application of man\u0026#8217;s right to liberty is man\u0026#8217;s right\r\nto \u003ci\u003eprivate property\u003c/i\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eWhat constitutes man\u0026#8217;s right to private property?\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nArticle 16. (Constitution of 1793): \u0026#8220;The right of property is that\r\nwhich every citizen has of enjoying and of disposing at his discretion\r\nof his goods and income, of the fruits of his labor and industry.\u0026#8221; \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe right of man to private property is, therefore, the right to enjoy\r\none\u0026#8217;s property and to dispose of it at one\u0026#8217;s discretion \r\n(\u003ci\u003e\u0026agrave; son gr\u0026eacute;\u003c/i\u003e), without\r\nregard to other men, independently of society, the right of self-interest.\r\nThis individual liberty and its application form the basis of civil society.\r\nIt makes every man see in other men not the realization of his own freedom,\r\nbut the \u003ci\u003ebarrier\u003c/i\u003e to it. But, above all, it proclaims the right of man\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;of enjoying and of disposing at his discretion of his goods and income, of\r\nthe fruits of his labor and industry.\u0026#8221; \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThere remain the other rights of man: \u003ci\u003eégalité\u003c/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003esûreté\u003c/i\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eEquality, used here in its non-political sense, is nothing but\r\nthe equality of the \u003ci\u003eliberté\u003c/i\u003e described above \u0026#8211; namely: each man is to the\r\nsame extent regarded as such a self-sufficient monad. The Constitution\r\nof 1795 defines the concept of this equality, in accordance with this significance,\r\nas follows:\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nArticle 3 (Constitution of 1795): \u0026#8220;Equality consists in the law being\r\nthe same for all, whether it protects or punishes.\u0026#8221; \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAnd security?\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nArticle 8 (Constitution of 1793): \u0026#8220;Security consists in the protection\r\nafforded by society to each of its members for the preservation of his\r\nperson, his rights, and his property.\u0026#8221; \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nSecurity is the highest social concept of civil society, the concept of\r\n\u003cem\u003epolice\u003c/em\u003e, expressing the fact that the whole of society exists only\r\nin order to guarantee to each of its members the preservation of his person,\r\nhis rights, and his property. It is in this sense that Hegel calls civil\r\nsociety \u0026#8220;the state of need and reason.\u0026#8221;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe concept of security does not raise civil society above its\r\negoism. On the contrary, security is the \u003cem\u003einsurance\u003c/em\u003e of egoism.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eNone of the so-called rights of man, therefore, go beyond egoistic\r\nman, beyond man as a member of civil society \u0026#8211; that is, an individual\r\nwithdrawn into himself, into the confines of his private interests and\r\nprivate caprice, and separated from the community. In the rights of man,\r\nhe is far from being conceived as a species-being; on the contrary, species-life\r\nitself, society, appears as a framework external to the individuals, as\r\na restriction of their original independence. The sole bond holding them\r\ntogether is natural necessity, need and private interest, the preservation\r\nof their property and their egoistic selves.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eIt is puzzling enough that a people which is just beginning to\r\nliberate itself, to tear down all the barriers between its various sections,\r\nand to establish a political community, that such a people solemnly proclaims\r\n(\u003ci\u003eDeclaration\u003c/i\u003e of 1791) the rights of egoistic man separated from his fellow\r\nmen and from the community, and that indeed it repeats this proclamation\r\nat a moment when only the most heroic devotion can save the nation, and\r\nis therefore imperatively called for, at a moment when the sacrifice of\r\nall the interest of civil society must be the order of the day, and egoism\r\nmust be punished as a crime. (\u003ci\u003eDeclaration of the Rights of Man\u003c/i\u003e, etc., of\r\n1793) This fact becomes still more puzzling when we see that the political\r\nemancipators go so far as to reduce citizenship, and the \u003ci\u003epolitical community\u003c/i\u003e,\r\nto a mere means for maintaining these so-called rights of man, that, therefore,\r\nthe \u003ci\u003ecitoyen\u003c/i\u003e is declared to be the servant of egotistic \u003ci\u003ehomme\u003c/i\u003e, that the sphere\r\nin which man acts as a communal being is degraded to a level below the\r\nsphere in which he acts as a partial being, and that, finally, it is not\r\nman as \u003ci\u003ecitoyen\u003c/i\u003e, but man as private individual [\u003ci\u003ebourgeois\u003c/i\u003e] who is considered\r\nto be the \u003ci\u003eessential\u003c/i\u003e and \u003cem\u003etrue\u003c/em\u003e man.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural\r\nand imprescriptible rights of man.\u0026#8221; (\u003ci\u003eDeclaration of the Rights, etc\u003c/i\u003e., of\r\n1791, Article 2)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;Government is instituted in order to guarantee man the enjoyment\r\nof his natural and imprescriptible rights.\u0026#8221; (\u003ci\u003eDeclaration\u003c/i\u003e, etc., of 1793,\r\nArticle 1)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nHence, even in moments when its enthusiasm still has the freshness of youth\r\nand is intensified to an extreme degree by the force of circumstances,\r\npolitical life declares itself to be a mere \u003cem\u003emeans\u003c/em\u003e, whose purpose\r\nis the life of civil society. It is true that its revolutionary practice\r\nis in flagrant contradiction with its theory. Whereas, for example, security\r\nis declared one of the rights of man, violation of the privacy of correspondence\r\nis openly declared to be the order of the day. Whereas \u0026#8220;unlimited freedom\r\nof the press\u0026#8221; (Constitution of 1793, Article 122) is guaranteed as a consequence\r\nof the right of man to individual liberty, freedom of the press is totally\r\ndestroyed, because \u0026#8220;freedom of the press should not be permitted when it\r\nendangers public liberty.\u0026#8221; (\u0026#8220;Robespierre jeune,\u0026#8221; \u003cem\u003eHistorie parlementaire\r\nde la Révolution française\u003c/em\u003e by Buchez and Roux, vol.28, p. 159) That\r\nis to say, therefore: The right of man to liberty ceases to be a right\r\nas soon as it comes into conflict with \u003cem\u003epolitical\u003c/em\u003e life, whereas in\r\ntheory political life is only the guarantee of human rights, the rights\r\nof the individual, and therefore must be abandoned as soon as it comes\r\ninto contradiction with its \u003cem\u003eaim\u003c/em\u003e, with these rights of man. But,\r\npractice is merely the exception, theory is the rule. But even if one were\r\nto regard revolutionary practice as the correct presentation of the relationship,\r\nthere would still remain the puzzle of why the relationship is turned upside-down\r\nin the minds of the political emancipators and the aim appears as the means,\r\nwhile the means appears as the aim. This optical illusion of their consciousness\r\nwould still remain a puzzle, although now a psychological, a theoretical\r\npuzzle.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe puzzle is easily solved.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003ePolitical emancipation is, at the same time, the \u003ci\u003edissolution\u003c/i\u003e of\r\nthe old society on which the state alienated from the people, the sovereign\r\npower, is based. What was the character of the old society? It can be described\r\nin one word \u0026#8211; \u003ci\u003efeudalism\u003c/i\u003e. The character of the old civil society was \u003cem\u003edirectly\r\npolitical\u003c/em\u003e \u0026#8211; that is to say, the elements of civil life, for example,\r\nproperty, or the family, or the mode of labor, were raised to the level\r\nof elements of political life in the form of seigniory, estates, and corporations.\r\nIn this form, they determined the relation of the individual to the \u003ci\u003estate\r\nas a whole\u003c/i\u003e \u0026#8211; \u003cem\u003ei.e.\u003c/em\u003e, his \u003ci\u003epolitical\u003c/i\u003e relation, that is, his relation\r\nof separation and exclusion from the other components of society. For that\r\norganization of national life did not raise property or labor to the level\r\nof social elements; on the contrary, it completed their \u003ci\u003eseparation\u003c/i\u003e from\r\nthe state as a whole and constituted them as \u003cem\u003ediscrete\u003c/em\u003e societies\r\nwithin society. Thus, the vital functions and conditions of life of civil\r\nsociety remained, nevertheless, political, although political in the feudal\r\nsense \u0026#8211; that is to say, they secluded the individual from the state as\r\na whole and they converted the \u003cem\u003eparticular\u003c/em\u003e relation of his corporation\r\nto the state as a whole into his general relation to the life of the nation,\r\njust as they converted his particular civil activity and situation into\r\nhis general activity and situation. As a result of this organization, the\r\nunity of the state, and also the consciousness, will, and activity of this\r\nunity, the general power of the state, are likewise bound to appear as\r\nthe \u003cem\u003eparticular\u003c/em\u003e affair of a ruler and of his servants, isolated from the people.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe political revolution which overthrew this sovereign power\r\nand raised state affairs to become affairs of the people, which constituted\r\nthe political state as a matter of \u003ci\u003egeneral\u003c/i\u003e concern, that is, as a real\r\nstate, necessarily smashed all estates, corporations, guilds, and privileges,\r\nsince they were all manifestations of the separation of the people from\r\nthe community. The political revolution thereby \u003ci\u003eabolished\u003c/i\u003e the \u003ci\u003epolitical\r\ncharacter of civil society\u003c/i\u003e. It broke up civil society into its simple component\r\nparts; on the one hand, the \u003cem\u003eindividuals\u003c/em\u003e; on the other hand, the\r\n\u003cem\u003ematerial\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003espiritual\u003c/em\u003e elements constituting the content\r\nof the life and social position of these individuals. It set free the political\r\nspirit, which had been, as it were, split up, partitioned, and dispersed\r\nin the various blind alleys of feudal society. It gathered the dispersed\r\nparts of the political spirit, freed it from its intermixture with civil\r\nlife, and established it as the sphere of the community, the \u003cem\u003egeneral\u003c/em\u003e\r\nconcern of the nation, ideally independent of those \u003cem\u003eparticular\u003c/em\u003e elements\r\nof civil life. A person\u0026#8217;s \u003cem\u003edistinct\u003c/em\u003e activity and distinct situation\r\nin life were reduced to a merely individual significance. They no longer\r\nconstituted the general relation of the individual to the state as a whole.\r\nPublic affairs as such, on the other hand, became the general affair of\r\neach individual, and the political function became the individual\u0026#8217;s general\r\nfunction.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eBut, the completion of the idealism of the state was at the same\r\ntime the completion of the materialism of civil society. Throwing off the\r\npolitical yoke meant at the same time throwing off the bonds which restrained\r\nthe egoistic spirit of civil society. Political emancipation was, at the\r\nsame time, the emancipation of civil society from politics, from having\r\neven the \u003ci\u003esemblance\u003c/i\u003e of a universal content.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eFeudal society was resolved into its basic element \u0026#8211; \u003ci\u003eman\u003c/i\u003e, but\r\nman as he really formed its basis \u0026#8211; \u003ci\u003eegoistic\u003c/i\u003e man.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThis \u003cem\u003eman\u003c/em\u003e, the member of civil society, is thus the basis,\r\nthe precondition, of the \u003cem\u003epolitical\u003c/em\u003e state. He is recognized as such\r\nby this state in the rights of man.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe liberty of egoistic man and the recognition of this liberty,\r\nhowever, is rather the recognition of the \u003cem\u003eunrestrained\u003c/em\u003e movement\r\nof the spiritual and material elements which form the content of his life.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eHence, man was not freed from religion, he received religious\r\nfreedom. He was not freed from property, he received freedom to own property.\r\nHe was not freed from the egoism of business, he received freedom to engage\r\nin business.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003ci\u003eestablishment of the political state\u003c/i\u003e and the dissolution of\r\ncivil society into independent \u003ci\u003eindividuals\u003c/i\u003e \u0026#8211; whose relation with one another\r\ndepend on \u003ci\u003elaw\u003c/i\u003e, just as the relations of men in the system of estates and\r\nguilds depended on \u003cem\u003eprivilege\u003c/em\u003e \u0026#8211; is accomplished by \u003ci\u003eone and the same\r\nact\u003c/i\u003e. Man as a member of civil society, unpolitical man, inevitably appears,\r\nhowever, as the \u003cem\u003enatural\u003c/em\u003e man. The \u0026#8220;rights of man\u0026#8221; appears as \u0026#8220;natural\r\nrights,\u0026#8221; because \u003ci\u003econscious activity\u003c/i\u003e is concentrated on the \u003cem\u003epolitical\r\nact\u003c/em\u003e. \u003ci\u003eEgoistic\u003c/i\u003e man is the \u003ci\u003epassive\u003c/i\u003e result of the dissolved society, a result\r\nthat is simply \u003ci\u003efound in existence\u003c/i\u003e, an object of \u003ci\u003eimmediate certainty\u003c/i\u003e, therefore\r\na \u003cem\u003enatural\u003c/em\u003e object. The \u003ci\u003epolitical revolution\u003c/i\u003e resolves civil life into\r\nits component parts, without \u003ci\u003erevolutionizing\u003c/i\u003e these components themselves\r\nor subjecting them to criticism. It regards civil society, the world of\r\nneeds, labor, private interests, civil law, as the \u003ci\u003ebasis of its existence\u003c/i\u003e,\r\nas a \u003ci\u003eprecondition\u003c/i\u003e not requiring further substantiation and therefore as\r\nits \u003cem\u003enatural basis\u003c/em\u003e. Finally, man as a member of civil society is\r\nheld to be man in the proper sense, \u003ci\u003ehomme\u003c/i\u003e as distinct from \u003ci\u003ecitoyen\u003c/i\u003e, \r\nbecause he is man in his sensuous, individual, \u003cem\u003eimmediate\u003c/em\u003e existence,\r\nwhereas \u003cem\u003epolitical\u003c/em\u003e man is only abstract, artificial man, man as an\r\n\u003ci\u003eallegorical, juridical\u003c/i\u003e person. The real man is recognized only in the shape\r\nof the \u003ci\u003eegoistic\u003c/i\u003e individual, the \u003ci\u003etrue\u003c/i\u003e man is recognized only in the shape\r\nof the \u003ci\u003eabstract citizen\u003c/i\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eTherefore, Rousseau correctly described the abstract idea of political\r\nman as follows:\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;Whoever dares undertake to establish a people\u0026#8217;s institutions must\r\nfeel himself capable of changing, as it were, human nature, of transforming\r\neach individual, who by himself is a complete and solitary whole, into\r\na part of a larger whole, from which, in a sense, the individual receives\r\nhis life and his being, of substituting a limited and mental existence\r\nfor the physical and independent existence. He has to take from man his\r\nown powers, and give him in exchange alien powers which he cannot employ\r\nwithout the help of other men.\u0026#8221; \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u003cem\u003eAll\u003c/em\u003e emancipation is a \u003cem\u003ereduction\u003c/em\u003e of the human world and relationships\r\nto \u003cem\u003eman himself\u003c/em\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003ePolitical emancipation is the reduction of man, on the one hand,\r\nto a member of civil society, to an \u003ci\u003eegoistic, independent\u003c/i\u003e individual, and,\r\non the other hand, to a \u003ci\u003ecitizen\u003c/i\u003e, a juridical person.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eOnly when the real, individual man re-absorbs in himself the abstract\r\ncitizen, and as an individual human being has become a \u003ci\u003especies-being\u003c/i\u003e in\r\nhis everyday life, in his particular work, and in his particular situation,\r\nonly when man has recognized and organized his \u0026#8220;own powers\u0026#8221; as \u003ci\u003esocial\u003c/i\u003e\r\npowers, and, consequently, no longer separates social power from himself\r\nin the shape of \u003cem\u003epolitical\u003c/em\u003e power, only then will human emancipation\r\nhave been accomplished.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch3\u003eII\u003cbr /\u003e\r\nBruno Bauer,\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;The Capacity of Present-day Jews and Christians to Become Free,\u0026#8221; \u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cem\u003eEinundzwanzig Bogen aus der Schweiz\u003c/em\u003e, pp. 56-71\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIt is in this form that Bauer deals with the relation\r\nbetween the Jewish and the Christian religions, and also with their relation\r\nto criticism. Their relation to criticism is their relation \u0026#8220;to the capacity\r\nto become free.\u0026#8221;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe result arrived at is:\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;The Christian has to surmount only one stage, namely, that of his\r\nreligion, in order to give up religion altogether,\u0026#8221; \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nand therefore become free.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;The Jew, on the other hand, has to break not only with his Jewish\r\nnature, but also with the development towards perfecting his religion,\r\na development which has remained alien to him.\u0026#8221; (p. 71)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThus, Bauer here transforms the question of Jewish emancipation into a\r\npurely religious question. The theological problem as to whether the Jew\r\nor the Christian has the better prospect of salvation is repeated here\r\nin the enlightened form: which of them is \u003ci\u003emore capable of emancipation\u003c/i\u003e.\r\nNo longer is the question asked: Is it Judaism or Christianity that makes\r\na man free? On the contrary, the question is now: Which makes man freer,\r\nthe negation of Judaism or the negation of Christianity?\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;If the Jews want to become free, they should profess belief not in\r\nChristianity, but in the dissolution of Christianity, in the dissolution\r\nof religion in general, that is to say, in enlightenment, criticism, and\r\nits consequences, free humanity.\u0026#8221; (p. 70)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nFor the Jew, it is still a matter of a profession of faith, but no longer\r\na profession of belief in Christianity, but of belief in Christianity in\r\ndissolution.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eBauer demands of the Jews that they should break with the essence\r\nof the Christian religion, a demand which, as he says himself, does not\r\narise out of the development of Judaism.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eSince Bauer, at the end of his work on the Jewish question, had\r\nconceived Judaism only as crude religious criticism of Christianity, and\r\ntherefore saw in it \u0026#8220;merely\u0026#8221; a religious significance, it could be foreseen\r\nthat the emancipation of the Jews, too, would be transformed into a philosophical-theological\r\nact.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eBauer considers that the \u003cem\u003eideal\u003c/em\u003e, abstract nature of the\r\nJew, his \u003cem\u003ereligion\u003c/em\u003e, is his \u003cem\u003eentire\u003c/em\u003e nature. Hence, he rightly\r\nconcludes:\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;The Jew contributes nothing to mankind if he himself disregards his\r\nnarrow law,\u0026#8221; if he invalidates his entire Judaism. (p. 65)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAccordingly, the relation between Jews and Christians becomes the following:\r\nthe sole interest of the Christian in the emancipation of the Jew is a\r\ngeneral human interest, a \u003cem\u003etheoretical\u003c/em\u003e interest. Judaism is a fact\r\nthat offends the religious eye of the Christian. As soon as his eye ceases\r\nto be religious, this fact ceases to be offensive. The emancipation of\r\nthe Jew is, in itself, not a task for the Christian.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe Jew, on the other hand, in order to emancipate himself, has\r\nto carry out not only his own work, but also that of the Christian \u0026#8211; \u003cem\u003ei.e.\u003c/em\u003e,\r\nthe \u003cem\u003eCritique of the Evangelical History of the Synoptics\u003c/em\u003e and the\r\n\u003cem\u003eLife of Jesus\u003c/em\u003e, etc.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;It is up to them to deal with it: they themselves will decide their\r\nfate; but history is not to be trifled with.\u0026#8221; (p. 71)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nWe are trying to break with the theological formulation of the question.\r\nFor us, the question of the Jew\u0026#8217;s capacity for emancipation becomes the\r\nquestion: What particular \u003cem\u003esocial\u003c/em\u003e element has to be overcome in order\r\nto abolish Judaism? For the present-day Jew\u0026#8217;s capacity for emancipation\r\nis the relation of Judaism to the emancipation of the modern world. This\r\nrelation necessarily results from the special position of Judaism in the\r\ncontemporary enslaved world.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eLet us consider the actual, worldly Jew \u0026#8211; not the \u003ci\u003eSabbath Jew\u003c/i\u003e,\r\nas Bauer does, but the \u003ci\u003eeveryday Jew\u003c/i\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nLet us not look for the secret of\r\nthe Jew in his religion, but let us look for the secret of his religion\r\nin the real Jew.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nWhat is the secular basis of Judaism? \u003ci\u003ePractical\u003c/i\u003e need,\r\n\u003ci\u003eself-interest\u003c/i\u003e. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? \u003ci\u003eHuckstering\u003c/i\u003e. What\r\nis his worldly God? \u003ci\u003eMoney\u003c/i\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eVery well then! Emancipation from \u003ci\u003ehuckstering\u003c/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003emoney\u003c/i\u003e, consequently\r\nfrom practical, real Judaism, would be the self-emancipation of our time.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eAn organization of society which would abolish the preconditions\r\nfor huckstering, and therefore the possibility of huckstering, would make\r\nthe Jew impossible. His religious consciousness would be dissipated like\r\na thin haze in the real, vital air of society. On the other hand, if the\r\nJew recognizes that this \u003cem\u003epractical\u003c/em\u003e nature of his is futile and works\r\nto abolish it, he extricates himself from his previous development and\r\nworks for \u003cem\u003ehuman emancipation\u003c/em\u003e as such and turns against the supreme\r\npractical expression of human self-estrangement.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eWe recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general \u003ci\u003eanti-social\u003c/i\u003e element\r\nof the \u003cem\u003epresent time\u003c/em\u003e, an element which through historical development\r\n\u0026#8211; to which in this harmful respect the Jews have zealously contributed\r\n\u0026#8211; has been brought to its present high level, at which it must necessarily\r\nbegin to disintegrate.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eIn the final analysis, the \u003ci\u003eemancipation of the Jews\u003c/i\u003e is the emancipation\r\nof mankind from \u003ci\u003eJudaism\u003c/i\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe Jew has already emancipated himself in a Jewish way.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;The Jew, who in Vienna, for example, is only tolerated, determines\r\nthe fate of the whole Empire by his financial power. The Jew, who may have\r\nno rights in the smallest German state, decides the fate of Europe. While\r\ncorporations and guilds refuse to admit Jews, or have not yet adopted a\r\nfavorable attitude towards them, the audacity of industry mocks at the\r\nobstinacy of the material institutions.\u0026#8221; (Bruno Bauer, \u003cem\u003eThe Jewish Question\u003c/em\u003e,\r\np. 114)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThis is no isolated fact. The Jew has emancipated himself in a Jewish manner,\r\nnot only because he has acquired financial power, but also because, through\r\nhim and also apart from him, \u003cem\u003emoney\u003c/em\u003e has become a world power and\r\nthe practical Jewish spirit has become the practical spirit of the Christian\r\nnations. The Jews have emancipated themselves insofar as the Christians\r\nhave become Jews.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eCaptain Hamilton, for example, reports:\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;The devout and politically free inhabitant of New England is a kind\r\nof \u003ci\u003eLaoco\u0026ouml;n\u003c/i\u003e who makes not the least effort to escape from the serpents which\r\nare crushing him. \u003ci\u003eMammon\u003c/i\u003e is his idol which he adores not only with his\r\nlips but with the whole force of his body and mind. In his view the world\r\nis no more than a Stock Exchange, and he is convinced that he has no other\r\ndestiny here below than to become richer than his neighbor. Trade has seized\r\nupon all his thoughts, and he has no other recreation than to exchange\r\nobjects. When he travels he carries, so to speak, his goods and his counter\r\non his back and talks only of interest and profit. If he loses sight of\r\nhis own business for an instant it is only in order to pry into the business\r\nof his competitors.\u0026#8221; \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nIndeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the\r\nChristian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that\r\nthe \u003ci\u003epreaching of the Gospel\u003c/i\u003e itself and the Christian ministry have become\r\narticles of trade, and the bankrupt trader deals in the Gospel just as\r\nthe Gospel preacher who has become rich goes in for business deals.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n \u0026#8220;The man who you see at the head of a respectable congregation began\r\nas a trader; his business having failed, he became a minister. The other\r\nbegan as a priest but as soon as he had some money at his disposal he left\r\nthe pulpit to become a trader. In the eyes of very many people, the religious\r\nministry is a veritable business career.\u0026#8221; (Beaumont, op. cit., pp. 185,186)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nAccording to Bauer, it is\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;a fictitious state of affairs when in theory the Jew is deprived of\r\npolitical rights, whereas in practice he has immense power and exerts his\r\npolitical influence \u003cem\u003een gros\u003c/em\u003e, although it is curtailed \u003cem\u003een d\u0026eacute;tail\u003c/em\u003e.\u0026#8221; \r\n(\u003ci\u003eDie Judenfrage\u003c/i\u003e, p. 114)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe contradiction that exists between the practical political power of\r\nthe Jew and his political rights is the contradiction between politics\r\nand the power of money in general. Although theoretically the former is\r\nsuperior to the latter, in actual fact politics has become the serf of\r\nfinancial power.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eJudaism has held its own \u003cem\u003ealongside\u003c/em\u003e Christianity, not only\r\nas religious criticism of Christianity, not only as the embodiment of doubt\r\nin the religious derivation of Christianity, but equally because the practical\r\nJewish spirit, Judaism, has maintained itself and even attained its highest\r\ndevelopment in Christian society. The Jew, who exists as a distinct member\r\nof civil society, is only a particular manifestation of the Judaism of\r\ncivil society.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eJudaism continues to exist not in spite of history, but owing to history.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe Jew is perpetually created by civil society from its own entrails.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eWhat, in itself, was the basis of the Jewish religion? Practical need, egoism.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe monotheism of the Jew, therefore, is in reality the polytheism\r\nof the many needs, a polytheism which makes even the lavatory an object\r\nof divine law. \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003ePractical need, egoism\u003c/b\u003e\u003c/i\u003e, is the principle of \u003ci\u003ecivil society\u003c/i\u003e,\r\nand as such appears in pure form as soon as civil society has fully given\r\nbirth to the political state. The god of \u003ci\u003epractical need and self-interest\u003c/i\u003e\r\nis \u003ci\u003emoney\u003c/i\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eMoney is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other\r\ngod may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man \u0026#8211; and turns them into\r\ncommodities. Money is the universal self-established \u003cem\u003evalue\u003c/em\u003e of all\r\nthings. It has, therefore, robbed the whole world \u0026#8211; both the world of\r\nmen and nature \u0026#8211; of its specific value. Money is the estranged essence\r\nof man\u0026#8217;s work and man\u0026#8217;s existence, and this alien essence dominates him,\r\nand he worships it.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe god of the Jews has become secularized and has become the\r\ngod of the world. The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His\r\ngod is only an illusory bill of exchange.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe view of nature attained under the domination of private property\r\nand money is a real contempt for, and practical debasement of, nature;\r\nin the Jewish religion, nature exists, it is true, but it exists only in\r\nimagination.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eIt is in this sense that \u003cspan\u003e[in a 1524 pamphlet]\u003c/span\u003e Thomas M\u0026uuml;nzer\r\ndeclares it intolerable\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u0026#8220;that all creatures have been turned into property, the fishes in the\r\nwater, the birds in the air, the plants on the earth; the creatures, too,\r\nmust become free.\u0026#8221; \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\nContempt for theory, art, history, and for man as an end in himself, which\r\nis contained in an abstract form in the Jewish religion, is the real, conscious\r\nstandpoint, the virtue of the man of money. The species-relation itself,\r\nthe relation between man and woman, etc., becomes an object of trade! The\r\nwoman is bought and sold.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003ci\u003echimerical\u003c/i\u003e nationality of the Jew is the nationality of the merchant, of the man of money in general.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe groundless law of the Jew is only a religious caricature of\r\ngroundless morality and right in general, of the purely \u003ci\u003eformal\u003c/i\u003e rites with\r\nwhich the world of self-interest surrounds itself.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eHere, too, man\u0026#8217;s supreme relation is the \u003ci\u003elegal\u003c/i\u003e one, his relation\r\nto laws that are valid for him not because they are laws of his own will\r\nand nature, but because they are the \u003ci\u003edominant\u003c/i\u003e laws and because departure\r\nfrom them is \u003ci\u003eavenged\u003c/i\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eJewish Jesuitism, the same practical Jesuitism which Bauer discovers\r\nin the Talmud, is the relation of the world of self-interest to the laws\r\ngoverning that world, the chief art of which consists in the cunning circumvention\r\nof these laws.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eIndeed, the movement of this world within its framework of laws\r\nis bound to be a continual suspension of law.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eJudaism\u003c/i\u003e could not develop further as a \u003ci\u003ereligion\u003c/i\u003e, could not develop\r\nfurther theoretically, because the world outlook of practical need is essentially\r\nlimited and is completed in a few strokes.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eBy its very nature, the religion of practical need could find\r\nits consummation not in theory, but only in \u003ci\u003epractice\u003c/i\u003e, precisely because\r\nits truth is practice.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eJudaism could not create a new world; it could only draw the new\r\ncreations and conditions of the world into the sphere of its activity,\r\nbecause practical need, the rationale of which is self-interest, is passive\r\nand does not expand at will, but \u003cem\u003efinds\u003c/em\u003e itself enlarged as a result\r\nof the continuous development of social conditions.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eJudaism reaches its highest point with the perfection of civil\r\nsociety, but it is only in the \u003cem\u003eChristian\u003c/em\u003e world that civil society\r\nattains perfection. Only under the dominance of Christianity, which makes\r\n\u003cem\u003eall\u003c/em\u003e national, natural, moral, and theoretical conditions \u003cem\u003eextrinsic\u003c/em\u003e\r\nto man, could civil society separate itself completely from the life of\r\nthe state, sever all the species-ties of man, put egoism and selfish need\r\nin the place of these species-ties, and dissolve the human world into a\r\nworld of atomistic individuals who are inimically opposed to one another.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eChristianity sprang from Judaism. It has merged again in Judaism.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the outset, the Christian was the theorizing Jew, the Jew\r\nis, therefore, the practical Christian, and the practical Christian has\r\nbecome a Jew again.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eChristianity had only in semblance overcome real Judaism. It was\r\ntoo \u003ci\u003enoble-minded\u003c/i\u003e, too spiritualistic to eliminate the crudity of practical\r\nneed in any other way than by elevation to the skies.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eChristianity is the sublime thought of Judaism, Judaism is the\r\ncommon practical application of Christianity, but this application could\r\nonly become general after Christianity as a developed religion had completed\r\n\u003cem\u003etheoretically\u003c/em\u003e the estrangement of man from himself and from nature.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eOnly then could Judaism achieve universal dominance and make alienated\r\nman and alienated nature into \u003cem\u003ealienable\u003c/em\u003e, vendible objects subjected\r\nto the slavery of egoistic need and to trading.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eSelling [\u003ci\u003everausserung\u003c/i\u003e] is the practical aspect of alienation [\u003ci\u003eEntausserung\u003c/i\u003e].\r\nJust as man, as long as he is in the grip of religion, is able to objectify\r\nhis essential nature only by turning it into something \u003cem\u003ealien\u003c/em\u003e, something\r\nfantastic, so under the domination of egoistic need he can be active practically,\r\nand produce objects in practice, only by putting his products, and his\r\nactivity, under the domination of an alien being, and bestowing the significance\r\nof an alien entity \u0026#8211; money \u0026#8211; on them.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eIn its perfected practice, Christian egoism of heavenly bliss\r\nis necessarily transformed into the corporal egoism of the Jew, heavenly\r\nneed is turned into world need, subjectivism into self-interest. We explain\r\nthe tenacity of the Jew not by his religion, but, on the contrary, by the\r\nhuman basis of his religion \u0026#8211; practical need, egoism.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eSince in civil society the real nature of the Jew has been universally\r\nrealized and secularized, civil society could not convince the Jew of the\r\n\u003ci\u003eunreality\u003c/i\u003e of his \u003ci\u003ereligious\u003c/i\u003e nature, which is indeed only the ideal aspect\r\nof practical need. Consequently, not only in the Pentateuch and the Talmud,\r\nbut in present-day society we find the nature of the modern Jew, and not\r\nas an abstract nature but as one that is in the highest degree empirical,\r\nnot merely as a narrowness of the Jew, but as the Jewish narrowness of\r\nsociety.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eOnce society has succeeded in abolishing the \u003ci\u003eempirical\u003c/i\u003e essence\r\nof Judaism \u0026#8211; huckstering and its preconditions \u0026#8211; the Jew will have become\r\n\u003ci\u003eimpossible\u003c/i\u003e, because his consciousness no longer has an object, because\r\nthe subjective basis of Judaism, practical need, has been humanized, and\r\nbecause the conflict between man\u0026#8217;s individual-sensuous existence and his\r\nspecies-existence has been abolished.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003cem\u003esocial\u003c/em\u003e emancipation of the Jew is the\u003ci\u003e emancipation\r\nof society from Judaism\u003c/i\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026#160;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003chr\u003e\n \u003c/article\u003e"}],"SectionSequence":["Back Link","Work Title","Deck","Author","Period","Era","Composition","Date Note","Region","Terra Avita","Terra Avita Region","Modern Country","Original Title","Language","Primary Discipline","Secondary Discipline","Tradition","Full Versions","Core Thesis","Classification","Arguments","Influence","Significance","Evidence Note","Full Text"],"Counts":{"ContextCards":3,"GeoCards":4,"DisciplineCards":2,"Links":11,"Sections":25,"Styles":3,"Scripts":1}}