From the "Combined Laborer" to "Associated Individuals" : The Meaning of "Associated" and "Combined" for Marx

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  • ｢結合された労働者｣から｢アソシエートした諸個人｣へ : マルクスにおけるassoziiertとkombiniertの意味について
  • ケツゴウ サレタ ロウドウシャ カラ アソシエート シタ ショ コジン エ マルクス ニ オケル assoziiert ト kombiniert ノ イミ ニ ツイテ

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In Japanese translations of Marx' works, the word "assoziiert" (associated) in the attributive usage is interpreted sometimes in the passive sense. Such translations seem to have led to misunderstandings regarding Marx' notion of "association" as the unique form of our future society. Marx used the word "assoziiert" (associated) as an attributive participle solely in the active sense, whereas the word "kombiniert" (combined) was almost always used as an attributive participle in the passive sense. This means that "assoziierte Individuen" (associated individuals) are individuals who have actively and consciously joined themselves together as the subject, while "combined laborer" refers to the laborers as a whole, made up of individuals whose labor-power was purchased separately and who were then united into a single unit and put to use as a joint social power within a workshop or factory―either by a capitalist as the personification of capital or a joint-stock-company as associated capitalists. In this matter it is essential to recognize that there is a group of past participles that are not derived from transitive verbs. There are some reflexive verbs in German, some pronominal verbs in French, and also some intransitive verbs in English, whose past participles can qualify a noun attributively. However, not only in English, but also in German as well as in French, these participles cannot be distinguished, in terms of their external form, from transitive verbs, because their reflexive pronoun is dropped when they are used attributively. The attributive participle assoziiert in German, associé in French, and associated in English, which Marx used often in his works, are all fundamentally examples of such verbs. For instance, in the expression "associated individuals," the subject associating actively is each of the "individuals," not any external power. The core of Marx' idea of "association" as the future society is that "free laboring-individuals" make up this society by "associating" subjectively, consciously, and therefore actively. In this article I explain not only the distinctions and connections between laborers passively being "combined" by capital to form the "total laborer," and the active "associating" of individual producers to form an "association," while also discussing the natural course through which the former should precisely produce the latter. In an addendum, I investigate the meaning and context in which Marx and Engels used the word "Vergesellschaftung" (socialization) and "vergesellschaftet" (socialized) in their works. With this small study, which is chiefly limited to language-related matters, I have sought to further clarify Marx' idea "association" by eradicating possible misunderstanding related to the meaning of the attributive participle "associated."

Journal

  • 経済志林

    経済志林 73 (1･2), 1-77, 2005-07-30

    法政大学経済学部学会

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