Individuality of Man

The unique subjectivity of a person, refers to the psychological features and mental qualities that distinguish a human individual from others, the sum total of the more stable psychological features of individuals with essential inclinations.

Marx and Engels held that man has individuality. In The German Ideology, Marx put forth that “the difference between the individual as a person and what is accidental to him, is not a conceptual difference but an historical fact,” Meanwhile, he also pointed out that the individuality of man has long been in fetters. Marx regarded labor as the objectification and materialization of the individuality. Marx wrote: “The specific nature of my individuality, therefore, would be affirmed in my labor, since the latter would be an affirmation of my individual life.” The estrangement of labor has obliterated the individuality of man, “the refugee serfs treated their previous servitude as something accidental to their individuality. But here they only were doing what every class that is freeing itself from a fetter does; and they did not free themselves as a class but each separately.”

In The Communist Manifesto, Marx also pointed out that the “proletarians, if they are to assert themselves as individuals, will have to abolish the very condition of their existence hitherto (which has, moreover, been that of all society up to the present), namely, labor”, that is, to abolish the estranged labor that enslaves individuals.

Marxism holds that the individuality of man always develops along with the development of human society and that the development of individuality is a product of the historical development of society. The degree of development of society is the degree to which the individuality of man can develop. In primitive society, the ties between men were built on the natural bond of lack of division of labor, and the narrow relations of locality, blood, and kinship made the individual become “an appurtenance of a particular, limited aggregation of human beings,” and “personal dependence” annihilated the individuality of man and personal independence. The entire human life has developed only in a narrow range and an isolated place. In slave and feudal societies, although the level of productive forces was rising, the closed natural economy still confined people to narrow social relations. In slave society, slaves had no personal freedom, and a universal personal dependence of serfs on serf-owners prevailed. The strict system of estates in feudal society confined people to fixed positions in the hierarchical pyramid, and the development of human individuality was generally suppressed and distorted, with the deformed expansion of the individuality of the minority and the lack of development of the individuality of the majority suppressing the development of the individuality of man. With the establishment of capitalist mode of production, the emancipation from “personal dependence” was realized for the first time. It allowed workers gain personal independence and made them become independent market subjects. Owners of capital owner became independent market subjects, the wage-laborers became owners of their labor-power. Thus, human’s dependence to material was shaped, i.e., the material dependence under capitalism.

It is evident that in the in the socio-economic formation of objective dependence, as the market economy drives man’s pursuit of maximizing his personal interests, it also allows for the establishment of a sense of individuality. However, the development of human individuality in capitalist society is still a one-sided development. As mentioned by Marx and Engels in The Communist Manifesto, “In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality”, the individuality of man is distorted, deformed and one-sided.

The individuality of man is closely linked to the social nature of man, and certain social and material relations are the inevitable form by which individual human activities are realized, and the individuality of man is always subordinate to a certain type of society. The common and class nature of social groups lies in and is expressed through individuality. In class society, any individuality is the individual existence of the class essence to which it belongs, and is the concrete bearer of the reality of certain class relations and interests. Marxism respects the individuality of man and the part played by it, while at the same time emphasizing the concrete and historical unity between the individual and society.

Marxism holds that the development of productive forces is the basis of the development of human individuality, and that in class society, the individuality of man has class nature. Capitalist system is a system of exploitation one individual by another, which inevitably leads to the alienation of human labor and does not give full play to the individuality of man, and the proletariat “aims at the abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom” so as to realize their individuality. Only when public property is established on the basis of developed productive forces, so that everyone owns the means of production and there is complete equality among people, can people fully develop their potential and display and develop their individuality. “From the moment when labor can no longer be converted into capital, money, or rent, into a social power capable of being monopolized, i.e., from the moment when individual property can no longer be transformed into bourgeois property, into capital, from that moment, you say, individuality vanishes. You must, therefore, confess that by ‘individual’ you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible.” The establishment of the socialist system has created the basic prerequisites for the healthy development of the human personality, which is now free from the direct [personal] dependence of man on man and has formed the independence of man on the basis of his objective dependence, laying a new foundation for the development of the individuality of man. Only in the communist society, after fully overthrowing the capitalist society in which one individual is exploited by another and establishing an ideal society in which all men are equal, can the individuality of man be fully developed.