Realm of Necessity

Corresponding to “realm of freedom”. It denotes the realm in which people do not yet truly know the objective laws and are blindly governed by them. In the social sphere, the realm of necessity also refers to a state of society in which people are governed by necessity, especially by the enslavement and domination of the social relations that they have themselves created.

In Capital, Vol. III, Marx has studied the reproduction process of capitalism in its entirety, made a general outline of the historical development of human society as a whole and put forth the famous assertion of “realm of necessity” and “realm of freedom”. In Marx’s works, the realm of necessity has two meanings: one is the realm of natural necessity, also known as the realm of eternal nature-imposed necessity, the realm of absolute necessity, holding from the angle of the relation between man and nature that, although man’s ability to dominate nature is constantly increasing, there will always be a part of the natural world that man cannot know and dominate, and that mankind will never be able to get rid of the control and domination of the blind forces of nature completely. As Marx pointed out in Capital, Vol. I, “So far therefore as labor is a creator of use-value, is useful labor, it is a necessary condition, independent of all forms of society, for the existence of the human race; it is an eternal nature-imposed necessity, without which there can be no material exchanges between man and nature, and therefore no life.” The other is the realm of historical necessity, also called the realm of temporary necessity, which—from the angle of the relation between man and society—concretely exists in slave, feudal and capitalist society. In Marx’s view, the laborers in capitalist society do not feel “freedom and happiness”, but a repulsion about their labor. Laborers are bound by historical necessity. People will create various subjective and objective conditions in material production and other kinds of social labor, and sublate the antagonistic social formations, modes of production and relations of production in material production and all other kinds of social labor. Therefore, Marx called this historical necessity the realm of temporary necessity.

Nature and human society have their own inherent laws of development. The first men who separated themselves from the animal kingdom were in all essentials as unfree as the animals themselves, in front of realm of necessity. In the realm of necessity, man has not yet grasped the objects in his cognitive and practical activities, and is in a sphere dominated by blind necessity, and man is compelled to wrestle with nature in order to maintain and reproduce his life. Labor is not an activity reflecting the essence of man, it is not the first need of man, but a means of subsistence, it is compulsory, and the social relations formed in labor in turn control people themselves, and people are dominated by materialized social relations. Labor is not an activity that embodies the essence of man, it is not his first want, but only a means to earn a living, it is forced, and the social relations formed by people in labor in turn control people themselves, and people are dominated by the materialized social relations. In slave and feudal societies, due to the cruel rule and exploitation of the ruling class, cultural backwardness, small-scale production, and all the limitations on the knowledge of objective laws, the society is in the realm of necessity. Capitalist society has developed modern productive forces, and people’s knowledge of the laws of nature has made great progress, but their knowledge of the laws of society is still limited. People have created powerful productive forces, but rather than dominating them, they are dominated by them. People have created a great deal of material wealth and are still dominated by things. The producer is dominated by his own product, the spiritually empty capitalist by his own capital and desire for profit. One’s own creations dominate one’s self as an alien force, unable to escape from an animal-like, passive life. It is only in the communist society, where people become the masters of the society, that they can better understand the objective laws of social development and obtain more freedom. “For the first time man, in certain sense, is finally marked off from the rest of animal kingdom and emerges from mere animal conditions of existence into really human ones. The whole sphere of the conditions of life which environ man, and which have hitherto ruled man, now comes under the dominion and control of man who for the first time becomes the real, conscious lord of nature because he has now become master of his own social organization.” In this sense, the socialist revolution to overthrow capitalism has opened up a new era for the leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom for mankind.

Realm of necessity and realm of freedom are a pair of categories of philosophy, the leap from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom for mankind.