Comment upon the relationship between political emancipation and human emancipation with reference to

the text ‘The Jewish Question’ by Karl Marx.

The  Jews (like the Christians) are fully politically emancipated in various states. Both Jews and
Christians are far from being humanly emancipated. Hence there must be a difference between
political  and human emancipation.
Karl Marx, The Holy Family

The text ‘On The Jewish Question’ which was first published in Paris in 1844 is a response to Young
Hegelian Bruno Bauer by Karl Marx which focuses on the situation of Jews to achieve emancipation.
The demand for equal rights and freedom by religious Jews under a Christian German state was the
Jewish Question. The whole concept of this question was about minority rights (Jew) in a secular state
(Germany).
Marx criticizes this essay which has two parts and focuses on the situation of Jews in the state of Prussia
where they were denied equal rights by Germans. The three main terminologies - state, emancipation,
religion are important ideas in this text. The talk here is about the religiosity of Germans and Jews.

BAUER’S ARGUMENT

Talking about emancipation, Bauer asks what kind of emancipation they want? Political, civic
emancipation. To which he answers that Germans lived in a Christian society where the concept of
equality wasn’t present and even, they are not politically free so how can they provide emancipation to
the Jews.

The is a contradiction in the demand of political emancipation as the nature and laws of Jews will not
allow them to be truly emancipated even if the state provides such a stage. He points the finger towards
the minority ‘Jews’ by asking that if they are demanding emancipation as a German citizen then there are
no citizens and only the subject of religious state as Germany was a monarchy. And if they are
demanding emancipation as Jews then they are in contradiction as Germany is a religious state which
recognizes only Christianity.

Here he also talks about the political state which is universal and public and civil society which in
particular is private. Religion is often considered a private realm and states show this by being secular.
These distinctions are implicit i.e., they are formal abolition in the eyes of state to show themselves as
secular ones. The powerful upper class, for instance, denounces the caste system as for them it doesn’t
exist but the reality is known to the lower classes. The same happens with the powerful state and the
powerless individuals know the reality which makes them impotent.

The Christian state is a secular state as it doesn’t recognize any religion but Jews, on the other hand, are
very much religious and will not give up their religion. They cannot get emancipated as both believe
their religion is of supreme and true nature. As Germans didn’t have a political state and no state as such,
the Jewish Question turned into a theological one.

According to Bauer, the solution for this was the abolition of religion. That Jews should fight for general
freedom i.e., the general abolition of religion to get freedom for themselves. The main argument here
was that a state which presupposes religion is not a true state and therefore brings in the concept of
perfect state. Jews should renounce their religion to get politically emancipated and become a perfect
state which will have a political and secular nature that doesn’t consider social identities like religion and
will solve the problem of Jewish Question. That means Jews need to abolish Judaism and Christian need
to abolish Christianity.
As long as they followed Judaism, they were incapable of being free. Judaism, by its very nature, took all
the possibilities from Jews to be a citizen of a Christian state, therefore, they need to abandon their
religion to get political emancipation. As Bauer put it: ‘As long as he is a Jew, the restricted nature that
makes him a Jew will inevitably gain the ascendancy over the human nature which should join him as a
man to other men’.

MARX’S CRITICISM

Marx critiques Bauer’s argument of political emancipation and blame him to confuse political
emancipation with human emancipation. He misunderstood the concept of the political state. It doesn’t
need the abolition of religion but other elements of the society like the abolition of private property.

Marx by stating the example of the United States (the state which was secular and religious at the same
time) disagrees with Bauer’s argument. As it asserts “In the United States there is neither a state religion
nor a religion declared to be that of the majority, nor the predominance of one cult over another. The
state stands aloof from all cults.” (Marie ou l’esclavage aux Etats-Unis, etc., by G. de Beaumont, Paris,
1835, p. 214)
He gives the example of North American states which has complete political emancipation. Here the
concept of religion was not in denial with the concept of perfect state. By showing the existence of
religion, he brings out the issue which is not of religion but of the nature of the state.

Marx rejects the idea to abolish religion as a secular state will not be free from religion because the
religious values are not changed but simply gets secularized. Though one can politically emancipate
from religion but it will not stop to exists. Therefore, state emancipation from religion is not human
emancipation from religion.

The realm of perfect state is divided into two categories: political society and civil society. In a political
society, one acts as a communal being and in civil society individualism is very much present. But these
two identities often run into contradictions as one can follow laws of the political society but at the same
time follow a particular religion. The state presupposes religion i.e., it is limited in both the spheres.

Marx made a distinction between political and human emancipation. ‘According to Marx, political
emancipation means that the state is secular, not having a religious attitude concerning religion. The
same goes for all other social elements.’ Human emancipation means freedom from the state and all its
presuppositions in civil society. In political emancipation, one will get emancipation through a mediatory
i.e., the state which doesn’t recognize our privileges but presupposes it. Here, with no movement neither
we nor our relationship develops. Human emancipation is rather the opposite as it gives us space to
evolve and transform our relations. Here one realizes the idea of liberty and equality.

CONCLUSION

Marx said that political solution is important and not wrong but is not the final step towards achieving
human emancipation. He said that even in a secular state, individual is divided into the public citizen and
private individual where secularism is asked from public citizen only and private individuals are left to
be as religious as they wish and bring out inequalities in pubic sphere. State considers religion as a
private matter of which it has no concern with. The concept of inequality pervades in rights too. For
instance, right to ownership and security benefits the powerful by not giving the status of citizen to
certain sections of the society.

To Marx, religion seems the spirit of civil society. He saw freedom as developing relations with other
people and forming a community but abolition of religion will result in isolation or say alienation.
Though our notion of liberty and security can be threatened by other human beings the intention of the
protection of our liberal ideas will only be possible with the help of other humans/communities.
Therefore, he blames political emancipators to reduce citizenship and communal integrity and favor the
rights of the egoistic i.e., public citizen. Though Marx never denies political emancipation but politically
emancipated liberalism is a win-win situation for the helpless individuals.
This also showed that Marx's conception of human emancipation is somewhat related to the idea of non-
alienation. He regarded all kinds of emancipation as a factor to reduce relationship of individual with self
and the world. For Marx the question of religion was a general one which had a more secular reflection
as said ‘This secular conflict, to which the Jewish question ultimately reduces itself, the relation between
the political state and its preconditions, whether these are material elements, such as private property,
etc., or spiritual elements, such as culture or religion, the conflict between the general interest and private
interest, the schism between the political state and civil society…’

I completely agree with the argument of Marx not getting into the dangerous zone of alienation. In the
contemporary period if we take India as an example we can say it is a diverse and secular country but
presently, the working of the ruling system is depicting a picture of India which will have a sole religion
of ‘Hinduism’ which further will detach all other religions and create even a more havoc situation than
Jews had.

One can all be prejudiced but at the same time behaves like a tolerant person in the public arena. But
these formal distinctions are not guaranteed to rule out forever as one can stop pretending the ideal and
start exercising that ideal in the reality.

In reality we are not completely emancipated as state provides us emancipation which doesn’t recognize
our privileges but presupposes it. The secular problem for state is a theological one and if not, it can turn
it into a theological one.

For instance, the problems faced by Muslim community is not a secular problem but because of their
religion. That if they solve the problem of religion (change or remove) then these problems will
ultimately cease to exist.

Another example can be that of article 377, that if one is facing harassment in the society because of
their sexuality then the state is not responsible. They need to change their sexuality in order to be
accepted by the society. The state will not understand the naturality of the whole problem but turn this
problem into a theological one.

In a perfect state, the system of political emancipation is artificial as things are not actually changing but
getting politically abolished and not socially practiced. Though it’s been shown that civil society is free
but in reality, it is alienated. These all instances proved that political emancipation cannot ensure human
emancipation but it’s an initiative towards it.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Marx, Karl. 2008/9 [1843]. “ On The Jewish Question” in Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher. Proofed
and Corrected: by Andy Blunden, Matthew Grant and Matthew Carmody. www.marxists.org
 Le Baron, Bentley. “Marx on Human Emancipation.” Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue
Canadienne De Science Politique, vol. 4, no. 4, 1971, pp. 559–570.
 Peled, Yoav. “FROM THEOLOGY TO SOCIOLOGY: BRUNO BAUER AND KARL MARX ON
THE QUESTION OF JEWISH EMANCIPATION.” History of Political Thought, vol. 13, no. 3, 1992,
pp. 463–485.