The Review of Politics, Vol. 32, No. 2. (Apr., 1970), pp

Transcription

1 Methodology in Karl Marx Joseph O'Malley The Review of Politics, Vol. 32, No. 2. (Apr., 1970), pp Stable URL: The Review of Politics is currently published by University of Notre Dame du lac on behalf of Review of Politics. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Fri May 25 11:21:

2 Methodology in Karl Marx Joseph O'Malley THE development of Marx's mature social and political theory may be traced back in his writings to his political journalism of , where a germinal doctrine on man's social nature supports a normative concept of the nature and function of political institutions. But his developing theory first achieved a measure of systematic rigor in his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right." This work, Marx's earliest major theoretical writing, has lately received increased attention from scholars.1 My purpose here is to complement existing studies by highlighting certain methodological features of the work, specifically the way in which Marx combined elements of philosophical and political criticism in a systematic effort to develop his own political theory in opposition to the method and institutional conclusions of Hegel. I Marx's Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (hereafter, the Critique) was almost certainly composed at Kreuznach-am-Nahe during the summer of Doubt regarding the date of composition stems from the fact that the first portion of the manuscript is missing. The manuscript itself was not found until 1922, when David Rjazanov discovered it among Marx's notebooks in the archives of the German Social-Democratic Party in Berlin. It was edited by Rjazanov and published for the first time in the first volume of the Karl MarxlFriedrich EngelslHistorkch-kritische Gesamtausgabe (hereafter MEGA) in This essay was written in the course of preparing a translation, with introduction, of Marx's Kritik (1843), which Cambridge University Press will publish late in For example, Shlomo Avineri, The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx (Cambridge, 1968), pp. 8-40; Louis Dupr-5, The Philosophical Foundations of Marxism (New York, 1966), pp ; Jakob Barion, Hegel und die marxistische Staatslehre (Bonn, 1963), pp Subsequent references are to the edition in Karl Marx/Friedrich Engels/ Werke (hereafter Werke) (Berlin, 1964) I, On the date of composition, see especially Bert Andrkas, "Marx et Engels et la gauche hc&lienne," Annuli, Instituto Giangiacomo Feltrinelli (Milan), VII ( 1965), 355, 356 note 1; also Rjazanov's remarks in MEGA I, 1/1, pp. LXXI-LXXV, 402; and MEGA I, 1/2, pp. XXIV-XXX. On the discovery of the manuscript, see Rjazanov's "Neueste Mitteilungen iiber den literarischen Nachlass von Karl 219

3 220 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS From comments made by Marx in writings that pre-and postdate the Critique it is clear that he envisaged the work as constituting a criticism of ( 1) the actual political society of his day, especially the state-form of constitutional monarchy as it existed in Prussia; (2) Hegel's political philosophy as set down in The Philosophy of Right; (3) Hegel's overall philosophy. All of these critical aims are achieved through a paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of a portion of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, paragraphs 261 through 3 13 (in the original ms. probably paragraphs 257 through 3 13) which deal with "the internal constitution of the state."3 In the pursuit of these multiple aims, Marx used three different critical techniques in the course of the Critique. The first, borrowed from Ludwig Feuerbach, is generally referred to as "transformative" criticism; it is directed against the essential character of Hegelian philosophy, which according to both Feuerbach and Marx is the ultimate example of "speculative" thought. The second technique is straightfonvard textual analysis and explication directed against the content of Hegel's political doctrine and the structure of his arguments. The third is "historico-genetic" criticism, probably inspired by Karl von Savigny4 as well as Feuerbach; this is directed against Hegel's doctrine and, more especially, against the mciopolitical status quo and serves especially to clarify the role of economic interests in the state. Marx combined these three techniques in such a way that they constitute steps in a single critical procedure which has the effect of combining criticism of Hegel and criticism of the existing social and political order. Transformative criticism clarifies the "mystical" and "pantheistic" character of Hegelian philosophy. Applied to The Philosophy of Right it allows Marx to disengage the empirical content of this work, that is, Hegel's account of modern socio-political institutions, from the speculative philosophical framework. Textual analysis then exposes the contradictions in Hegel's account, which Marx und Friedrich Engels" (German transl. by Carl Griinberg), Archiu fiir die Geschichte des Sorialismus und der Arbeiterbewegung, XI (1925), , especially Marx's reference to the Critique are in his letter to Arnold Ruge (March 5, 1842), Werke, XXVII, 397; his Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Eccunomy ( 1859), trans. N. I. Stone (Chicago, 1904), pp ;and his Afterword to the 2nd German edition of Capital, I (1873), trans. S. Moore & E. Aveling (Chicago, 1906), p. 25. See Hasso Jaeger, "Savigny et Maxx," Archives de Philosophie du Droit, XI1 (1967),

4 METHODOLOGY IN KARL MARX 221 are taken to be expressive of contradictions in the institutions themselves. Finally, historico-genetic criticism further clarifies the contradictions in the institutions by tracing with the help of historical research the genesis of the modern state. Except for the last step, which relies on outside research in the literature of political history and theory, Marx carried out his criticism wholly within the doctrinal framework of The Philosophy of Right. Key to this entire critical procedure is Marx's judgment that within its peculiar philosophic form Hegel's Philosophy of Right presents an accurate picture of modern political society. This judgment allows Marx to undertake a criticism of existing socio-political institutions by means of an immanent critique of the Rechtsphilosophie. Even while criticizing Hegel, then, Marx was complimenting Hegel's keenness as an empirical observer. II Marx borrowed the technique of transformative criticism from Ludwig Feuerbach. His first encounter with the latter was during his university days at Berlin: and then and later he regarded Feuerbach as the most serious of Hegel's philosophic succe~sors.~ In this respect, two of Feuerbach's works influenced Marx: The Essence of Christianity (1841) and, more importantly, the "Provisional Theses for the Reform of Philosophy" ( 1843). The first contained Feuerbach's critique of religion, the gist of which was his inversion of the traditional theological view which presented God as the primary subject and man as the dependent being in whom the divine qualities are expressed or objectified. Feuerbach's doctrine declares that man is the true subject and God a projection of man's imagination, an objectification of man's own essential perfections. Instead of God being the ontological subject and man the predicate, man is now declared to be the subject and God the predicate. After establishing this subject-predicate (or subjectobjectification) conversion, Feuerbach proceeded to trace the genesis of the concept of God in the human psyche-a procedure that Marx later, in the Critique, referred to as "rational" criticism, that is, criticism which reveals the genesis of the object being criticized.6 See, for example, MEGA I, 1/2, p. 280; MEGA I, 3, pp. 34, Ludwig Feuerbachs Siimmtliche Werke (Leipzig, 1883) VII, 26-27, 48 ff.; The Essence of Christianity, transl. G. Eliot (New York, 1957), pp. XI, 12 ff. Cf. in the Critique, Werke 1, 296.

5 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS In his "Provisional Theses" Feuerbach made explicit his technique of subject-predicate conversion used earlier in The Essence of Christianity and presented it as a general method of criticizing what he called "speculative" philosophy, especially the most perfectly developed form of it, Hegelian philosophy. The truth about God and man had been shown by converting the religious subject and predicate, thus correcting the inverted world-view of religion. To find the truth hidden in the speculative (read "theological") framework of Hegelian philosophy, then, one need only systematically convert Hegel's philosophic subjects and predicates : The method of the reforming criticism of speculative philosophy in general is no different from that already used in the philosophy of religion. All we need do is always make the predicate into the subject, and thus into the true object and principle, in order to have the undisguised, pure and clear truth." What theology-and in parallel fashion speculative philosophy -regards as infinite and transcendent is actually the essence of some finite reality hypostatized, absolutized and conceived to be an independent subject : The infinite of religion and philosophy is and was never anything other than some finite thing, some determinate thing, but mystified; that is, a finite and determinate thing postulated as being not finite, not determinate. Speculative philosophy is guilty of the same error as theology, namely, the error of making the determinations of what is actual or finite into determinations or predicates of the infinite, this through the negation of the determinacy in which they are, and which they are.8 This error characterizes German Idealism, which derives in this respect from Spinoza; the governing concepts of Idealism, culminating in Hegel's concept of "the Absolute," are the product of this mystification. Against this error, transformative criticism reasserts the primacy of the finite, specifically of man himself, who is the 7 "Vorlaufige Thesen zur Reform der Philosophie," in Ludwig Feuerbachs SGmmtliche Werke, 11, ; the text above, p The passage parallels exactly a conclusion in The Essence of Christianity, pp : "We need only... invert the religious relations - regard that as an end which religion supposes to be a means - exalt that into the primary which in religion is subordinate, (and) at once we have destroyed the illusion, and the unclouded light of truth streams in upon us." 8 ''Vorlaufige Thesen...," p. 253.

6 METHODOLOGY IN KARL MARX 223 true subject of the powers, qualities and capacities which speculative philosophy identifies with mystical subjects such as "the Monad" and "the Absolute" : All speculation over right, will, freedom, personality without man, outside of or completely above man, is speculation without unity, necessity, substance, ground or reality. Man is the existence of freedom, the existence of personality, the existence of right. Thus man alone is the ground and basis of the Fichtean '1', the ground and basis of the Leibnitzean Monad and the ground and basis of the Absolute.9 Thus, Feuerbach's transformative criticism of speculative philosophy is an extension of his original criticism of religion. He asserts that this extension is natural and valid inasmuch as speculative philosophy itself is a refined form of religious consciousness. Speculative philosophy is really theology: "The secret of theology is anthropology, but the secret of speculative philosophy is theology-speculative theology which... transfers the divine being to this world as represented, determined and realized in it."lo In establishing this relationship between religion and speculative philosophy, Feuerbach's "Theses" declare the latter, like the former, to be human self-alienation, a case of man elevating the perfections properly predicated of himself into the status of independent beings.11 For Marx as for Feuerbach Hegel's philosophy is essentially theological in character: when Hegel spoke of the Absolute he was referring to what the ordinary man calls "God." Both men were familiar with the texts in Hegel that identify the object of philosophy with that of religion, namely, "eternal truth in its very objectivity - God, and nothing but God, and the explication of God"; and that characterize true philosophy as "divine service which renounces all subjective whims and opinions while engaging with God."l2 In 9 Ibid., p. 267; cf. p. 244: "Spinoza is the true founder of modern speculative philosophy; Schelling is its reviver; Hegel is its perfecter." lo Zbid., p Cf. Feuerbach's Principles of the Philosophy of the Future, written later in 1843, where he characterized Hegel as "the German Proclus," that is, the specifically modern Neoplatonic theologian; Principles..., trans. Manfred Vogel (Indianapolis, 1966), p. 47. l1 As Marx put it in his 1844 Manuscrifits (MEGA I, 3, p. 152) : "Feuerbach's great achievement is (to prove) that philosophy is nothing more than religion brought to and developed in reflection, and thus is equally to be condemned as another form and mode of the alienation of man's nature." 12G. W. F. Hegel, Scimmtliche Werke, Glockner ed. (Stuttgart, 1959) xv, 37.

7 224 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS addition, both men would characterize as theological Hegel's speculative-philosophical standpoint, summarized by Hegel in The Science of Logic, which reduces particular philosophic inquiries to particular clarification of the Absolute's [God's] self-manifestation and -realization, and which alone gives philosophy the status of science: The Absolute Idea alone is Being, imperishable Life, self-knowing truth, and the whole of truth. The Absolute Idea is the only object and content of philosophy. As it contains every determinateness, and its essence is to return to itself through its self-determination or particularization, it has various phases. It is the business of philosophy to recognize it in them.... The derivation and cognizance of rhese particular modes is the further business of the particular philosophic sciences.13 Hegel alludes to this passage in the "Preface" to The Philosophy of Right, alerting his reader to the fact that this work is one of the particular philosophic sciences, that it applies the standpoint of the Absolute to the matter of human socio-political institutions thereby elevating political theory to the level of speculative knowing or true science. In short, The Philosophy of Right will treat sodo-political institutions in their empirical actuality as particular modes of the Idea and as various phases of its self-determination.14 Against this approach, Feuerbach's "Theses" assert the claim of transformative criticism: "The beginning of philosophy is not God, not the Absolute, not being as the predicate of the Absolute or the Idea. The beginning of philosophy is the finite, the determinate, the actual."l5 Where Hegdian speculation declares that the state is "divine will as present-spirit which unfolds into the real form and organization of a world,"l6 transformative criticism asserts instead that "man is the substance of the state. The state is the realized, developed, explicitized totality of the human essence."l7 Thus, at the cc4nclusic4n of his "Theses" Feuerbach anticipates the political application of transformative criticism which will be one of the principal features of Marx's Critique. 13 Hegel's Science of Logic, trans. Johnston and Struthers (London, 1961) 11, Hegcl's PhLsophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford, 1962), p. 2; cf. Knox's comments, ibid., pp. viii-ix, 298 note 4. l5 "Vorlaufige Thesen...," pp G. W. F. Hegel, Siimmtliche Wcrke, VII, "Vorlaufige Thesen...," p. 267.

8 METHODOLOGY IN KARL MARX 225 Feuerbach's "Theses" came into Mm's hands in February, Marx's reaction was one of enthusiasm; his sole reservation regarding the work was that Feuerbach did not further apply his critical technique to the sphere of politics, for it is precisely in that sphere, he wrote to Arnold Ruge, that philosophy can reach fulfillment as social praxis.18 In undertaking the Critique shortly thereafter Marx moved immediately to attack the speculative character of the Rechtsphilosophie. Beginning with his lengthy comment on Hegel's 262 he carried out what Feuerbach only hinted at: a thorough and systematic application of transformative criticisrn to Hegel's account of political society. Marx noted that Hegel, true to the standpoint of speculative knowing, derived the institutions of political society from "the actual (wirkliche) Idea": the state is the Idea in its moment of explicit fulfillment as infinite actual mind; the family and civil society-the other principal social spheres delineated in Hegel's political theory-are the finite phase of this fulfillment. Marx focused on Hegel's qualification of the Idea as "wirklich," a term connoting "working" and "effective" as well as "actual." Clearly, Hegel wnsidered the Idea to be the efficacious principle, the acting subject which, moreover, operates according to its own immanent teleological dynamism. Correlatively, Hegel reduces actual human deeds and institutions to the status of "allegorical" existences, that is, particular modes of the Idea and phases in its self-determination. Actual institutions and forms of social life become phenomenal beings, appearances of the Idea, receptacles for its manifestation and actualization; they are incarnations of an alien reality, thus do not have substantive being, form, meaning or purpose of their own. This, in sum, is Hegel's "logical, pantheistic mysticism": he made the Idea the creative, mystical subject and empirical actualities its products and predicates.lg The Philosophy of Right is permeated with such mysticism. For example, Hegel reduced the political sentiment (patriotism) of individuals and the organism of the state to different aspects of "the inner self-development of the Idea," generated the constitution of the state out of "the organism," called the aims and powers of the political body modes of existence and incarnations of "the essence 1s Marx tdkuge (March 13, 1843), Werke, XXVII, Werke, I, Here "allegory" means "ascribing to any empirical existent the meaning of actualized Idea"; ibid., 241.

9 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS of will," viewed the monarch as the incarnation d "the idea of sovereignty," and discussed the legislature as a receptacle in which "public affairs" achieve the status of existence (Darein). Thus, Hegel consistently inverted the true order of things, making the political subjects into predicates and vice versa; and this inversion, Marx said, "constitutes the essential character of the Hegelian method," while the resulting inverted view of reality is "the mystery of The Philosophy of Right and of Hegelian philosophy in general."20 The first effect of this speculative procedure is that empirical realities are endowed with a mystical aura; for, although they are emptied of intrinsic value and meaning, they are at the same time endowed with the allegorical significance of divine incarnations. In its way of speaking about things Hegelian philosophy gives the impression of mystical profundity: "It makes a deep mystical impression," Marx noted, "to see a particular empirical existent established by the Idea, and hence to encounter at all levels an incarnation of God."21 The second effect of speculative thinking follows from the first and relates to it as praxis to theory: it is difficult, if not impossible, within the speculative viewpoint to be genuinely critical of the status quo. In the sphere of politics speculative understanding is by its nature uncritical of existing institutions and thus has as its practical corollary absolute conservatism regarding the socio-political status quo. Hegel was predisposed to find the status quo rational and was practically committed to it a priori by the speculative postulate that the empirical order is the manifestation of the Absolute. It is no surprise then that he found all of the principal institutions of the existing order-for example, the monarch, the bureaucracy, the Assembly of Estates, and entailed landed property governed by the rule of primogeniture-to be rational and, in fact, deducible from the Idea. But transformative criticism strips the mystical aura from these 20 Ibid., , , Ibid., 206, 241. Marx's comment is doubtless inspired by Feuerbach thus the ("Vorlaufige Thesen...," p. 254) : "That which is as it is -and truth truly expressed - seems superficial, while that which is as it is not - and thus the truth untruly and pervertedly expressed - seems profound." Cf. in The Holy Family Marx's tongue-in-cheek explanation of "The Mystery of Speculative Construction"; Werke, 11, 61-62; English in L. Easton and K. Guddat, Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society (Garden City, 1967), pp

10 METHODOLOGY IN KARL MARX 227 institutions and restores the proper philosophic perspective within which they stand as realities having intrinsic value and meaning. Thus, the institutions are open to direct critical confrontation. This is to cease viewing them as predicates of the Idea and as embudiments of the Hegelian logical categories and to view them instead "in their own terms." Now their rationality will be measured not by the extent to which they represent moments in the self-fulfillment of the Absolute, but by the degree to which they fulfill the social and political inclinations of men, the genuine "subjects" of the political order.22 I11 The transition from a reliance on transformative criticism to use of textual explication is especially evident in Marx's comments on Hegel's and Here Marx's chief aim is to expose the structure of Hegel's arguments, to clarify the way in which Hegel established his logical relationship between the empirical content and the speculative form of his doctrine, that is, the way he deductively linked empirical institutions to the mystical Idea. He judged Hegel's arguments to be fallacious on two counts: first, Hegel's arguments proceed not from a consideration of the specific character of actual socio-political institutions, but from a consideration of the abstract categories of his Logic. This makes The Philosophy of Right an exercise in Hegelian logic-that is, metaphysics -but with the names of empirical institutions substituted for the categories of the Logic. The Philosophy of Right is an effort to give the Logic a political body instead of examining the logic of the actual political body.24 Second, the link Hegel constructed between the point of departure and the conclusions of his arguments between the categories of his Logic and the empirical institutions of political society, is purely verbal. He strung his arguments together by simply inserting "hence" or "thus" at key points in his develop ment. Accordingly, the deductive link he established between the ideal and the empirical orders is illusory and sophistic. In The Philosophy of Right Hegel is a "sophist."25 **On the essentially uncritical character of speculative philosophy, with special reference to The Philosophy of Right, see Werke, I, 226, , 244, 263, 287; cf. Mam's comments in The Holy Family, Werke, 11, 63. Werke, I, , 224 ff. 24Zbid., , 211, 216, 217, 250, Zbid., , 218, Marx repeated the charge later, in The Holy Family, Werke, 11, 63.

11 228 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS Textual explication not only shows the fallacious character of Hegel's arguments, it also clarifies the self-contradictions in Hegel's account of existing socio-political institutions. Hegel himself sensed but could not escape the self-contradictions to which he was driven by his efforts to justify as rational the institutional status quo. A comparison of texts from different places in The Philosophy of Right shows, for example, that in order to justify entailed property as a rational political principle Hegel contradicted his own philosophical doctrine on the family. Hegel had correctly identified the principle of the family as love, and the family itself as the life of love shared by all its members; he, however, gave his philosophical blessing to an institution, entailed property under primogeniture, which limits inheritance to the eldest son alone. Again, in order to justify the rationality of primogeniture Hegel contradicted his own philosophical notion of property. He earlier characterized property as something essentially alienable, that is, subject to the will of the owner, indeed an extension and objectification of the owner's will; but in his doctrine on primogeniture he endorsed an institution in which landed property cannot be divided or sold by its owner, cannot be disposed of according to his will, but can only be passed on in toto to his eldest son, whose "ownership" is, in turn, subject to the same limiting conditions. In this institution the owner actually becomes the property of his property; indeed it is the land which inherits the owner, and land remains unchanged like the substance while a succession of "owners" like a succession of accidents comes and goes. Hegel's doctrinal inconsistencies, then, faithfully reflect irrationality in the institutions themselves. So it is that Marx's criticism in passages such as these is directed simultaneously against Hegel and the actual institutions represented in his texts.26 At this point, Marx began to bring what he calls "true philosophical criticism" to bear on the institutional structure of existing political society. This is criticism which "not only shows the contradictions [in the objects criticized] as existing, but clarifies them, grasps their essence and necessity, and comprehends their own proper ~ignificance."~~ Essential to this effort is a genetic account of the contradictions in question, that is, an account of the way in Werke, I, 243, 361 ff., 291 ff., , 329, 332 ff. Cf. the remarks of Jean Hyppolite, "La conception h4ghlienne de I'fitat et sa critique par Karl Marx," in Etudes sur Marx et Hegel (Paris, 1965), p Werke, I, p. 296.

12 METHODOLOGY IN KARL MARX 229 which the existing contradictory socio-political order came about historically. Feuerbach had pointed out the inverted character of the "world" of religion and then had further clarified it by tracing its origins through psycho-genetic criticism. Marx, thanks in large part to Hegel's Philosophy of Right, came to see the contradictory character of the world of politics. This, however, is not a world of mental realities or spiritual beings, but of historical institutions whose internal contradictions are best further clarified by historico-genetic criticism. How God "comes about" may indeed be a matter for psychological investigation; but how an irrational socio-political order comes about is clearly a matter for historical investigation. Accordingly, once Marx had subjected Hegel's earlier paragraphs on the state to transformative criticism (especially! 261 through 286) and then had added to this the kind of textual commentary that highlights Hegel's doctrinal fallacies and contradictions, he began increasingly to apply to his commentary the results of historical research, which he pursued simultaneously with his writing of the Critique. Thus, looked at overall, the Critiqw developed from an immanent criticism of Hegel's philosophical doctrine to a criticism of actual institutions, with the latter increasingly assuming the character of a historical acc0unt.~8 The historical research which Mam brought to bear especially in the second half of the Critique is recorded in five notebooks. Four of these bear Marx's notation of date and place of composition: at Kreuznach, July, and August, Altogether, Marx filled some 250 pages of excerpts, with his occasional comments, from 24 books in political history and the0ry.~9 In this research Mam focused on three historical developments: the genesis of the political institutions of his own day, especially the bureaucracy and the Assembly of Estates, the gradual separation of civil from political life, and the relationship between property and the political state. Toward the end of this period of simultaneous research and critical composition it was the political significance of property that came to dominate Marx's interest. The point of departure for his comments in the Critique remained Hegel's texts, but he increasingly went outside the framework of Hegel's doctrine to 28 Cf. the remarks of Rjazanw in his Zntroductwn to MEGA I, 1/2, xxv ff. 29Detail~on the books and authors Marx read are given in MEGA I, 1/2, On the notebooks as constituting evidence for the 1843 date of composition of the Critique, see especially ibid., I, 1/1, Ixxi-lxxv; and I, 1/2, xxivxxx.

13 230 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS bring in from his historical sources evidence for his critical judgments. For example, a discussion early in the Critique of the relationship between civil and political life is obviously carried out within the conceptual framework of Hegel's Philosophy of Hirtory; whereas two later discussions of the same relationship suggest increasing reliance on the Kreuznach historical research as the basis for analysis and judgment.30 Indeed, once he had pointed out on historical grounds the falsity of certain positions of Hegel, in his commentary Marx at times appeared less concerned with confronting Hegel than with giving voice to his own new historical discoverie~.~l This early historical research contributed both to his critical appraisal of the institutional conclusions of Hegel's political theory and to the development of his own social and political doctrine. Coupled with his other critical techniques, it led him to conclude in the Critique that Hegel's identification of the bureaucracy, entailed landed property and the Assembly of Estates as agencies for achieving a rational political society was a case of grossly mistaken identification, rooted in speculative prejudice and ignorance of historical facts. That conclusion led in turn to hi own identification, in the Critique or shortly after, of the proletariat, the abolition of private property, and universal suffrage as the proper agencies for the achievement of that aim.32 In the subsequent development of his own doctrine on these matters the techniques of transformative criticism, close textual analysis and historico-genetic criticism remained integral parts of Marx's critical method as he attempted, beginning with the Critique through Dm Kapita2, to achieve a comprehensive "scientific" account of modern society in order to effect its transformation through political praxis. 30 Cf. Werke, I, , and , l For example, ibid., 259, , 311 ff. 32 On universal suffrage, see especially Werke, I, ; on the proletariat and the abolition of private property (the latter, especially, already implied in the Critique), see Marx's two essays, "Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie: Einleitung" and "Zur Judenfrage," composed just after he finished the Critique and published in the Deutsch-franrdsische Jahrbucher (February, 1844) ; Weske, I, especially , ,