Xxxx'x Theory of the Development of Political Economy. In the Manuscripts, we can discern a theory of the development of political economy. Far from being an internally static and fixed doctrine, Xxxx characterises political economy as an energetic body of thought that develops through its “cosmopolitan, universal energy” [EW, p.342]. There is a movement, argues Xxxx, from the political economy of Xxxxx, through Say to Mill and Xxxxxxx. This movement is one of increasing cynicism, and “inasmuch as the consequences of industry appeared more developed and more contradictory to the latter; the latter also become more estranged – consciously estranged – from man and their predecessors” [EW, p.343]. Political economy, he argues, is forced through its own consistent development to “cast off its hypocrisy and step forth in all its cynicism” [EW, p.342]. Thus Xxxx contrasts the “original conception” of the political economy of Xxxxx from the “anti- human” conclusions of the later proponents of political economy in the Xxxxxxx school [EW, p.343]. There is however, for Xxxx, no fundamental break between the two, rather that the latter have merely developed the science of political economy “more logically and more truly” [EW, p.343]. By adopting the principle of labour, political economy had originally appeared to recognise man, and yet political economy, argues Xxxx, “is in fact nothing more than the denial of man carried through to its logical conclusion” [EW, p.342]. The crucial contribution of the political economists, Xxxx claims, was to bring man within the realm of private property. Xxxx quotes Xxxxxx’x declaration that Xxxx Xxxxx was “the Luther of political economy”, in order to demonstrate the fact that wealth is no longer seen as something external to man, but rather that “man himself is recognised as its essence” [EW, p.342]. Thus political economy heralded the abolition of the appearance of private property as something external and independent of man, and made possible the abolition of its “mindless objectivity” [EW, p.342]. In contrast to Xxxxx, it was the great advance of the Xxxxxxx school, “to declare the existence of the human being [...] to be indifferent and even harmful” [EW, p.336]. Thus the production of humanity, or the number of workers that a capital supports, is irrelevant, rather it is the expansion of wealth that is all important.27 Xxxx hails the contribution of this “recent English political economy” as having reduced the landowner to a “prosaic capitalist”, and thus for having “anticipate...
