Abstract

This paper contrasts the morally suspect elements in Marx's comments on relations between men and women in the 1844 Manuscripts with the more sensible and liberal tone of Marx's remarks on the same topic in post-1844 writings. The contrast is used to illustrate the claim that an important moral shift occurs in Marx's thought around 1844, a shift away from the early concern to overcome bourgeois egoism and with it the antagonism between state and civil society, and toward the mature concern to eliminate what are perceived to be unfair inequalities of power among economic agents in a capitalist economy.The concept of alienation articulated in the Manuscripts attempts to combine these disparate concerns, and in consequence Marx's discussion there founders interestingly.