Marx conceded capitalism universalizes human capacity while emptying out its content

Evidence

Marx nevertheless recognizes the force of the Romantic critique of capitalism: In bourgeois economics — and in the epoch of production to which it corresponds — this complete working-out of the human content appears as a complete emptying out, this universal objectification as total alienation, and the tearing down of all limited, one-sided aims as sacrifice of the human end-in-itself to an entirely external end. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 169

Categorization

• XREF: This is the Grundrisse passage Anderson would use later against Jameson’s claim that postmodernism renders the ‘real’ content inaccessible — Marx saw the emptying-out as inherent to capitalist universality. — connects to: Capitalism simultaneously destroys and expands human potential — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 639
• DEEPTHINKING: The dialectic of universalization-and-emptying-out in one compressed formulation is dense enough to sit with — it prefigures exactly the postmodern condition debate and both sides at once.
• QUESTION: Does this Grundrisse passage give a Marxist answer to Jameson’s ‘we cannot represent late capitalism’ claim — that totalization is achievable precisely through acknowledging the emptying-out?

Broader Connections

• Capitalism simultaneously destroys and expands human potential #corroborates (0.85) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 639