“Any society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of relationships [and] conditions that the individual actor is forming.”

—  Karl Marx

(1857/58)
Source: MEW Vol. 42, p. 176.
Source: Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 1, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Any society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of relationships [and] conditions that the individual…" by Karl Marx?
Karl Marx photo
Karl Marx290
German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and … 1818–1883

Related quotes

Karl Marx photo

“Thus, while the refugee serfs only wished to be free to develop and assert those conditions of existence which were already there, and hence, in the end, only arrived at free labour, the proletarians, if they are to assert themselves as individuals, will have to abolish the very condition of their existence hitherto (which has, moreover, been that of all society up to the present), namely, labour. Thus they find themselves directly opposed to the form in which, hitherto, the individuals, of which society consists, have given themselves collective expression, that is, the State. In order, therefore, to assert themselves as individuals, they must overthrow the State.”

Karl Marx book The German Ideology

"Communism. The Production of the Form of Intercourse Itself",
The Marx-Engels Reader
The German Ideology (1845/46)

“The creative artist has an essential role in modern society. By expressing his individual ideas and emotions he adds to the sum of human awareness.”

Lloyd Goodrich (1897–1987) American art historian

'The Artist in American Society' - Colorado Magazine Vol. 15 No 2 Autumn 1966

“Individualism denotes the relationship between the individual and the collectivity which prevails in a given society.”

Geert Hofstede (1928) Dutch psychologist

Source: Culture's consequences: International differences in work-related values (1980), p. 148.

Alfredo Rocco photo

“For liberalism, the individual is the end and society the means… For fascism, society is the end, individuals the means, and its whole life consists in using individuals as instruments for its social ends. The state, therefore, guards and protects the welfare and development of individuals not for their exclusive interest but because of the identity of the needs of individuals with those of society as a whole.”

Alfredo Rocco (1875–1935) Italian politician and jurist

Source: The Political Doctrine of Fascism (1925), p. 112

“Each individual in a society is a nexus where innumerable relationships of this character intersect.”

Carroll Quigley (1910–1977) American historian

Source: The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979), Chapter 2, Man and Culture, p. 59

Abbie Hoffman photo

“Nostalgia is a form of depression both for a society and an individual.”

Abbie Hoffman (1936–1989) American political and social activist

Bye-Bye Sixties, Hollywood-Style, Square Dancing in the Ice Age (1982).

Alan Watts photo

“Whenever the therapist stands with society, he will interpret his work as adjusting the individual and coaxing his 'unconscious drives' into social respectability. But such 'official psychotherapy' lacks integrity and becomes the obedient tool of armies, bureaucracies, churches, corporations, and all agencies that require individual brainwashing. On the other hand, the therapist who is really interested in helping the individual is forced into social criticism. This does not mean that he has to engage directly in political revolution; it means that he has to help the individual in liberating himself from various forms of social conditioning, which includes liberation from hating this conditioning — hatred being a form of bondage to its object.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

Source: Psychotherapy, East and West (1961), p. 8

Jiddu Krishnamurti photo

“The problem that confronts most of us is whether the individual is merely the instrument of society or the end of society. Are you and I as individuals to be used, directed, educated, controlled, shaped to a certain pattern by society and government; or does society, the State, exist for the individual? Is the individual the end of society; or is he merely a puppet to be taught, exploited, butchered as an instrument of war? That is the problem that is confronting most of us. That is the problem of the world; whether the individual is a mere instrument of society, a plaything of influences to be moulded; or whether society exists for the individual.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

1950s, The First and Last Freedom (1954)

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar photo

“There is no place for an individual in Hindu society. The Hindu religion is constituted on the class concept. The Hindu religion does not teach as to how an individual should behave with another individual.”

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) Father of republic India, champion of human rights, father of India's Constitution, polymath, revolutionary…

As quoted in http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00ambedkar/txt_ambedkar_salvation.html

René Guénon photo

“A community conceived only as the arithmetical sum of its component individuals; a community is, in fact, no more than this once it ceases to be attached to any principle higher than the individuals.”

René Guénon (1886–1951) French metaphysician

Source: The Crisis of the Modern World (1927), p. 96

Related topics