Marx, Shakespeare and the money nexus

Abstract

This article is focused on the last part of Karl Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, where he approaches the harmful consequences of the cash-nexus to the constitution of human sensibility. In order to bring up a concrete figure of these effects and unveil this nexus, Marx quotes a long passage of Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens. Marx’s incorporation of the play discloses his interest in the way social forms affect subjectivity, human personality, and interpersonal relations. It also contributes to the idea that getting our sensibility back to ourselves is a revolutionary goal, maybe the final end of emancipation.