## 1. Life and Writings


### 1.1 Early Years



Karl Marx was born in 1818, one of nine children. The family lived in
the Rhineland region of Prussia, previously under French rule. Both of
his parents came from Jewish families with distinguished rabbinical
lineages. Marx's father was a lawyer who converted to
Christianity when it became necessary for him to do so if he was to
continue his legal career.



Following an unexceptional school career, Marx studied law and
philosophy at the universities of Bonn and Berlin. His doctoral thesis
was in ancient philosophy, comparing the philosophies of nature of
Democritus (c.460-370 BCE) and Epicurus (341-270 BCE).
From early 1842, he embarked on a career as a radical journalist,
contributing to, and then editing, the *Rheinische Zeitung*,
until the paper was closed by the Prussian authorities in April
1843.



Marx married Jenny von Westphalen (1814-1881), his childhood
sweetheart, in June 1843. They would spend their lives together and
have seven children, of whom just three daughters--Jenny
(1844-1883), Laura (1845-1911), and Eleanor
(1855-1898)--survived to adulthood. Marx is also widely
thought to have fathered a child--Frederick Demuth
(1851-1929)--with Helene Demuth (1820-1890),
housekeeper and friend of the Marx family.



Marx's adult life combined independent scholarship, political
activity, and financial insecurity, in fluctuating proportions.
Political conditions were such, that, in order to associate and write
as he wished, he had to live outside of Germany for most of this time.
Marx spent three successive periods of exile in the capital cities of
France, Belgium, and England.


### 1.2 Paris



Between late 1843 and early 1845, Marx lived in Paris, a cosmopolitan
city full of emigres and radical artisans. He was
subsequently expelled by the French government following Prussian
pressure. In his last months in Germany and during this Paris exile,
Marx produced a series of "early writings", many not
intended for publication, which significantly altered interpretations
of his thought when they were published collectively in the twentieth
century. Papers that actually saw publication during this period
include: "On the Jewish Question" (1843) in which Marx
defends Jewish Emancipation against Bruno Bauer (1809-1882), but
also emphasises the limitations of "political" as against
"human" emancipation; and the "Critique of
Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Introduction" (1844) which
contains a critical account of religion, together with some prescient
remarks about the emancipatory potential of the proletariat. The most
significant works that Marx wrote for self-clarification rather than
publication in his Paris years are the so-called "1844
Manuscripts" (1844) which provide a suggestive account of
alienation, especially of alienation in work; and the "Theses on
Feuerbach" (1845), a set of epigrammatic but rich remarks
including reflections on the nature of philosophy.


### 1.3 Brussels



Between early 1845 and early 1848, Marx lived in Brussels, the capital
of a rapidly industrialising Belgium. A condition of his residency was
to refrain from publishing on contemporary politics, and he was
eventually expelled after political demonstrations involving foreign
nationals took place. In Brussels Marx published *The Holy
Family* (1845), which includes contributions from his new friend
and close collaborator Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), continuing
the attack on Bruno Bauer and his followers. Marx also worked, with
Engels, on a series of manuscripts now usually known as *The German
Ideology* (1845-46), a substantial section of which
criticises the work of Max Stirner (1806-1856). Marx also wrote
and published *The Poverty of Philosophy* (1847) which
disparages the social theory of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
(1809-1865). All these publications characteristically show Marx
developing and promoting his own views through fierce critical attacks
on contemporaries, often better-known and more established than
himself.



Marx was politically active throughout his adult life, although the
events of 1848--during which time he returned to Paris and
Cologne--inspired the first of two periods of especially intense
activity. Two important texts here are *The Communist
Manifesto* (1848) which Marx and Engels published just before the
February Revolution, and, following his move to London, *The Class
Struggles in France* (1850) in which Marx examined the subsequent
failure of 1848 in France. Between these two dates, Marx commented on,
and intervened in, the revolution in Germany through the *Neue
Rheinische Zeitung* (1848-49), the paper he helped to
establish and edit in Cologne.


### 1.4 London



For well over half of his adult life--from late 1849 until his
death in 1883--Marx lived in London, a city providing a secure
haven for political exiles and a superb vantage point from which to
study the world's most advanced capitalist economy. This third
and longest exile was dominated by an intellectual and personal
struggle to complete his critique of political economy, but his
theoretical output extended far beyond that project.



Marx's initial attempt to make sense of Napoleon III's
rise to power in contemporary France is contained in *The
Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte* (1852). Between 1852 and
1862 Marx also wrote well over three hundred articles for the *New
York Daily Tribune*; sometimes unfairly disparaged as merely
income-generating journalism, they frequently contain illuminating
attempts to explain contemporary European society and politics
(including European interventions in India and China) to an American
audience (helpfully) presumed to know little about them.



The second of Marx's two especially intense periods of political
activity--after the revolutions of 1848--centred on his
involvement in the International Working Men's Association
between 1864 and 1874, and the events of the Paris Commune (1871), in
particular. The character and lessons of the Commune--the
short-lived, and violently suppressed, municipal rebellion that
controlled Paris for several months in the aftermath of the
Franco-Prussian war--are discussed in *The Civil War in
France* (1871). Also politically important was Marx's
"Critique of the Gotha Programme" (1875), in which he
criticises the theoretical influence of Ferdinand Lassalle
(1825-1864) on the German labour movement, and portrays the
higher stage of a future communist society as endorsing distribution
according to "the needs principle".



Marx's critique of political economy remains controversial. He
never succeeded in fixing and realising the wider project that he
envisaged. Volume One of *Capital*, published in 1867, was the
only significant part of the project published in his own lifetime,
and even here he was unable to resist heavily reworking subsequent
editions (especially the French version of 1872-75). What we now
know as Volume Two and Volume Three of *Capital* were put
together from Marx's raw materials by Engels and published in
1885 and 1894, respectively, and Marx's own drafts were written
before the publication of Volume One and barely touched by him in the
remaining fifteen years of his life. An additional three supplementary
volumes planned by Engels, and subsequently called *Theories of
Surplus Value* (or, more colloquially, the "fourth volume of
*Capital*") were assembled from remaining notes by Karl
Kautsky (1854-1938), and published between 1905 and 1910. (The
section of the "new MEGA"--see below--concerned
with *Capital*-related texts contains fifteen thick volumes,
and provides some sense of the extent and character of these later
editorial interventions.) In addition, the publication in 1953--a
previous two-volume edition (1939 and 1941) had only a highly
restricted circulation--of the so-called *Grundrisse*
(written in 1857-58) was also important. Whether this text is
treated as a freestanding work or as a preparatory step towards
*Capital,* it raises many questions about Marx's method,
his relation to G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831), and the evolution of
Marx's thought. In contrast, the work of political economy that
Marx did publish in this period--*A Contribution to a Critique
of Political Economy* (1859)--was largely ignored by both
contemporaries and later commentators, except for the, much reprinted
and discussed, summary sketch of his theory of history that Marx
offered in the so-called "1859 Preface" to that
volume.



Marx's later years (after the Paris Commune) are the subject of
much interpretative disagreement. His inability to deliver the later
volumes of *Capital* is often seen as emblematic of a wider and
more systematic intellectual failure (Stedman Jones 2016). However,
others have stressed Marx's continued intellectual creativity in
this period, as he variously rethought his views about: the core and
periphery of the international economic system; the scope of his
theory of history; social anthropology; and the economic and political
evolution of Russia (Shanin 1983; K. Anderson 2010).



After the death of his wife, in 1881, Marx's life was dominated
by illness, and travel aimed at improving his health (convalescent
destinations including the Isle of Wight, Karlsbad, Jersey, and
Algiers). Marx died in March 1883, two months after the death of his
eldest daughter. His estate was valued at PS250.



Engels's wider role in the evolution of, and, more especially
the reception and interpretation of, Marx's work is much
disputed. The truth here is complex, and Engels is not always
well-treated in the literature. Marx and Engels are sometimes
portrayed as if they were a single entity, of one mind on all matters,
whose individual views on any topic can be found simply by consulting
the other. Others present Engels as the distorter and manipulator of
Marx's thought, responsible for any element of Marxian theory
with which the relevant commentator might disagree. Despite their
familiarity, neither caricature seems plausible or fair. The
best-known jointly authored texts are *The Holy*
*Family*, the "German Ideology" manuscripts, and
*The Communist Manifesto*, but there are nearly two hundred
shorter items that they both contributed to (Draper 1985:
2-19).



Many of Marx's best-known writings remained unpublished before
his death. The attempt to establish a reliable collected edition has
proved lengthy and fraught. The authoritative
*Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe*, the so-called "new
*MEGA"* (1975-), is still a work in progress, begun
under Soviet auspices but since 1990 under the guidance of the
"International Marx-Engels Stiftung" (IMES). In its
current form--much scaled-down from its original
ambitions--the edition will contain some 114 volumes (well over a
half of which are published at the time of writing). In addition to
his various published and unpublished works, it includes Marx's
journalism, correspondence, drafts, and (some) notebooks. Texts are
published in their original language (variously German, English, and
French). For those needing to utilise English-language resources, the
fifty volume *Marx Engels Collected Works* (1975-2004)
can be recommended. (References to Marx and Engels quotations here are
to these *MECW* volumes.) There are also several useful single
volume selections of Marx and Engels writings in English (including
Marx 2000).


## 2. Alienation and Human Flourishing


### 2.1 The Basic Idea



Alienation is a concept especially, but not uniquely, associated with
Marx's work, and the intellectual tradition that he helped
found. It identifies a distinct kind of social ill, involving a
separation between a subject and an object that properly belong
together. The subject here is typically an individual or a group,
while the object is usually an "entity" which variously is
not itself a subject, is another subject(s), or is the original
subject (that is, the relation here can be reflexive). And the
relation between the relevant subject and object is one of problematic
separation. Both elements of that characterisation are important. Not
all social ills, of course, involve separations; for instance, being
overly integrated into some object might be dysfunctional, but it is
not characteristic of alienation. Moreover, not all separations are
problematic, and accounts of alienation typically appeal to some
baseline unity or harmony that is frustrated or violated by the
separation in question.



Theories of alienation vary considerably, but frequently: first,
identify a subset of these problematic separations as being of
particular importance; second, include an account (sometimes implicit)
of what makes the relevant separations problematic; and, third,
propound some explanatory claims about the extent of, and prognosis
for, alienation, so understood.


### 2.2 Religion and Work



Marx's ideas concerning alienation were greatly influenced by
the critical writings on religion of Ludwig Feuerbach
(1804-1872), and especially his *The Essence of
Christianity* (1841). One key text in this respect is Marx's
"Contribution of Hegel's Critique of Right:
Introduction" (1843). This work is home to Marx's
notorious remark that religion is the "opium of the
people," a harmful, illusion-generating painkiller
(*MECW* 3: 175). It is here that Marx sets out his account of
religion in most detail.



While traditional Christian theology asserts that God created man in
God's own image, Marx fully accepted Feuerbach's inversion
of this picture, proposing that human beings had invented God in their
own image; indeed a view that long pre-dated Feuerbach.
Feuerbach's distinctive contribution was to argue that
worshipping God diverted human beings from enjoying their own human
powers. In their imagination humans raise their own powers to an
infinite level and project them on to an abstract object. Hence
religion is a form of alienation, for it separates human beings from
their "species essence." Marx accepted much of
Feuerbach's account but argues that Feuerbach failed to
understand why people fall into religious alienation, and so is unable
to explain how it can be transcended. Feuerbach's view appears
to be that belief in religion is purely an intellectual error and can
be corrected by persuasion. Marx's explanation is that religion
is a response to alienation in material life, and therefore cannot be
removed until human material life is emancipated, at which point
religion will wither away.



Precisely what it is about material life that creates religion is not
set out with complete clarity. However, it seems that at least two
aspects of alienation are responsible. One is alienated labour, which
will be explored shortly. A second is the need for human beings to
assert their communal essence. Whether or not we explicitly recognise
it, human beings exist as a community, and what makes human life
possible is our mutual dependence on the vast network of social and
economic relations which engulf us all, even though this is rarely
acknowledged in our day-to-day life. Marx's view appears to be
that we must, somehow or other, acknowledge our communal existence in
our institutions. At first it is "deviously acknowledged"
by religion, which creates a false idea of a community in which we are
all equal in the eyes of God. After the post-Reformation fragmentation
of religion, where religion is no longer able to play the role even of
a fake community of equals, the modern state fills this need by
offering us the illusion of a community of citizens, all equal in the
eyes of the law. Interestingly, the political or liberal state, which
is needed to manage the politics of religious diversity, takes on the
role offered by religion in earlier times of providing a form of
illusory community. But the political state and religion will both be
transcended when a genuine community of social and economic equals is
created.



Although Marx was greatly inspired by thinking about religious
alienation, much more of his attention was devoted to exploring
alienation in work. In a much-discussed passage from the *1844
Manuscripts*, Marx identifies four dimensions of alienated labour
in contemporary capitalist society (*MECW* 3: 270-282).
First, immediate producers are separated from the product of their
labour; they create a product that they neither own nor control,
indeed, which comes to dominate them. (Note that this idea of
"fetishism"--where human creations escape our
control, achieve the appearance of independence, and come to oppress
us--is not to be equated with alienation as such, but is rather
one form that it can take.) Second, immediate producers are separated
from their productive activity; in particular, they are forced to work
in ways which are mentally and/or physically debilitating. Third,
immediate producers are separated from other individuals; contemporary
economic relations socialise individuals to view others as merely
means to their own particular ends. Fourth, and finally, immediate
producers are separated from their own human nature; for instance, the
human capacities for community and for free, conscious, and creative,
work, are both frustrated by contemporary capitalist relations.



Note that these claims about alienation are distinct from other,
perhaps more familiar, complaints about work in capitalist society.
For instance, alienated labour, as understood here, could
be--even if it is often not--highly remunerated, limited in
duration, and relatively secure.



Marx holds that work has the potential to be something creative and
fulfilling. He consequently rejects the view of work as a necessary
evil, denying that the negative character of work is part of our fate,
a universal fact about the human condition that no amount of social
change could remedy. Indeed, productive activity, on Marx's
account, is a central element in what it is to be a human being, and
self-realisation through work is a vital component of human
flourishing. That he thinks that work--in a different form of
society--could be creative and fulfilling, perhaps explains the
intensity and scale of Marx's condemnation of contemporary
economic arrangements and their transformation of workers into
deformed and "dehumanised" beings (*MECW* 3:
284).



It was suggested above that alienation consists of dysfunctional
separations--separations between entities that properly belong
together--and that theories of alienation typically presuppose
some baseline condition whose frustration or violation by the relevant
separation identifies the latter as dysfunctional. For Marx, that
baseline seems to be provided by an account of human flourishing,
which he conceptualises in terms of self-realisation (understood here
as the development and deployment of our essential human capacities).
Labour in capitalism, we can say, is alienated because it embodies
separations preventing the self-realisation of producers; because it
is organised in a way that frustrates the human need for free,
conscious, and creative work.



So understood, and returning to the four separations said to
characterise alienated labour, we can see that it is the implicit
claim about human nature (the fourth separation) which identifies the
other three separations as dysfunctional. If one subscribed to the
same formal model of alienation and self-realisation, but held a
different account of the substance of human nature, very different
claims about work in capitalist society might result. Imagine a
theorist who held that human beings were solitary, egoistic creatures,
by nature. That theorist could accept that work in capitalist society
encouraged isolation and selfishness, but deny that such results were
alienating, because those results would not frustrate their baseline
account of what it is to be a human being (indeed, they would rather
facilitate those characteristics).


### 2.3 Alienation and Capitalism



Marx seems to hold various views about the historical location and
comparative extent of alienation. These include: that some systematic
forms of alienation--presumably including religious
alienation--existed in pre-capitalist societies; that systematic
forms of alienation--including alienation in work--are only
a feature of class divided societies; that systematic forms of
alienation are greater in contemporary capitalist societies than in
pre-capitalist societies; and that not all human societies are scarred
by class division, in particular, that a future classless society
(communism) will not contain systematic forms of alienation.



Marx maintains that alienation flows from capitalist social relations,
and not from the kind of technological advances that capitalist
society contains. His disapproval of capitalism is reserved for its
social arrangements and not its material accomplishments. He had
little time for what is sometimes called the "romantic critique
of capitalism", which sees industry and technology as the real
villains, responsible for devastating the purportedly communitarian
idyll of pre-capitalist relations. In contrast, Marx celebrates the
bourgeoisie's destruction of feudal relations, and sees
technological growth and human liberation as (at least, in time)
progressing hand-in-hand. Industry and technology are understood as
part of the solution to, and not the source of, social problems.



There are many opportunities for scepticism here. In the present
context, many struggle to see how the kind of large-scale industrial
production that would presumably characterise communist
society--communism purportedly being more productive than
capitalism--would avoid alienation in work. Interesting responses
to such concerns have been put forward, but they have typically come
from commentators rather than from Marx himself (Kandiyali 2018). This
is a point at which Marx's self-denying ordinance concerning the
detailed description of communist society prevents him from engaging
directly with significant concerns about the direction of social
change.


### 2.4 Political Emancipation



In the text "On The Jewish Question" (1843) Marx begins to
make clear the distance between himself and his radical liberal
colleagues among the Young Hegelians; in particular Bruno Bauer. Bauer
had recently written against Jewish emancipation, from an atheist
perspective, arguing that the religion of both Jews and Christians was
a barrier to emancipation. In responding to Bauer, Marx makes one of
the most enduring arguments from his early writings, by means of
introducing a distinction between political
emancipation--essentially the grant of liberal rights and
liberties--and human emancipation. Marx's reply to Bauer is
that political emancipation is perfectly compatible with the continued
existence of religion, as the contemporary example of the United
States demonstrates. However, pushing matters deeper, in an argument
reinvented by innumerable critics of liberalism, Marx argues that not
only is political emancipation insufficient to bring about human
emancipation, it is in some sense also a barrier. Liberal rights and
ideas of justice are premised on the idea that each of us needs
protection from other human beings who are a threat to our liberty and
security. Therefore, liberal rights are rights of separation, designed
to protect us from such perceived threats. Freedom on such a view, is
freedom from interference. What this view overlooks is the
possibility--for Marx, the fact--that real freedom is to be
found positively in our relations with other people. It is to be found
in human community, not in isolation. Accordingly, insisting on a
regime of liberal rights encourages us to view each other in ways that
undermine the possibility of the real freedom we may find in human
emancipation. Now we should be clear that Marx does not oppose
political emancipation, for he sees that liberalism is a great
improvement on the systems of feudalism and religious prejudice and
discrimination which existed in the Germany of his day. Nevertheless,
such politically emancipated liberalism must be transcended on the
route to genuine human emancipation. Unfortunately, Marx never tells
us what human emancipation is, although it is clear that it is closely
related to the ideas of non-alienated labour and meaningful
community.


### 2.5 Remaining Questions



Even with these elaborations, many additional questions remain about
Marx's account. Three concerns are briefly addressed here.



First, one might worry about the place of alienation in the evolution
of Marx's thought. The once-popular suggestion that Marx only
wrote about alienation in his early writings--his published and
unpublished works from the early 1840s--is not sustained by the
textual evidence. However, the theoretical role that the concept of
alienation plays in his writings might still be said to evolve. For
example, it has been suggested that alienation in the early writings
is intended to play an "explanatory role", whereas in his
later work it comes to have a more "descriptive or
diagnostic" function (Wood 1981 [2004: 7]).



A second concern is the role of human nature in the interpretation of
alienation offered here. In one exegetical variant of this worry, the
suggestion is that this account of alienation rests on a model of
universal human nature which Marx's (later) understanding of
historical specificity and change prevents him from endorsing.
However, there is much evidence against this purported later rejection
of human nature (see Geras 1983). Indeed, the "mature"
Marx explicitly affirms that human nature has both constant and
mutable elements; that human beings are characterised by universal
qualities, constant across history and culture, and variable
qualities, reflecting historical and cultural diversity (McMurtry
1978: 19-53). One systematic, rather than exegetical, variant of
the present worry suggests that we should not endorse accounts of
alienation which depend on "thick" and inevitably
controversial accounts of human nature (Jaeggi 2016). Whatever view we
take of that claim about our endorsement, there seems little doubt
about the "thickness" of Marx's own account of human
flourishing. To provide for the latter, a society must satisfy not
only basic needs (for sustenance, warmth and shelter, certain climatic
conditions, physical exercise, basic hygiene, procreation and sexual
activity), but also less basic needs, both those that are not always
appreciated to be part of his account (for recreation, culture,
intellectual stimulation, artistic expression, emotional satisfaction,
and aesthetic pleasure), and those that Marx is more often associated
with (for fulfilling work and meaningful community) (Leopold 2007:
227-245).



Third, we may ask about Marx's attitude towards the distinction
sometimes made between subjective and objective alienation. These two
forms of alienation can be exemplified separately or conjointly in the
lives of particular individuals or societies (Hardimon 1994:
119-122). Alienation is "subjective" when it is
characterised in terms of the presence (or absence) of certain beliefs
or feelings; for example, when individuals are said to be alienated
because they feel estranged from the world. Alienation is
"objective" when it is characterised in terms which make
no reference to the beliefs or feelings of individuals; for example,
when individuals are said to be alienated because they fail to develop
and deploy their essential human characteristics, whether or not they
experience that lack of self-realisation as a loss. Marx seems to
allow that these two forms of alienation are conceptually distinct,
but assumes that in capitalist societies they are typically found
together. Indeed, he often appears to think of subjective alienation
as tracking the objective variant. That said, Marx does allow that
they can come apart sociologically. At least, that is one way of
reading a passage in *The Holy Family* where he recognises that
capitalists do not get to engage in self-realising activities of the
right kind (and hence are objectively alienated), but
that--unlike the proletariat--they are *content* in
their estrangement (and hence are lacking subjective alienation),
feeling "at ease" in, and even "strengthened"
by, it (*MECW* 4: 36).


## 3. Theory of History


### 3.1 Sources



Marx did not set out his theory of history in great detail.
Accordingly, it has to be constructed from a variety of texts, both
those where he attempts to apply a theoretical analysis to past and
future historical events, and those of a more purely theoretical
nature. Of the latter, the "1859 Preface" to *A
Critique of Political Economy* has achieved canonical status.
However, the manuscripts collected together as *The German
Ideology*, co-written with Engels in 1845-46, are also a much used
early source. We shall briefly outline both texts, and then look at
the reconstruction of Marx's theory of history in the hands of
his philosophically most influential recent exponent, G.A. Cohen
(Cohen 1978 [2001], 1988), who builds on the interpretation of the
early Russian Marxist Georgi Plekhanov (1856-1918)
(Plekhanov 1895 [1947]).



We should, however, be aware that Cohen's interpretation is far
from universally accepted. Cohen provided his reconstruction of Marx
partly because he was frustrated with existing Hegelian-inspired
"dialectical" interpretations of Marx, and what he
considered to be the vagueness of the influential works of Louis
Althusser (1918-1990), neither of which, he felt, provided a
rigorous account of Marx's views. However, some scholars believe
that the interpretation that we shall focus on is faulty precisely for
its insistence on a mechanical model and its lack of attention to the
dialectic. One aspect of this criticism is that Cohen's
understanding has a surprisingly small role for the concept of class
struggle, which is often felt to be central to Marx's theory of
history. Cohen's explanation for this is that the "1859
Preface", on which his interpretation is based, does not give a
prominent role to class struggle, and indeed it is not explicitly
mentioned. Yet this reasoning is problematic for it is possible that
Marx did not want to write in a manner that would engage the concerns
of the police censor, and, indeed, a reader aware of the context may
be able to detect an implicit reference to class struggle through the
inclusion of such phrases as "then begins an era of social
revolution," and "the ideological forms in which men
become conscious of this conflict and fight it out". Hence it
does not follow that Marx himself thought that the concept of class
struggle was relatively unimportant. Furthermore, when *A Critique
of Political Economy* was replaced by *Capital*, Marx made
no attempt to keep the *1859 Preface* in print, and its content
is reproduced just as a very much abridged footnote in
*Capital*. Nevertheless, we shall concentrate here on
Cohen's interpretation as no other account has been set out with
comparable rigour, precision and detail.


### 3.2 Early Formulations



In his "*Theses on Feuerbach*" (1845) Marx provides
a background to what would become his theory of history by stating his
objections to "all hitherto existing" materialism and
idealism, understood as types of philosophical theories. Materialism
is complimented for understanding the physical reality of the world,
but is criticised for ignoring the active role of the human subject in
creating the world we perceive. Idealism, at least as developed by
Hegel, understands the active nature of the human subject, but
confines it to thought or contemplation: the world is created through
the categories we impose upon it. Marx combines the insights of both
traditions to propose a view in which human beings do indeed create
--or at least transform--the world they find themselves in,
but this transformation happens not in thought but through actual
material activity; not through the imposition of sublime concepts but
through the sweat of their brow, with picks and shovels. This
historical version of materialism, which, according to Marx,
transcends and thus rejects all existing philosophical thought, is the
foundation of Marx's later theory of history. As Marx puts it in
the "1844 Manuscripts", "Industry is the actual
historical relationship of nature ... to man"
(*MECW* 3: 303). This thought, derived from reflection on the
history of philosophy, together with his experience of social and
economic realities, as a journalist, sets the agenda for all
Marx's future work.



In *The German Ideology* manuscripts, Marx and Engels contrast
their new materialist method with the idealism that had characterised
previous German thought. Accordingly, they take pains to set out the
"premises of the materialist method". They start, they
say, from "real human beings", emphasising that human
beings are essentially productive, in that they must produce their
means of subsistence in order to satisfy their material needs. The
satisfaction of needs engenders new needs of both a material and
social kind, and forms of society arise corresponding to the state of
development of human productive forces. Material life determines, or
at least "conditions" social life, and so the primary
direction of social explanation is from material production to social
forms, and thence to forms of consciousness. As the material means of
production develop, "modes of co-operation" or economic
structures rise and fall, and eventually communism will become a real
possibility once the plight of the workers and their awareness of an
alternative motivates them sufficiently to become revolutionaries.


### 3.3 1859 Preface



In the sketch of *The German Ideology*, many of the key
elements of historical materialism are present, even if the
terminology is not yet that of Marx's more mature writings.
Marx's statement in the "1859 Preface" renders
something of the same view in sharper form. Cohen's
reconstruction of Marx's view in the Preface begins from what
Cohen calls the Development Thesis, which is pre-supposed, rather than
explicitly stated in the Preface (Cohen 1978 [2001]: 134-174).
This is the thesis that the productive forces tend to develop, in the
sense of becoming more powerful, over time. The productive forces are
the means of production, together with productively applicable
knowledge: technology, in other words. The development thesis states
not that the productive forces always do develop, but that there is a
tendency for them to do so. The next thesis is the primacy thesis,
which has two aspects. The first states that the nature of a
society's economic structure is explained by the level of
development of its productive forces, and the second that the nature
of the superstructure--the political and legal institutions of
society--is explained by the nature of the economic structure.
The nature of a society's ideology, which is to say certain
religious, artistic, moral and philosophical beliefs contained within
society, is also explained in terms of its economic structure,
although this receives less emphasis in Cohen's interpretation.
Indeed, many activities may well combine aspects of both the
superstructure and ideology: a religion is constituted by both
institutions and a set of beliefs.



Revolution and epoch change is understood as the consequence of an
economic structure no longer being able to continue to develop the
forces of production. At this point the development of the productive
forces is said to be fettered, and, according to the theory, once an
economic structure fetters development it will be
revolutionised--"burst asunder" (*MECW* 6:
489)--and eventually replaced with an economic structure better
suited to preside over the continued development of the forces of
production.



In outline, then, the theory has a pleasing simplicity and power. It
seems plausible that human productive power develops over time, and
plausible too that economic structures exist for as long as they
develop the productive forces, but will be replaced when they are no
longer capable of doing this. Yet severe problems emerge when we
attempt to put more flesh on these bones.


### 3.4 Functional Explanation



Prior to Cohen's work, historical materialism had not been
regarded as a coherent view within English-language political
philosophy. The antipathy is well summed up with the closing words of
H.B. Acton's *The Illusion of the Epoch*: "Marxism
is a philosophical farrago" (1955: 271). One difficulty taken
particularly seriously by Cohen is an alleged inconsistency between
the explanatory primacy of the forces of production, and certain
claims made elsewhere by Marx which appear to give the economic
structure primacy in explaining the development of the productive
forces. For example, in *The Communist Manifesto* Marx and
Engels state that: "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without
constantly revolutionising the instruments of production"
(*MECW* 6: 487). This appears to give causal and explanatory
primacy to the economic structure--capitalism--which brings
about the development of the forces of production. Cohen accepts that,
on the surface at least, this generates a contradiction. Both the
economic structure and the development of the productive forces seem
to have explanatory priority over each other. Unsatisfied by such
vague resolutions as "determination in the last instance",
or the idea of "dialectical" connections, Cohen
self-consciously attempts to apply the standards of clarity and rigour
of analytic philosophy to provide a reconstructed version of
historical materialism.



The key theoretical innovation is to appeal to the notion of
functional explanation, also sometimes called "consequence
explanation" (Cohen 1978 [2001]: 249-296). The
essential move is cheerfully to admit that the economic structure,
such as capitalism, does indeed develop the productive forces, but to
add that this, according to the theory, is precisely why we have
capitalism (when we do). That is, if capitalism failed to develop the
productive forces it would disappear. And, indeed, this fits
beautifully with historical materialism. For Marx asserts that when an
economic structure fails to develop the productive forces--when
it "fetters" the productive forces--it will be
revolutionised and the epoch will change. So the idea of
"fettering" becomes the counterpart to the theory of
functional explanation. Essentially fettering is what happens when the
economic structure becomes dysfunctional.



Now it is apparent that this renders historical materialism
consistent. Yet there is a question as to whether it is at too high a
price. For we must ask whether functional explanation is a coherent
methodological device. The problem is that we can ask what it is that
makes it the case that an economic structure will only persist for as
long as it develops the productive forces. Jon Elster has pressed this
criticism against Cohen very hard (Elster 1985: 27-35). If we were
to argue that there is an agent guiding history who has the purpose
that the productive forces should be developed as much as possible
then it would make sense that such an agent would intervene in history
to carry out this purpose by selecting the economic structures which
do the best job. However, it is clear that Marx makes no such
metaphysical assumptions. Elster is very critical--sometimes of
Marx, sometimes of Cohen--of the idea of appealing to
"purposes" in history without those being the purposes of
anyone.



Indeed Elster's criticism was anticipated in fascinating terms
by Simone Weil (1909-1943), who links Marx's appeal to
history's purposes to the influence of Hegel on his thought:



> 
> 
> We must remember the Hegelian origins of Marxist thought. Hegel
> believed in a hidden mind at work in the universe, and that the
> history of the world is simply the history of this world mind, which,
> as in the case of everything spiritual, tends indefinitely towards
> perfection. Marx claimed to "put back on its feet" the
> Hegelian dialectic, which he accused of being "upside
> down", by substituting matter for mind as the motive power of
> history; but by an extraordinary paradox, he conceived history,
> starting from this rectification, as though he attributed to matter
> what is the very essence of mind--an unceasing aspiration towards
> the best. (Weil 1955 [1958: 43])
> 
> 
> 



Cohen is well aware of the difficulty of appealing to purposes in
history, but defends the use of functional explanation by comparing
its use in historical materialism with its use in evolutionary
biology. In contemporary biology it is commonplace to explain the
existence of the stripes of a tiger, or the hollow bones of a bird, by
pointing to the function of these features. Here we have apparent
purposes which are not the purposes of anyone. The obvious counter,
however, is that in evolutionary biology we can provide a causal story
to underpin these functional explanations; a story involving chance
variation and survival of the fittest. Therefore these functional
explanations are sustained by a complex causal feedback loop in which
dysfunctional elements tend to be filtered out in competition with
better functioning elements. Cohen calls such background accounts
"elaborations" and he concedes that functional
explanations are in need of elaborations. But he points out that
standard causal explanations are equally in need of elaborations. We
might, for example, be satisfied with the explanation that the vase
broke because it was dropped on the floor, but a great deal of further
information is needed to explain why this explanation works.



Consequently, Cohen claims that we can be justified in offering a
functional explanation even when we are in ignorance of its
elaboration. Indeed, even in biology detailed causal elaborations of
functional explanations have been available only relatively recently.
Prior to Charles Darwin (1809-1882), or arguably Jean-Baptiste
Lamarck (1744-1829), the only candidate causal elaboration was
to appeal to God's purposes. Darwin outlined a very plausible
mechanism, but having no genetic theory was not able to elaborate it
into a detailed account. Our knowledge remains incomplete in some
respects to this day. Nevertheless, it seems perfectly reasonable to
say that birds have hollow bones in order to facilitate flight.
Cohen's point is that the weight of evidence that organisms are
adapted to their environment would permit even a pre-Darwinian atheist
to assert this functional explanation with justification. Hence one
can be justified in offering a functional explanation even in the
absence of a candidate elaboration: if there is sufficient weight of
inductive evidence.



At this point the issue, then, divides into a theoretical question and
an empirical one. The empirical question is whether or not there is
evidence that forms of society exist only for as long as they advance
productive power, and are replaced by revolution when they fail. Here,
one must admit, the empirical record is patchy at best, and there
appear to have been long periods of stagnation, even regression, when
dysfunctional economic structures were not revolutionised.



The theoretical issue is whether a plausible elaborating explanation
is available to underpin Marxist functional explanations. Here there
is something of a dilemma. In the first instance it is tempting to try
to mimic the elaboration given in the Darwinian story, and appeal to
chance variations and survival of the fittest. In this case
"fittest" would mean "most able to preside over the
development of the productive forces". Chance variation would be
a matter of people trying out new types of economic relations. On this
account new economic structures begin through experiment, but thrive
and persist through their success in developing the productive forces.
However the problem is that such an account would seem to introduce a
larger element of contingency than Marx seeks, for it is essential to
Marx's thought that one should be able to predict the eventual
arrival of communism. Within Darwinian theory there is no warrant for
long-term predictions, for everything depends on the contingencies of
particular situations. A similar heavy element of contingency would be
inherited by a form of historical materialism developed by analogy
with evolutionary biology. The dilemma, then, is that the best model
for developing the theory makes predictions based on the theory
unsound, yet the whole point of the theory is predictive. Hence one
must either look for an alternative means of producing elaborating
explanation, or give up the predictive ambitions of the theory.


### 3.5 Rationality



The driving force of history, in Cohen's reconstruction of Marx,
is the development of the productive forces, the most important of
which is technology. But what is it that drives such development?
Ultimately, in Cohen's account, it is human rationality. Human
beings have the ingenuity to apply themselves to develop means to
address the scarcity they find. This on the face of it seems very
reasonable. Yet there are difficulties. As Cohen himself acknowledges,
societies do not always do what would be rational for an individual to
do. Co-ordination problems may stand in our way, and there may be
structural barriers. Furthermore, it is relatively rare for those who
introduce new technologies to be motivated by the need to address
scarcity. Rather, under capitalism, the profit motive is the key. Of
course it might be argued that this is the social form that the
material need to address scarcity takes under capitalism. But still
one may raise the question whether the need to address scarcity always
has the influence that it appears to have taken on in modern times.
For example, a ruling class's absolute determination to hold on
to power may have led to economically stagnant societies.
Alternatively, it might be thought that a society may put religion or
the protection of traditional ways of life ahead of economic needs.
This goes to the heart of Marx's theory that man is an
essentially productive being and that the locus of interaction with
the world is industry. As Cohen himself later argued in essays such as
"Reconsidering Historical Materialism" (1988), the
emphasis on production may appear one-sided, and ignore other powerful
elements in human nature. Such a criticism chimes with a criticism
from the previous section; that the historical record may not, in
fact, display the tendency to growth in the productive forces assumed
by the theory.


### 3.6 Alternative Interpretations



Many defenders of Marx will argue that the problems stated are
problems for Cohen's interpretation of Marx, rather than for
Marx himself. It is possible to argue, for example, that Marx did not
have a general theory of history, but rather was a social scientist
observing and encouraging the transformation of capitalism into
communism as a singular event. And it is certainly true that when Marx
analyses a particular historical episode, as he does in the *18th
Brumaire of Louis Napoleon* (1852), any idea of fitting events
into a fixed pattern of history seems very far from Marx's mind.
On other views Marx did have a general theory of history but it is far
more flexible and less determinate than Cohen insists (Miller 1984).
And finally, as noted, there are critics who believe that
Cohen's interpretation is entirely wrong-headed owing to its
dismissive attitude to dialectical reasoning (Sayers 1984 [1990]).


## 4. Economics


### 4.1 Reading *Capital*



How to read Marx's economic writings, and especially his
masterpiece *Capital* Volume 1, remains a matter of
controversy. An orthodox reading is that Marx's essential task
is to contribute to economic theory, based on a modified form of the
labour theory of value. Others warn against such a narrow
interpretation, pointing out that the character of Marx's
writing and presentation is very far from what one would expect in a
standard economic text. Hence William Clare Roberts (2017), for
example, argues that *Capital* Volume 1 is fundamentally a work
of political theory, rather than economics. Be that as it may,
nevertheless, the work does contain substantial presentation of an
economic analysis of capitalism, and it is on this that we will focus
here.


### 4.2 Labour Theory of Value



*Capital* Volume 1 begins with an analysis of the idea of
commodity production. A commodity is defined as a useful external
object, produced for exchange on a market. Thus, two necessary
conditions for commodity production are: the existence of a market, in
which exchange can take place; and a social division of labour, in
which different people produce different products, without which there
would be no motivation for exchange. Marx suggests that commodities
have both use-value--a use, in other words--and an
exchange-value--initially to be understood as their price. Use
value can easily be understood, so Marx says, but he insists that
exchange value is a puzzling phenomenon, and relative exchange values
need to be explained. Why does a quantity of one commodity exchange
for a given quantity of another commodity? His explanation is in terms
of the labour input required to produce the commodity, or rather, the
socially necessary labour, which is labour exerted at the average
level of intensity and productivity for that branch of activity within
the economy. Thus the labour theory of value asserts that the value of
a commodity is determined by the quantity of socially necessary labour
time required to produce it.



Marx provides a two-stage argument for the labour theory of value. The
first stage is to argue that if two objects can be compared in the
sense of being put on either side of an equals sign, then there must
be a "third thing of identical magnitude in both of them"
to which they are both reducible. As commodities can be exchanged
against each other, there must, Marx argues, be a third thing that
they have in common. This then motivates the second stage, which is a
search for the appropriate "third thing", which is labour
in Marx's view, as the only plausible common element. Both steps
of the argument are, of course, highly contestable.



Capitalism can be distinguished from other forms of commodity
exchange, Marx argues, in that it involves not merely the exchange of
commodities, but the advancement of capital, in the form of money,
with the purpose of generating profit through the purchase of
commodities and their transformation into other commodities which can
command a higher price, and thus yield a profit. Marx claims that no
previous theorist has been able adequately to explain how capitalism
as a whole can make a profit. Marx's own solution relies on the
idea of exploitation of the worker. In setting up conditions of
production the capitalist purchases the worker's labour
power--his or her ability to labour--for the day. The cost
of this commodity is determined in the same way as the cost of every
other; that is, in terms of the amount of socially necessary labour
power required to produce it. In this case the value of a day's
labour power is the value of the commodities necessary to keep the
worker alive for a day. Suppose that such commodities take four hours
to produce. Accordingly the first four hours of the working day is
spent on producing value equivalent to the value of the wages the
worker will be paid. This is known as necessary labour. Any work the
worker does above this is known as surplus labour, producing surplus
value for the capitalist. Surplus value, according to Marx, is the
source of all profit. In Marx's analysis labour power is the
only commodity which can produce more value than it is worth, and for
this reason it is known as variable capital. Other commodities simply
pass their value on to the finished commodities, but do not create any
extra value. They are known as constant capital. Profit, then, is the
result of the labour performed by the worker beyond that necessary to
create the value of his or her wages. This is the surplus value theory
of profit.



It appears to follow from this analysis that as industry becomes more
mechanised, using more constant capital and less variable capital, the
rate of profit ought to fall. For as a proportion less capital will be
advanced on labour, and only labour can create value. In
*Capital* Volume 3 Marx does indeed make the prediction that
the rate of profit will fall over time, and this is one of the factors
which leads to the downfall of capitalism. (However, as pointed out by
Paul Sweezy in *The Theory of Capitalist Development* (1942),
the analysis is problematic.) A further consequence of this analysis
is a difficulty for the theory that Marx did recognise, and tried,
albeit unsuccessfully, to meet also in the manuscripts that make up
*Capital* Volume 3. It follows from the analysis so far that
labour-intensive industries ought to have a higher rate of profit than
those which use less labour. Not only is this empirically false, it is
theoretically unacceptable. Accordingly, Marx argued that in real
economic life prices vary in a systematic way from values. Providing
the mathematics to explain this is known as the transformation
problem, and Marx's own attempt suffers from technical
difficulties. Although there are sophisticated known techniques for
solving this problem now there is a question about the degree to which
they do rescue Marx's project. If it is thought that the labour
theory of value was initially motivated as an intuitively plausible
theory of price then when the connection between price and value is
rendered as indirect as it is in the final theory, the intuitive
motivation of the theory drains away. Others consider this to be a
superficial reading of Marx, and that his general approach allows us
to see through the appearances of capitalism to understand its
underlying basis, which need not coincide with appearances. How
Marx's theory of capitalism should be read remains an active
area of scholarly debate (Heinrich 2012).



A further objection is that Marx's assertion that only labour
can create surplus value is unsupported by any argument or analysis,
and can be argued to be merely an artefact of the nature of his
presentation. Any commodity can be picked to play a similar role.
Consequently, with equal justification one could set out a corn theory
of value, arguing that corn has the unique power of creating more
value than it costs. Formally this would be identical to the labour
theory of value (Roemer 1982). Nevertheless, the claims that somehow
labour is responsible for the creation of value, and that profit is
the consequence of exploitation, remain intuitively powerful, even if
they are difficult to establish in detail.



However, even if the labour theory of value is considered discredited,
there are elements of his theory that remain of worth. The Cambridge
economist Joan Robinson, in *An Essay on Marxian Economics*
(1942), picked out two aspects of particular note. First, Marx's
refusal to accept that capitalism involves a harmony of interests
between worker and capitalist, replacing this with a class-based
analysis of the worker's struggle for better wages and
conditions of work, versus the capitalist's drive for ever
greater profits. Second, Marx's denial that there is any
long-run tendency to equilibrium in the market, and his descriptions
of mechanisms which underlie the trade-cycle of boom and bust. Both
provide a salutary corrective to aspects of orthodox economic
theory.


### 4.3 Exploitation



As noted, traditionally Marx's definition of exploitation is
given in terms of the theory of surplus value, which in turn is taken
to depend on the labour theory of value: the theory that the value of
any commodity is proportional to the amount of "socially
necessary" labour embodied in it. However, the question arises
of whether the basic idea of exploitation should be so dependent on a
particular theory of value. For if it is, the notion of exploitation
becomes vulnerable to Robert Nozick's objection: that if the
labour theory of value can be shown to be faulty, the Marxist theory
of exploitation collapses too (Nozick 1974).



Others have felt that it is possible to restore the intuitive core of
a Marxist theory of exploitation independent of the labour theory of
value (cf. Cohen 1979, Wolff 1999, Vrousalis 2013). John Roemer, to
take one leading case, states:



> 
> 
> Marxian exploitation is defined as the unequal exchange of labor for
> goods: the exchange is unequal when the amount of labor embodied in
> the goods which the worker can purchase with his income ... is
> less than the amount of labor he expended to earn that income.(Roemer
> 1985: 30)
> 
> 
> 



Suppose I work eight hours to earn my wages. With this perhaps the
best thing I can buy is a coat. But imagine that the coat took only a
total of four hours to make. Therefore I have exchanged my eight hours
work for only four hours of other people's work, and thereby, on
this view, I am exploited.



The definition requires some refinement. For example, if I am taxed
for the benefit of those unable to work, I will be exploited by the
above definition, but this is not what the definition of exploitation
was intended to capture. Worse still, if there is one person exploited
much more gravely than anyone else in the economy, then it may turn
out that no-one else is exploited. Nevertheless, it should not be
difficult to adjust the definition to take account of these
difficulties, and as noted several other accounts of Marx-inspired
accounts of exploitation have been offered that are independent of the
labour theory of value.



Many of these alternative definitions add a notion of unfreedom or
domination to unequal exchange of labour and goods (Vrousalis 2013).
The exploited person is forced to accept a situation in which he or
she just never gets back what they put into the labour process. Now
there may be, in particular cases, a great deal to be said about why
this is perfectly acceptable from a moral point of view. However, on
the face of it such exploitation appears to be unjust. Nevertheless,
we will see in the next section why attributing such a position to
Marx himself is fraught with difficulty.


## 5. Morality


### 5.1 Unpacking Issues



The issue of Marx and morality poses a conundrum. On reading
Marx's works at all periods of his life, there appears to be the
strongest possible distaste towards bourgeois capitalist society, and
an undoubted endorsement of future communist society. Yet the terms of
this antipathy and endorsement are far from clear. Despite
expectations, Marx never directly says that capitalism is unjust.
Neither does he directly say that communism would be a just form of
society. In fact he frequently takes pains to distance himself from
those who engage in a discourse of justice, and makes a conscious
attempt to exclude direct moral commentary in his own works. The
puzzle is why this should be, given the weight of indirect moral
commentary one also finds in his writings.



There are, initially, separate questions concerning Marx's
attitude to capitalism and to communism. There are also separate
questions concerning his attitude to ideas of justice, and to ideas of
morality more broadly concerned. This, then, generates four questions:
(a) Did Marx think capitalism unjust?; (b) did he think that
capitalism could be morally criticised on other grounds?; (c) did he
think that communism would be just? (d) did he think it could be
morally approved of on other grounds? These are some of the questions
we consider in this section.


### 5.2 The "Injustice" of Capitalism



The initial argument that Marx must have thought that capitalism is
unjust is based on the observation that Marx argued that all
capitalist profit is ultimately derived from the exploitation of the
worker. Capitalism's dirty secret is that it is not a realm of
harmony and mutual benefit but a system in which one class
systematically extracts profit from another. How could this fail to be
unjust? Yet it is notable that Marx never explicitly draws such a
conclusion, and in *Capital* he goes as far as to say that such
exchange is "by no means an injury to the seller" (MECW
35: 204), which some commentators have taken as evidence that Marx did
not think that capitalism was unjust, although other readings are
possible.



Allen Wood (1972) is perhaps the leading advocate of the view that
Marx did not believe that capitalism is unjust. Wood argues that Marx
takes this approach because his general theoretical approach excludes
any trans-epochal standpoint from which one can comment on the justice
of an economic system. Even though it is acceptable to criticise
particular behaviour from within an economic structure as unjust (and
theft under capitalism would be an example) it is not possible to
criticise capitalism as a whole. This is a consequence of Marx's
analysis of the role of ideas of justice from within historical
materialism. Marx claims that juridical institutions are part of the
superstructure, and that ideas of justice are
ideological. Accordingly, the role of both the superstructure and
ideology, in the functionalist reading of historical materialism
adopted here, is to stabilise the economic structure. Consequently, to
state that something is just under capitalism is simply a judgement
that it will tend to have the effect of advancing capitalism.
According to Marx, in any society the ruling ideas are those of the
ruling class; the core of the theory of ideology.



Ziyad Husami (1978) however, argues that Wood is mistaken,
ignoring the fact that for Marx ideas undergo a double determination.
We need to differentiate not just by economic system, but also by
economic class within the system. Therefore the ideas of the
non-ruling class may be very different from those of the ruling class.
Of course, it is the ideas of the ruling class that receive attention
and implementation, but this does not mean that other ideas do not
exist. Husami goes as far as to argue that members of the proletariat
under capitalism have an account of justice that matches communism.
From this privileged standpoint of the proletariat, which is also
Marx's standpoint, capitalism is unjust, and so it follows that
Marx thought capitalism unjust.



Plausible though it may sound, Husami's argument fails to
account for two related points. First, it cannot explain why Marx
never explicitly described capitalism as unjust, and second, it
overlooks the distance Marx wanted to place between his own scientific
socialism, and that of other socialists who argued for the injustice
of capitalism. Hence one cannot avoid the conclusion that the
"official" view of Marx is that capitalism is not
unjust.



Nevertheless, this leaves us with a puzzle. Much of Marx's
description of capitalism--his use of the words
"embezzlement", "robbery" and
"exploitation"--belie the official account. Arguably,
the only satisfactory way of understanding this issue is, once more,
from G.A. Cohen, who proposes that Marx believed that capitalism was
unjust, but did not believe that he believed it was unjust (Cohen
1983). In other words, Marx, like so many of us, did not have perfect
knowledge of his own mind. In his explicit reflections on the justice
of capitalism he was able to maintain his official view. But in less
guarded moments his real view slips out, even if never in explicit
language. Such an interpretation is bound to be controversial, but it
makes good sense of the texts.



Whatever one concludes on the question of whether Marx thought
capitalism unjust, it is, nevertheless, obvious that Marx thought that
capitalism was not the best way for human beings to live. Points made
in his early writings remain present throughout his writings, if no
longer connected to an explicit theory of alienation. The worker finds
work a torment, suffers poverty, overwork and lack of fulfilment and
freedom. People do not relate to each other as humans should. Does
this amount to a moral criticism of capitalism or not? In the absence
of any special reason to argue otherwise, it simply seems obvious that
Marx's critique is a moral one. Capitalism impedes human
flourishing. It is hard to disagree with the judgement that Marx



> 
> 
> thinks that the capitalist exploitation of labor power is a wrong that
> has horrendous consequences for the laborers. (Roberts 2017: 129)
> 
> 
> 



Marx, though, once more refrained from making this explicit; he seemed
to show no interest in locating his criticism of capitalism in any of
the traditions of moral philosophy, or explaining how he was
generating a new tradition. There may have been two reasons for his
caution. The first was that while there were bad things about
capitalism, there is, from a world historical point of view, much good
about it too. For without capitalism, communism would not be possible.
Capitalism is to be transcended, not abolished, and this may be
difficult to convey in the terms of moral philosophy.



Second, and perhaps more importantly, we need to return to the
contrast between Marxian and other forms of socialism. Many
non-Marxian socialists appealed to universal ideas of truth and
justice to defend their proposed schemes, and their theory of
transition was based on the idea that appealing to moral sensibilities
would be the best, perhaps only, way of bringing about the new chosen
society. Marx wanted to distance himself from these other socialist
traditions, and a key point of distinction was to argue that the route
to understanding the possibilities of human emancipation lay in the
analysis of historical and social forces, not in morality. Hence, for
Marx, any appeal to morality was theoretically a backward step.


### 5.3 Communism and "Justice"



This leads us now to Marx's assessment of communism. Would
communism be a just society? In considering Marx's attitude to
communism and justice there are really only two viable possibilities:
either he thought that communism would be a just society or he thought
that the concept of justice would not apply: that communism would
transcend justice.



Communism is described by Marx, in the *Critique of the Gotha
Programme*, as a society in which each person should contribute
according to their ability and receive according to their need. This
certainly sounds like a theory of justice, and could be adopted as
such (Gilabert 2015). However, many will hold that it is truer to
Marx's thought to say that this is part of an account in which
communism transcends justice, as Lukes has argued (Lukes 1987).



If we start with the idea that the point of ideas of justice is to
resolve disputes, then a society without disputes would have no need
or place for justice. We can see this by reflecting upon the idea of
the circumstances of justice in the work of David Hume
(1711-1776). Hume argued that if there was enormous material
abundance--if everyone could have whatever they wanted without
invading another's share--we would never have devised rules
of justice. And, of course, there are suggestions in Marx's
writings that communism would be a society of such abundance. But Hume
also suggested that justice would not be needed in other
circumstances; if there were complete fellow-feeling between all human
beings, there would be no conflict and no need for justice. Of course,
one can argue whether either material abundance or human
fellow-feeling to this degree would be possible, but the point is that
both arguments give a clear sense in which communism transcends
justice.



Nevertheless, we remain with the question of whether Marx thought that
communism could be commended on other moral grounds. On a broad
understanding, in which morality, or perhaps better to say ethics, is
concerned with the idea of living well, it seems that communism can be
assessed favourably in this light. One compelling argument is that
Marx's career simply makes no sense unless we can attribute such
a belief to him. But beyond this we can be brief in that the
considerations adduced in
 Section 2
 above apply again. Communism clearly advances human flourishing, in
Marx's view. The only reason for denying that, in Marx's
vision, it would amount to a good society is a theoretical antipathy
to the word "good". And here the main point is that, in
Marx's view, communism would not be brought about by high-minded
benefactors of humanity. Quite possibly his determination to retain
this point of difference between himself and other socialists led him
to disparage the importance of morality to a degree that goes beyond
the call of theoretical necessity.


## 6. Ideology


### 6.1 A Critical Account



The account of ideology contained in Marx's writings is
regularly portrayed as a crucial element of his intellectual legacy.
It has been identified as among his "most influential"
ideas (Elster 1986: 168), and acclaimed as "the most
fertile" part of his social and political theory (Leiter 2004:
84). Not least, these views on ideology are said to constitute
Marx's claim to a place--alongside Friedrich Nietzsche
(1844-1900) and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)--as one of
the "masters of suspicion"; that is, as an author whose
work casts doubt on the transparency of our everyday understandings of
both our own identity and the social world we inhabit (Ricouer 1970:
32-33).



Given this enthusiastic reception, it can come as something of a
surprise to turn to Marx's writings and discover how little they
contain about ideology, and how inchoate and opaque those infrequent
and passing observations on that topic are. There are, of course, some
famous quotations, not least from *The German Ideology*
manuscripts. The references there to ideology as involving an
"inversion" of the relation between individuals and their
circumstances, perhaps analogous to the workings of a "camera
obscura"--an optical device which projected an image of its
surroundings, upside down but preserving perspective, onto a screen
inside--have often mesmerised commentators but not always
generated much genuine illumination (*MECW* 5: 36). The point
should not be exaggerated, but these striking images notwithstanding,
there is no clear and sustained discussion of ideology in the Marxian
corpus.



Many commentators maintain that the search for a single model of
ideology in his work has to be given up. Indeed, there is something of
an "arms race" in the literature, as commentators discover
two, three, even five, competing models of ideology in Marx's
writings (Mepham 1979; Wood 1981 [2004]; Rosen 1996). Most
surprisingly, it seems that some licence can be found in Marx's
corpus for three very different ways of thinking about what ideology
is. There is textual evidence of his variously utilising: a
"descriptive" account of ideology involving a broadly
anthropological study of the beliefs and rituals characteristic of
certain groups; a "positive" account of ideology as a
"worldview" providing the members of a group with a sense
of meaning and identity; and a "critical" account seeking
to liberate individuals from certain false and misleading forms of
understanding (Geuss 1981: 4-26).



It is the last of these--the critical account rather than either
of the two "non-critical" accounts--which is central
to his wider social and political theory, but this account is itself
subject to some considerable interpretative disagreement. Marx's
theory of ideology is usually portrayed as an element in what might be
called Marx's sociology, as distinct from his philosophical
anthropology say, or his theory of history (although complexly related
to the latter).


### 6.2 Ideology and Stability



Marx does not view ideology as a feature of all societies, and, in
particular, suggests that it will not be a feature of a future
communist society. However, ideology is portrayed as a feature of all
class-divided societies, and not only of capitalist
society--although many of Marx's comments on ideology are
concerned with the latter. The theory of ideology appears to play a
role in explaining a feature of class-divided societies which might
otherwise appear puzzling, namely what might be called their
"stability"; that is, the absence of overt and serious
conflict between social classes. This stability is not permanent, but
it can last for extended historical periods. This stability appears
puzzling to Marx because class-divided societies are flawed in ways
which not only frustrate human flourishing, but also work to the
material advantage of the ruling minority. Why do the subordinate
classes, who form a majority, tolerate these flaws, when resistance
and rebellion of various kinds might be in their objective
interests?



Marx's account of the sources of social stability in
class-divided societies appeals to both repressive and non-repressive
mechanisms. Such societies might often involve the direct repression
(or the threat of it) of one group by another, but Marx does not think
that this is the whole story. There are also non-repressive sources of
social stability, and ideology is usually, and plausibly, considered
one of these. Very roughly, Marx's account of ideology claims
that the dominant social ideas in such societies are typically false
or misleading in a fashion that works to the advantage of the
economically dominant class.



We should note that ideology would seem to be a part and not the whole
of Marx's account of the non-repressive sources of stability in
class divided societies. Other factors might include: dull economic
pressure, including the daily grind of having to earn a living;
doubts--justified or otherwise--about the feasibility of
alternatives; sensitivity to the possible costs of radical social
change; and collective action problems of various kinds which face
those who do want to rebel and resist. Marx does not think individuals
are permanently trapped within ideological modes of thinking. Ideology
may have an initial hold, but it is not portrayed as impervious to
reason and evidence, especially in circumstances in which the
objective conditions for social change obtain.


### 6.3 Characteristics



For Marx ideological beliefs are social in that they are widely
shared, indeed so widely-shared that for long periods they constitute
the "ruling" or "dominant" ideas in a given
class-divided society (*MECW* 5: 59). And they are social in
that they directly concern, or indirectly impact upon, the
action-guiding understandings of self and society that individuals
have. These action-guiding understandings include the dominant legal,
political, religious, and philosophical views within particular
class-divided societies in periods of stability (MECW 29: 263).



Not all false or misleading beliefs count for Marx as ideological.
Honest scientific error, for example can be non-ideological. And
ideological belief can be misleading without being strictly false. For
example, defenders of the capitalist economy portray what Marx calls
the "wage form", with its exchange of equivalents, as the
whole (rather than a part) of the story about the relation between
capital and labour, thereby ignoring the exploitation which occurs in
the sphere of production. Indeed, the notion of the
"falsity" of ideology needs to be expanded beyond the
content of the "ideas" in question, to include cases where
their origins are in some way contaminated (Geuss 1981: 19-22).
Perhaps the only reason I believe something to be the case is that the
belief in question has a consoling effect on me. Arguably such a
belief is held ideologically, even if it happens to be true.
Nevertheless paradigmatic examples of ideology have a false content.
For example, ideology often portrays institutions, policies, and
decisions which are in the interests of the economically dominant
class, as being in the interests of the society as a whole
(*MECW* 5: 60); and ideology often portrays social and
political arrangements which are contingent, or historical, or
artificial, as being necessary, or universal, or natural
(*MECW* 35: 605).



In addition to false or misleading content, ideological beliefs
typically have at least two additional characteristics, relating to
their social origin and their class function. By the "social
origin" of ideology is meant that Marx thinks of these ideas as
often originating with, and being reinforced by, the complex structure
of class-divided societies--a complex structure in which a
deceptive surface appearance is governed by underlying essential
relations (Geras 1986: 63-84). Capitalism is seen as especially
deceptive in appearance; for example, Marx often contrasts the
relative transparency of "exploitation" under feudalism,
with the way in which the "wage form" obscures the ratio
of necessary and surplus labour in capitalist societies. Ideology
stems, in part, from this deceptive surface appearance which makes it
difficult to grasp the underlying social flaws that benefit the
economically dominant class. Marx portrays the striving to uncover
essences concealed by misleading appearances as characteristic of
scientific endeavour (*MECW* 37, 804). And, in this context, he
distinguishes between classical political economy, which
strove--albeit not always successfully--to uncover the
essential relations often concealed behind misleading appearances, and
what he calls vulgar economy, which happily restricts itself to the
misleading appearances themselves (*MECW* 37, 804).



By the "class function" of ideology is meant that Marx
holds that the pervasiveness of ideology is explained by the fact it
helps stabilise the economic structure of societies. All sorts of
ideas might get generated for all sorts of reasons, but the ones that
tend to "stick" (become widely accepted) in class-divided
societies do so, not because of their truth, but because they conceal
or misrepresent or justify flaws in that society in ways which redound
to the benefit of the economically dominant class (Rosen & Wolff
1996: 235-236).



In response critics often see this as just another example of sloppy
functional reasoning--purportedly widespread in the Marxist
tradition--whereby a general pattern is asserted without the
identification of any of the mechanisms which might generate that
pattern. In the present case, it is said that Marx never properly
explains why the ruling ideas should be those of the ruling class
(Elster 1985: 473). Yet there are obvious possible mechanisms here. To
give two examples. First, there is the control of the ruling class
over the means of mental production, and in particular the print and
broadcast media which in capitalist societies are typically owned and
controlled by the very wealthy (*MECW* 5, 59). A second
possible mechanism appeals to the psychological need of individuals
for invented narratives that legitimise or justify their social
position; for instance, Marx identifies a widespread need, in flawed
societies, for the consolatory effects of religion (*MECW* 3,
175).


## 7. State and Politics



This broad heading--the state and politics--could cover very
many different issues. To make the present account manageable, only
two are addressed here: Marx's account of the state in
capitalist society; and Marx's account of the fate of the state
in communist society. (Consequently, many other important political
issues--the nature of pre-capitalist states, relations between
states, the political transition to communism, and so on--are not
dealt with.)


### 7.1 The State in Capitalist Society



Marx offers no unified theoretical account of the state in capitalist
society. Instead his remarks on this topic are scattered across the
course of his activist life, and deeply embedded in discussions of
contemporary events, events which most modern readers will know very
little about. Providing some initial order to that complexity, Jon
Elster helpfully identifies three different models in Marx's
writings of the relationship, in capitalist society, between the
political state, on the one hand, and the economically dominant class,
on the other. (The next three paragraphs draw heavily on Elster 1985:
409-437.)



First, the "instrumental" model portrays the state as
simply a tool, directly controlled by the economically dominant class,
in its own interests, at the expense of the interests both of other
classes and of the community as a whole. Marx is usually said to
endorse the instrumental account in the *Communist Manifesto*,
where he and Engels insist that "the executive of the modern
state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole
bourgeoisie" (*MECW* 6: 486). On this account, the state
might also act against the short term, or the factional, interests of
particular capitalists. The picture here is of the state as an
instrument directed--presumably by a subset of capitalists or
their representatives--in ways which promote the long term
interests of the bourgeoisie as a whole. The precise mechanisms which
might facilitate that result are not clear in Marx's
writings.



Second, the "class balance" model portrays the state as
having interests of its own, with capitalist interests as merely one
of the strategic limits on its pursuit of these. This model gets its
name from the exceptional social circumstances said to explain the
independence of the state in this case. In situations where the social
power of the two warring classes of contemporary
society--capitalists and workers--are very nearly balanced,
the political state (and especially the executive) can gain
independence from both, exploiting that conflict in order to promote
its own interests (the interests of the political caste). Something
like this picture appears in Marx's discussions of the continued
existence of certain absolutist states after the revolutions of 1848,
and of the Bonapartist state established in France by the coup of
Napoleon III in December 1851. The state now competes with capitalists
and proletarians (and is not merely the tool of the former), and by
"promising each of the major classes to protect it against the
other, the government can rule autonomously" (Elster 1985: 425).
On this account, the state has interests of its own, but presumably
only gets to pursue them if those promises to others are plausible,
finding some reflection in its policies and behaviour. Capitalist
interests accordingly remain a political constraint, but they are now
only one of the factors constraining the state's actions rather
than constituting its primary goal.



Third, the "abdication" model presents the bourgeoisie as
staying away from the direct exercise of political power, but doing
this because it is in their economic interests to do so. As Elster
notes, strictly speaking, "abdication" here covers two
slightly different cases--first, where the bourgeoisie
*abdicate* from the political power that they initially
controlled (relevant to France); and, second, where the bourgeoisie
*abstain* from taking political power in the first place
(relevant to Britain and Germany)--but they can be treated
together. In both cases, Marx identifies a situation where "in
order to save its purse, [the bourgeoisie] must forfeit the
crown" (*MECW* 11: 143). Where the instrumental picture
claims that the state acts in the interests of the capitalist class
*because* it is directly controlled by the latter, the
abdication picture advances an *explanatory connection* between
the promotion of bourgeois interests and the retreat from the direct
exercise of power. Circumstances obtain where "the political
rule of the bourgeoisie" turns out to be
"incompatible" with its continued economic flourishing,
and the bourgeoisie seeks "to get rid of its own political rule
in order to get rid of the troubles and dangers of ruling"
(*MECW* 11: 173). There are several possible explanations of
why the bourgeoisie might remain outside of politics in order to
promote their own interests. To give three examples: the bourgeoisie
might recognise that their own characteristic short-termism could be
fatal to their own interests if they exercised direct political as
well as economic power; the bourgeoisie might find political rule
sufficiently time and effort consuming to withdraw from it,
discovering that the economic benefits kept on coming regardless; or
the bourgeoisie might appreciate that abdication weakened their class
opponents, forcing the proletariat to fight on two fronts (against
capital and government) and thereby making it less able to win those
struggles.



There are many questions one might have about these three models.



First, one might wonder which of these three models best embodies
Marx's considered view? The instrumental account is the earliest
account, which he largely abandons from the early 1850s, presumably
noticing how poorly it captured contemporary political
realities--in particular, the stable existence of states which
were not directly run by the capitalist class, but which still in some
way served their interests. That outcome is possible under either of
the two other accounts. However, Marx seems to have thought of the
class balance model as a temporary solution in exceptional
circumstances, and perhaps held that it failed to allow the stable
explanatory connection that he sought between the extant political
arrangements and the promotion of dominant economic interests. In
short, for better or worse, Marx's considered view looks closer
to the abdication account, reflecting his conviction that the central
features of political life are explained by the existing economic
structure.



Second, one might wonder which model allows greatest
"autonomy" to the political state? A weak definition of
state autonomy might portray the state as autonomous when it is
independent of direct control by the economically dominant class. On
this definition, both the class balance and abdication
models--but not the instrumental account--seem to provide
for autonomy. A stronger definition of state autonomy might require
what Elster calls "explanatory autonomy", which exists



> 
> 
> when (and to the extent that) its structure and policies cannot be
> explained by the interest of an economically dominant class. (Elster
> 1985: 405)
> 
> 
> 



Only the class balance view seems to allow significant explanatory
autonomy. In his preferred abdication account, Marx allows that the
state in capitalist society is independent of direct capitalist
control, but goes on to claim that its main structures (including that
very independence) and policies are ultimately explained by the
interests of the capitalist class.


### 7.2. The Fate of the State in Communist Society



For reasons discussed below (see
 Section 8),
 Marx declines to say much about the basic structure of a future
communist society. However, in the case of the fate of the state, that
reluctance is partially mitigated by his view that the institutional
arrangements of the Paris Commune prefigured the political dimensions
of communist society.



Marx's views on the nature and fate of the state in communist
society are to be distinguished from his infrequent, and subsequently
notorious, use of the term "the dictatorship of the
proletariat". (On the infrequency, context, and content, of
these uses see Draper 1986 and Hunt 1974.) The idea of
"dictatorship" in this historical context has the
(ancient) connotation of emergency rule rather than the (modern)
connotation of totalitarianism. Marx's use makes it clear that
any such temporary government should be democratic; for instance, in
having majority support, and in preserving democratic rights (of
speech, association, and so on). However, it is by definition
"extra-legal" in that it seeks to establish a new regime
and not to preserve an old one. So understood, the dictatorship of the
proletariat forms part of the political transition to communist
society (a topic not covered here), rather than part of the
institutional structure of communist society itself. The
"dictatorial"--that is, the temporary and
extra-legal--character of this regime ends with establishment of
a new and stable polity, and it is the latter which is discussed here
(Hunt 1974: 297).



The character of the state in communist society consists, in part, of
its form (its institutional arrangements) and its function (the tasks
that it undertakes).



Some sense of the *form* of the state in communist society can
be gained from Marx's engagement with the Paris Commune. His
preferred future political arrangements involve a high degree of
participation, and the radical "de-professionalisation" of
certain public offices. First, Marx is enthusiastic about regular
elections, universal suffrage, *mandat imperatif*,
recall, open executive proceedings, decentralisation, and so on.
Second, he objects to public offices (in the legislature, executive,
and judiciary) being the spoils of a political caste, and sought to
make them working positions, remunerated at the average worker's
wage, and regularly circulating (through election). This combination
of arrangements has been characterised as "democracy without
professionals" (Hunt 1974: 365). Marx saw it as reflecting his
view that:



> 
> 
> Freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed
> upon society into one completely subordinate to it. (*MECW* 24:
> 94)
> 
> 
> 



Some sense of the *function* of the state in communist society
can be gained from Marx's distinction between
"necessary" tasks that a state would need to undertake in
all societies (at least, economically developed societies), and
"unnecessary" tasks that a state would only need to
undertake in class-divided societies. The difficulty here is less in
allowing this distinction, than in deciding what might fall into each
category. On the necessary side, Marx appears to require that the
state in communist society provide both: democratic solutions to
coordination problems (deciding which side of the road traffic should
drive on, for instance); and the supply of public goods (health,
welfare, education, and so on). On the unnecessary side, Marx seems to
think that a communist society might hugely reduce, or even eliminate,
the element of organised coercion found in most states (in the form of
standing armies, police forces, and so on). At least, this reduction
might be feasible once communist society had reached its higher stage
(where distribution is based on "the needs principle"),
and there is no longer a threat from non-communist societies.



Again, there are many reservations that one might have about this
account.



First, many will be sceptical about its feasibility, and perhaps
especially of the purported reduction, still less elimination, of
state coercion. That scepticism might be motivated by the thought that
this would only be possible if communist society were characterised by
widespread social and political consensus, and that such consensus is,
both unlikely (at least, in modern societies), and undesirable
(diversity and disagreement having a value). However, the reduction,
or even elimination, of state coercion might be compatible with
certain forms of continuing disagreement about the ends and means of
communist society. Imagine that a democratic communist polity
introduces a new law prohibiting smoking in public places, and that a
representative smoker (call her Anne) obeys that law despite being
among the minority who wanted this practice permitted. Anne's
motivation for obedience, we can stipulate, is grounded, not in fear
of the likely response of bodies of armed persons enforcing the law,
but rather in respect for the democratic majority of the community of
which she is a part. In short, reasonably strong assumptions about the
democratic commitments of individuals might allow the scaling down of
organised coercion without having to presume universal agreement
amongst citizens on all issues.



Second, some might object to the reference, throughout this section,
to the "state" in communist society. It might be said that
a polity whose form and functions are so radically
transformed--the form by democratic participation and
de-professionalisation, the function by eliminating historically
unnecessary tasks--is insufficiently "state-like" to
be called a state. That is certainly possible, but the terminological
claim would appear to assume that there is greater clarity and
agreement about just what a state is, either than is presupposed here
or than exists in the world. Given that lack of consensus,
"state" seems a suitably prudent choice. As well as being
consistent with some of Marx's usage, it avoids prejudging this
very issue. However, anyone unmoved by those considerations can simply
replace "state", in this context, with their own preferred
alternative.


## 8. Utopianism


### 8.1 Utopian Socialism



It is well-known that Marx never provided a detailed account of the
basic structure of the future communist society that he predicted.
This was not simply an omission on his part, but rather reflects his
deliberate commitment, as he colloquially has it, to refrain from
writing "recipes" for the "restaurants" of the
future (*MECW* 35: 17, translation amended).



The reasoning that underpins this commitment can be reconstructed from
Marx's engagement with the radical political tradition that he
called "utopian socialism", and whose founding triumvirate
were Charles Fourier (1772-1837), Henri Saint-Simon
(1760-1825), and Robert Owen (1771-1858). Note that the
distinction between Marxian socialism and utopian socialism is not an
exhaustive one. Marx happily allows that there are socialists who are
neither Marxian nor Utopian; for example, the "feudal
socialists" discussed in the *Communist Manifesto*.



What distinguishes utopian from other socialists is, in large part,
their view that providing persuasive *constructive* plans and
blueprints of future socialist arrangements is a legitimate and
necessary activity. (The expression "plans and blueprints"
is used here to capture the necessary *detail* of these
descriptions, and not to suggest that these designs have to be thought
of as "stipulative", as having to be followed to the
letter.) On the utopian account, the socialist future needs to be
designed before it can be delivered; the plans and blueprints being
intended to guide and motivate socialists in their transformative
ambitions. Of course, that Marx is not *in this sense* utopian
does not rule out the possibility of additional (here unspecified)
senses in which he might accurately be so described.



Marx's account of utopian socialism might appear contradictory.
It is certainly easy to find not only passages fiercely criticising
utopian authors and texts, but also passages generously praising them.
However, that criticism and that praise turn out to attach to slightly
different targets, revealing an underlying and consistent structure to
his account.



That underlying structure rests on two main distinctions. The first
distinction is a *chronological* one running between the
founding triumvirate, on the one hand, and second and subsequent
generations of utopian socialists, on the other. (These later
generations including both loyal followers of the founding
triumvirate, and independent later figures such as Etienne
Cabet (1788-1856)). The second distinction is a
*substantive* one running between the critical part of utopian
writings (the portrayal of faults within contemporary capitalist
society), on the one hand, and the constructive part of utopian
writings (the detailed description of the ideal socialist future), on
the other.



Note that these distinctions underpin the asymmetry of Marx's
assessment of utopian socialism. Simply put: he is more enthusiastic
and positive about the achievements of the first generation of
utopians, by comparison with those of second and subsequent
generations; and he is more enthusiastic and positive about the
utopians' criticism of contemporary society, by comparison with
the utopians' constructive endeavours.


### 8.2 Marx's Utopophobia



The remainder of this section will focus on Marx's disapproval
of the constructive endeavours of the utopians.



In trying to organise and understand Marx's various criticisms
of utopianism, it is helpful to distinguish between foundational and
non-foundational variants. (This distinction is intended to be
exhaustive, in that all of his criticisms of utopianism will fall into
one of these two categories.) *Non-foundational* criticisms of
utopian socialism are those which, if sound, would provide us with a
reason to reject views which might be held by, or even be
characteristic of, utopian socialists, but which are not constitutive
of their utopianism. That is, they would give us a reason to abandon
the relevant beliefs, or to criticise those (including utopians) who
held them, but they would not give us cause to reject utopianism as
such. In contrast, *foundational* criticisms of utopian
socialism are those which, if sound, would provide us with a reason to
reject utopianism as such; that is, a reason to refrain from engaging
in socialist design, a reason not to describe in relevant detail the
socialist society of the future. (Of course, that reason might not be
decisive, all things considered, but it would still count against
utopianism per se.)



Many of Marx's best-known criticisms of utopian socialism are
non-foundational. For instance, in the *Communist Manifesto*,
he complains that utopian socialists hold a mistaken
"ahistorical" view of social change. The utopians
purportedly fail to understand that the achievement of socialism
depends on conditions which can only emerge at a certain stage of
historical development. They might, for instance, recognise that there
are strategic preconditions for socialism (for instance, the right
blueprint and sufficient will to put it into practice), but
(mistakenly on Marx's account) imagine that those preconditions
could have appeared at any point in time. This complaint is
non-foundational in that one can accept that there are historical
conditions for establishing a socialist society, and that the utopian
socialists fail to understand this, without thereby having a reason to
abandon utopianism as such. A commitment to the necessity and
desirability of socialist design does not require one to hold an
"ahistorical" view of social change.



Assessing the soundness of non-foundational criticisms, and their
relevance to the utopian socialist tradition, is a complicated task
(see Leopold 2018). However, even if sound and relevant, these
criticisms would provide no reason to abandon utopianism *as
such*. Consequently, they are pursued no further here. Instead,
the focus is on the three main foundational arguments against
utopianism that can be located in Marx's writings; namely, that
utopian plans and blueprints are *necessarily* undemocratic,
impossible, and redundant (see Leopold 2016).



Marx's first argument involves a *normative* claim that
utopian plans and blueprints are *undemocratic*.
("Democracy" here connoting individual and collective
self-determination, rather than political forms of governance.) The
basic argument runs: that it is undemocratic to limit the
self-determination of individuals; that providing a plan or blueprint
for a socialist society limits the self-determination of individuals;
and that therefore the provision of plans and blueprints for a
socialist society is undemocratic. If we add in the assumption that
undemocratic means are undesirable; then we can conclude that it is
undesirable to provide plans or blueprints of a future socialist
society. One central reason for resisting this argument is that it is
hard to identify a plausible account of the conditions for
self-determination, according to which it is necessarily true that
merely providing a socialist plan or blueprint restricts
self-determination. Indeed, one might heretically think that detailed
plans and blueprints often tend to promote self-determination, helping
individuals think about where it is they want to go, and how they want
to get there.



Marx's second argument rests on an *epistemological*
claim that that utopian plans and blueprints are *impossible*,
because they require accurate knowledge of the future of a kind which
cannot be had. The basic argument starts from the assumption that to
be of any use a blueprint must facilitate the construction of a future
socialist society. Moreover, to facilitate the construction of a
future socialist society a blueprint must be completely accurate; and
to be completely accurate a blueprint must predict all the relevant
circumstances of that future society. However, since it is not
possible--given the complexity of the social world and the
limitations of human nature--to predict all the relevant
circumstances of that future society, we can conclude that socialist
blueprints are of no use. One central reason for resisting this
argument is that, whilst it is hard to deny that completely accurate
plans are impossible (given the complexity of the world and the
limitations of human understanding), the claim that only completely
accurate plans are useful seems doubtful. Plans are not simply
predictions, and providing less than wholly accurate plans for
ourselves often forms part of the process whereby we help determine
the future for ourselves (insofar as that is possible).



Marx's third argument depends on an *empirical* claim
that utopian plans and blueprints are *unnecessary*, because
satisfactory solutions to social problems emerge automatically from
the unfolding of the historical process without themselves needing to
be designed. The basic argument runs as follows: that utopian
blueprints describe the basic structure of the socialist society of
the future; and that such blueprints are necessary if and only if the
basic structure of future socialist society needs to be designed.
However, given that the basic structure of the future socialist
society develops automatically (without design assistance) within
capitalist society; and that the role of human agency in this
unfolding historical process is to deliver (not design) that basic
structure, Marx concludes that utopian blueprints are redundant.
Reasons for resisting this argument include scepticism about both
Marx's reasoning and the empirical record. Marx is certain that
humankind does not need to design the basic structure of the future
socialist society, but it is not really made clear who or what does
that designing in its place. Moreover, the path of historical
development since Marx's day does not obviously confirm the
complex empirical claim that the basic structure of socialist society
is developing automatically within existing capitalism, needing only
to be delivered (and not designed) by human agency.



This brief discussion suggests that there are cogent grounds for
doubting Marx's claim that utopian plans and blueprints are
*necessarily* undemocratic, impossible, and redundant.



Finally, recall that Marx is less enthusiastic about the second and
subsequent generations of utopians, than he is about the original
triumvirate. We might reasonably wonder about the rationale for
greater criticism of later utopians. It is important to recognise that
it is not that second and subsequent generations make more or grosser
errors than the original triumvirate. (Indeed, Marx appears to think
that all these different generations largely held the same views, and
made the same mistakes). The relevant difference is rather that, by
comparison with their successors, this first generation were not to
blame for those errors. In short, the rationale behind Marx's
preference for the first over the second and subsequent generations of
utopian socialists is based on an understanding of historical
development and an associated notion of *culpability*.



Marx held that the intellectual formation of this first generation
took place in a historical context (the cusp of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries) which was sufficiently developed to provoke
socialist criticism, but not sufficiently developed for that socialist
criticism to escape serious misunderstandings (Cohen 2000: 51). Since
neither the material conditions of modern society, nor the historical
agent capable of bringing socialism about, were sufficiently
developed, this first generation were bound to develop faulty accounts
of the nature of, and transition to, socialism. However, that
defence--the historical unavoidability of error--is not
available to subsequent generations who, despite significantly changed
circumstances, hold fast to the original views of their intellectual
forerunners. Marx maintains that more recent utopians, unlike the
original triumvirate, really ought to know better.


## 9. Marx's Legacy



At this point, we might be expected briefly to survey Marx's
legacy.



That legacy is often elaborated in terms of movements and thinkers.
However, so understood, the controversy and scale of that legacy make
brevity impossible, and this entry is already long enough. All we can
do here is gesture at the history and mention some further
reading.



The chronology here might provisionally be divided into three
historical periods: from Marx's death until the Russia
Revolution (1917); from the Russian Revolution to the fall of the
Berlin Wall (1989); and since 1989. It seems hard to say much that is
certain about the last of these periods, but some generalisations
about the first two might be hazarded.



That first period of "Classical Marxism" can be thought of
in two generational waves. The first smaller group of theorists was
associated with the Second International, and includes Karl Kautsky
(1854-1938) and Plekhanov. The succeeding more activist
generation includes Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), V.I. Lenin
(1870-1924) and Leon Trotsky (1879-1940).



The second period is perhaps dominated by "Soviet Marxism"
and the critical reaction from other Marxists that it provoked. The
repressive bureaucratic regimes which solidified in the Soviet Union
and Eastern Europe repressed independent theoretical work, including
scholarly editorial work on the writings of Marx and Engels. However,
they also provoked a critical reaction in the form of a body of
thought often called "Western Marxism", usually said to
include the work of Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), Theodor Adorno
(1903-1969), and Althusser. The later parts of this period saw
the continuing development of "Critical Theory", as well
as the birth of currents such as "Analytical Marxism"
whose longer term impact is uncertain.



These first two periods are both partly covered by the Polish
philosopher and historian of ideas, Leszek Kolakowski, in the
final two volumes of his encyclopaedic three volume *Main Currents
of Marxism* (1976 [1978]). A succinct critical account of the
emergence and distinctive character of Western Marxism is provided by
Perry Anderson in his *Considerations on Western Marxism*
(1976). And some of the more philosophically interesting authors in
this latter tradition are also covered elsewhere in this Encyclopaedia
(see the
 Related Entries
 section below). Finally, and edging a little into the third of these
historical periods, Christoph Henning offers an account of the (mis)
readings of Marx--especially those replacing social theory with
moral philosophy--in German philosophy from Heidegger to Habermas
and beyond, in his *Philosophy After Marx* (2014).



However, we might also think of Marx's legacy, less in terms of
thinkers and movements, and more in terms of reasons for wanting to
study Marx's ideas. In that context, we would stress that this
is not simply a question of the truth of his various substantive
claims. The work of philosophers is, of course, also valued for the
originality, insight, potential, and so on, that it may also contain.
And, so judged, Marx's writings have much to offer.



The various strands of Marx's thought surveyed here include his
philosophical anthropology, his theory of history, his critical
engagement with the economic and political dimensions of capitalism,
and a frustratingly vague outline of what might replace it. Whatever
the connections between these threads, it seems implausible to suggest
that Marx's ideas form a system which has to be swallowed or
rejected in its entirety. It might, for instance, be that Marx's
diagnosis looks more persuasive than his remedies. Readers may have
little confidence in his solutions, but that does not mean that the
problems he identifies are not acute.