Aveling, Trans. Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow. Google Scholar. Bottomore, Trans. McGraw-Hill, New York. More T Utopia R. Adams, Trans. Van Leeuwen AT Critique of heaven. Turner D Marxism and Christianity.
Herry M Marx: a philosophy of human reality. Indiana University Press, Bloomington. Kanuf, Trans. Routledge, New York. Sibree, Trans. Download references. You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar. Correspondence to William L. Reprints and Permissions. McBride, W. Evil in the philosophy of Karl Marx. Download citation.
Received : 28 March Accepted : 16 July Published : 28 November Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:. Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Claiming the fire was part of a Communist attempt to overthrow the government, the newly named Reich Chancellor Adolf Frederick II ruled Prussia from until his death, leading his nation through multiple wars with Austria and its allies.
His daring military tactics expanded and consolidated Prussian lands, while his domestic policies transformed his kingdom into a modern state A master strategist, Bismarck initiated decisive wars with Denmark, Austria and From November 8 to November 9, , Adolf Hitler and his followers staged the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, a failed takeover of the government in Bavaria, a state in southern Germany.
Since , Hitler had led the Nazi Party, a fledgling political group that His aggressive methods targeting Eugenics is the practice or advocacy of improving the human species by selectively mating people with specific desirable hereditary traits. Che Guevara was a prominent communist figure in the Cuban Revolution who went on to become a guerrilla leader in South America.
Executed by the Bolivian army in , he has since been regarded as a martyred hero by generations of leftists worldwide. Succeeding party founder Sun Yat-sen as KMT leader in , he expelled Chinese communists from the party and led a successful unification of The Red Scare was hysteria over the perceived threat posed by Communists in the U.
Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. 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.
Would communism be a just society? 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 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 — 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. But beyond this we can be brief in that the considerations adduced in Section 2 above apply again.
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. There are, of course, some famous quotations, not least from The German Ideology manuscripts. 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. 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. 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?
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. 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. 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 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. 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 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.
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, 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, 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 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, 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, This broad heading—the state and politics—could cover very many different issues.
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. 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. The next three paragraphs draw heavily on Elster — 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.
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.
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. 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.
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.
The instrumental account is the earliest account, which he largely abandons from the early s, 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. 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. Elster 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.
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. On the infrequency, context, and content, of these uses see Draper and Hunt 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 character of the state in communist society consists, in part, of its form its institutional arrangements and its function the tasks that it undertakes.
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 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. 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.
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. 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.
It is well-known that Marx never provided a detailed account of the basic structure of the future communist society that he predicted. Note that the distinction between Marxian socialism and utopian socialism is not an exhaustive one. 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.
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. 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.
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.
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. 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.
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. Assessing the soundness of non-foundational criticisms, and their relevance to the utopian socialist tradition, is a complicated task see Leopold However, even if sound and relevant, these criticisms would provide no reason to abandon utopianism as such.
Consequently, they are pursued no further here. 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. 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.
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.
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. 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.
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 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. 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.
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. The first smaller group of theorists was associated with the Second International, and includes Karl Kautsky — and Plekhanov. The succeeding more activist generation includes Rosa Luxemburg — , V.
Lenin — and Leon Trotsky — 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. A succinct critical account of the emergence and distinctive character of Western Marxism is provided by Perry Anderson in his Considerations on Western Marxism 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 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. Readers may have little confidence in his solutions, but that does not mean that the problems he identifies are not acute. Adorno, Theodor W. Life and Writings 1. Alienation and Human Flourishing 2.
Theory of History 3. Economics 4. Morality 5. Ideology 6. State and Politics 7. The Fate of the State in Communist Society 8.
Utopianism 8. Weil [ 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. 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 30 Suppose I work eight hours to earn my wages. 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 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.
State and Politics This broad heading—the state and politics—could cover very many different issues. There are many questions one might have about these three models. Elster Only the class balance view seems to allow significant explanatory autonomy. 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.
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. Again, there are many reservations that one might have about this account.
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