Great Ideas of Philosophy

Lecture Forty-FourMarxism⎯Dead But Not ForgottenScope: Marx (1818–1883) defended a theory of economic determinism grounded in a more general theory ofdialectical materialism. The central thesis is that society does not create but is a creation of economicforces based on a given society’s forces and modes of production. The state arises simply to protect theinterests of those who command the productive forces. In capitalism, a class structure evolves, in whichworkers create value by their labor, which is expropriated as profit by the owners of the means ofproduction and accumulated as capital. The exploitation of the working class is necessary in the capitaliststate, whose overthrow can be achieved only by revolutionary means. Ultimately, there follows from aclassless state the dissolution of the state itself. The workers of the world have united!The Marxist critique of society is now more a subtext than a guiding bible of reform. What survives, apartfrom lingering ideological loyalties, is the promise of a bona fide social science capable of explaining thesocial determinants of personal identity and analyzing perceived injustices.OutlineI. It is difficult to bring a balanced, neutral perspective to bear on Karl Marx or Marxism. We associate much ofthe second half of the 20 th century, politically, with his writings and teachings. We probably pay him too muchcredit or heap too much scorn on him.A. Much of what comes down to us as Marxism is by way of Mao Tse-tung, Lenin, and Stalin. In thesecharacters, there is very little that matches the depth of Marx’s own systematic writings.B. Marx (1818–1883) was quite assiduous in declaring that he was not a philosopher.1. He considered philosophical speculation an activity that goes on because of the undeveloped nature ofsocieties. Marx posited that a successful scheme of social revolution would put an end to philosophy.2. Marx regarded himself as a social scientist making contributions chiefly to economic and socialtheory. He regarded his method and his mode of explanation as drawn from the sciences andspecifically not philosophy.3. Nonetheless, his ideas have animated philosophical discourse almost since the time they were recordedon paper. There is no doubt that, whatever Marx thought he was doing, his principal contributions willbe to that part of the history of ideas in which we find philosophy itself.C. Marx was born in Prussia to a middle-class family that claimed a long line of rabbis, though his father—topreserve his successful law practice—had converted to Protestantism.1. Karl Marx followed in his father’s footsteps, attending Bonn University’s Faculty of Law, where hemet and became engaged to a daughter of the aristocracy, Jenny von Westphalen.2. Shortly after, his studies took place at the University of Berlin, where he joined the Young Hegelians.3. At age 26, he was appointed editor of the Rheinische Zeitung and guided it quickly toward dissolutionat the hands of the Prussian authorities.4. His movements, with faithful Jenny and a growing family, were frequent, until he settled in London.He is buried in Highgate Cemetery.D. In his writings, we can feel Marx’s impatience with the standard problems of philosophy.1. His contributions as a scientist, social or otherwise, are negligible compared with their influence.3. He earns less dubiously the title of non-philosopher, because he paid rather little attention tosystematic philosophies and the abiding problems in philosophy.4. For example, the mind-body problem is surely an abiding problem in philosophy. But when Marxbriefly engaged an issue such as this, one can almost feel his impatience.5. Amidst the European revolutions of 1848, the idea of sitting around and asking a question like thatwould have struck Marx as an example of how effete thought and thinkers had become by the mid-19 thcentury.6. On the mind-body problem (in The Holy Family), he accepts Gassendi’s atomistic materialist solution,just to set the problem aside.E. Marx is a materialist, but not a Democritean or mechanistic Gassendian one. His materialism is dialectic.20©2004 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership