Marx’s Philosophy: A Critical Analysis of His Ideas
As Lenin said, “Marxism is the natural successor model best humanity created in the nineteenth century from German philosophy, English political economy, and French socialism.” Marx, a revolutionary, profoundly transformed the sources that inspired him. His thinking was in constant evolution and transformation because it was never purely “theoretical,” but continually joined activity theory and revolutionary practice. As Marx himself noted, philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, but the point is to change it (Theses on Feuerbach).
Between Plato and Marx, there are similarities in conceiving the human person. Both disagreed with their time’s social organization and aspired to an ideal society where injustices disappear, with no poor or rich, where human beings can be happy. Similarities exist between Plato’s Republic and Marx’s communist society. However, Plato’s abolition of private property applied only to the upper classes, while Marx intended the disappearance of private ownership of the means of production. Also, both rejected democracy.
Among their differences: Marx’s materialist monism. The human being is a body, and his intellectual faculties are not merely the result of organic development. For Plato, the human being consists of body and soul; the body is a hindrance to the soul. For Plato, the world is divided into two; for Marx, there is only the material world. Plato believed the human being is guided by reason, while Marx believed that in every class society, human beings are governed by economic interests. Plato believed in the harmony of social classes; Marx stressed class struggle as the motor of history, seeking to overcome it through the establishment of a communist society.
With Aristotle, common ground revolves around considering the human being as exclusively terrestrial. For both, the human being is a social being by nature. Differences arise in understanding justice. Aristotle considered it the natural way of regulating relations between humans and the main virtue. Marx, however, saw it as an ideological superstructure and therefore alienated, an institution serving the ruling class. Regarding the meaning of life, Aristotle believed every human being tends by nature to happiness. However, according to Marx, the social situation leads to class struggle. Aristotle believed society should be governed by a just political system, while Marx aimed to overcome any political regime except communism, which he considered the only fair political system.
With Kant, Marx rejected his vision of reason and the human being because, for Marx, the reason for illustration is part of that era’s superstructure. Marx also rejected Kant’s approach supporting the existence of God and the immortality of the soul and freedom as the basic tenets of ethics.
Marx drew on the philosophy of Hegel and the Hegelian left. Hegel provided the formulation of the concept of dialectics and alienation, although the contents of both Marxist concepts differ significantly. Marx also disagreed with Feuerbach‘s concept of alienation. Feuerbach focused on religious alienation, while for Marx, alienation occurs within capitalist society.
Marx’s thought and work exerted a decisive influence on the history of economic thought and policy. After several world conflicts led to the spread of communism, dividing the world into two blocs, the vitality of Marxist theory and the depth of its analysis of the capitalist economic system and social conditions became apparent. In the sixties, authors such as Marcuse and E. Fromm carried out a synthesis between Marx’s thought and structuralism, where the figure of the French thinker L. Althusser integrated Marxism and structuralism.
Alienation: Different authors have interpreted alienation differently: Hegel, Feuerbach, and Marx. Hegel identified reality with the idea, the Spirit. This idea, dialectical and dynamic, contains contradictions that lead to alienation. Alienation is necessary for understanding and arriving at synthesis. Feuerbach inverted the terms: reality is not the idea but matter, specifically man, who needs to know himself. He proposed that man places qualities (justice, truth, goodness…) outside himself, calling this projection “God.” This produces religious alienation. Marx believed the problem of alienation should focus on the alienation of the worker in capitalist society. In principle, work should be humanizing. But under wage labor, the opposite occurs: the alienation of human beings. This alienation is fourfold:
- With respect to the product of their work: it appears to the employee as a stranger, an independent power.
- With regard to their own activities: the worker experiences the external character of labor; it is not his but another’s.
- With regard to nature: nature appears alien to the employee, as the property of another.
- With respect to other human beings: human beings are capable of working not only for themselves and their own needs but also for others and for transforming the world in favor of the “human species.”
Marx concluded that private property is the consequence of alienated labor, or even the “realization of alienation.” Marx believed that only communism could eliminate all forms of alienation and humanize human beings.