Marx and Engels

“The philosophers have only interpreted world in various ways; the point however is to change it” (Marx: 11th Thesis on Feuerbach).

Here, Marx does not dismiss the role of philosophy as it is commonly misconceived. In fact, the statement from ‘The Theses on Feuerbach’, points towards the Marxian shift in philosophical interpretation. For Marx philosophical problems can only be solved “by remoulding the world to resolve the contradictions inherent within it” (Singer, P. ‘Marx’ (Oxford University Press)

His revision of the Hegelian dialectic places the notion of ‘contradiction’ in a central role throughout his analysis, which proposes that history is driven by conflicts which are resolved in a dynamic process of change. However, Marx makes a radical departure from Hegelianism. In a savage attack on the idealism of his contemporaries, he rejects the “the illusions of German ideology” (Marx, K. and Engels, F ‘The German Ideology’). Importantly, the German use of the term ‘ideology’, had come to refer to “systems of ideas detached from, and out of proportion to empirical identity” (Wood A.W., Karl Marx from ‘The Oxford Companion to Philosophy’ Oxford University Press). 

In opposition to Hegel, Marx builds a conceptual method on material foundations, and philosophy on this basis takes a truly practical form. He dismissed the abstractions of Hegelian thought, pointing out that they fail to make the necessary “relation of their criticism to their own material surroundings” (German Ideology). For Marx ideology is rooted in material processes, even the illusions of idealism stem from reality. He explains, “if in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside-down as in a ‘camera obscura’, this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life process as the inversion of objects on the retina does from their physical life-process.” (Marx argues that ideas do not exist independently of this process, so the Hegelian dialectic is such an inversion, where ideas are held prior to, and impose on material conditions. The Marxist method claims to right this wrong.)

Marx opens the ‘Communist Manifesto’, with the declaration that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” Placing emphasis on the social in historical development, he rejects the idealist account which attributes change to individuals. Class conflict, for Marx, is the dialectical contradiction which  generates the progress of society. Importantly, he believes that the process has shown the ‘ultimate tendency of history.....the Promethean drive of the human species to develop its essential human powers.....of production’ (Wood). Despite appearances to the contrary, there are no a priori assumptions here. Marx, by his own maxim, claims to draw these conclusions from an analysis of the socio-economic character of capitalism.

Though Marx does not consider history to be linear, progressing towards an ultimate goal as Hegel does, he identifies specific stages. Capitalism signifies the latest historical stage, with its own peculiarities like feudal society and others before it. However, “class antagonisms” (Communist Manifesto) remain, albeit in a different form. This is based on the assertion that each stage “sprouted from the ruins” (ibid) of those previous to it. In the Manifesto, Marx shows how capitalism “has created more massive and colossal productive forces than all preceding generations put together” (ibid). Such is the impetus of the “socialised production” (Engels Socialism Utopian and Scientific) of capitalist industry. This is unique in that it creates a new focus of conflict, the ‘proletariat’ or ‘working class, and the ‘bourgeoisie’ or ruling class. The socialised mode of production is contradicted by unequal distribution, under capitalism. Put crudely, while the former makes the wealth, the latter takes the wealth, and it is these conditions, Marx argues, that create the crisis inherent in the system.

The viability of capitalism is in constant question with “commercial crises” spelling unemployment, low wages and eventual “pauperism” (Communist Manifesto) of the workers. This is due to the essential tendency of the capitalist economy to periodic ‘boom and slump’, in which overproduction floods the market creating unemployment and driving down concessions given to the workers in times of economic stability. However, the classes have a dialectical unity of contradiction, in that they despite their dissension, they rely on each other essentially for their existence. According to Marx, without the productive power of the proletariat, wealth cannot be produced, and without this wealth the bourgeoisie cannot exist.

Marx asserts that capitalism leads to the concentration of wealth, in fewer and fewer hands, rendering the “great mass of humanity propertyless” (German Ideology). This shows the decline that Marx attributes to the existence of private property. He calls for its abolition in the Manifesto, as it is the basis of ‘alienation’ and thus, the class system. Again, this is not founded on abstraction, but practical reasoning drawn from concrete considerations. ‘Alienation’ is central to the Marxian conception of class relations to production, and the historical possibilities that this throws up for the proletariat. According to Marx, capitalism “has simplified the class antagonisms” (Communist Manifesto) that result from the existence of private property. He goes on, stating that capitalism, “has left no other nexus” between humans, “than naked self-interest, than callous cash payment” (ibid).

In light of such considerations, Marx argues that capitalism de-humanises, that it “has resolved personal worth into exchange value” (ibid). The worker, with only his labour to sell and not enough in wages to be able to buy back what he has produced, does not reap the rewards of his work. These are taken by the ruling class. Thus, he is caught up in a process of alienation of production from what he has produced, as a mere “appendage to the machine” (ibid). The division of labour under capitalism whereby “a cleavage exists between particular and common interest” (German Ideology), makes work entirely external from the worker’s interests. Hence, alienation is a systemic feature of capitalism.

The “division of material and mental labour” (German Ideology) has an alienating effect, that ideas are produced by the bourgeoisie in their own interests, which conflict with the reality of working life. The dominant religious, philosophical and ethical ideas, all serve to justify the subordination of the masses to the ruling class. This is based on the assumption that “the class which is the ruling material force of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force” (ibid). According to Marx, the proletariat are subject to the force of bourgeois ideology, but are compelled to eventually throw off its illusions.

The worker feels “ruined in this alienation” (Singer), dehumanised and miserable. Although, recognised by the bourgeoisie, they do not suffer, feeling “comfortable and confirmed.....knowing that this alienation is its own power”(ibid). However, the degeneration of human value is the key to the regeneration of social relations. Marx draws revolutionary conclusions from alienation, binding theory and practice tightly together in a method which purports to be scientific. Engels outlines this claim, demarcating between ‘Socialism Utopian and Scientific’, in the essay of the same name. He shows how the contradictions in capitalism, by definition, can only be resolved by a revolutionary movement of the working class, overthrowing the bourgeoisie. Private property, the basis of class is “driven towards its own dissolution”, forcing the Proletariat to become “conscious of its dehumanisation” (ibid). With these discoveries, Engels argues, the political ideal of “socialism became a science” (Socialism Utopian and Scientific).

Marx’s critique of capitalism is highly polemical, but it does not proceed from idealised or utopian assumptions about human beings. Nor does it attempt to predict future society. As Marx plainly states, “communism.....is not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself” (German Ideology). Progress to a higher stage of human development i.e. cmmunism, is “the real movement which abolishes the present state of things” (ibid). Ultimately, the revolutionary movement of the Proletariat. Importantly, any movement of class against class is the “result of the premises now in existence” (ibid) it stems from the Capitalist system itself. This is not to say that revolution is ‘inevitable’, another popular misconception in interpretations of Marx. Nevertheless, what is inevitable are ‘revolutionary opportunities’. This indicates that conscious human actions do play a role in shaping history.

However, human thought and action, from the passive to most revolutionary, is firmly grounded by Marx in the material production of the given society. In this sense, human beings are bound by the society they belong to, and by its particular class relations. The poletariat has a revolutionary character determined by social conditions in which it eventually “has nothing to lose” (Communist Manifesto). Marx argues that it is compelled to take on its enemy, the bourgeoisie, whose system by its very nature exacerbates the conditions that threaten its existence. The ruling class, despite their immense wealth become “incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery” (ibid. This is displayed with literary flair in the Manifesto, which states that, ‘the bourgeoisie produces.....its own grave-diggers’ (ibid) in a revolutionary Proletariat.

Marx does not attempt to predict what future society will look like, as he believes that given the dynamics of historical change, it will be brought under full human control. Winning the position of the ruling class by force, “the proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production” (Communist Manifesto). For Marx, this is the initial stage of revolutionary change, but it should by no means be considered as an end or final goal. Revolution would abolish private property and accordingly the class system, but it reaches still further. The result Marx argues, is “the historical development of human society created consciously by human beings” (Wood). This would take human existence to a higher level, where the social, political and economic spheres are directed by, and in the interests of, humanity as a whole.