Philosophical Foundations of Marx

Last updated on: November 10, 2008 at 4:39 pm by jonathanjonesuiwdpt

Philosophical Foundations of Marx 2008-11-10T16:39:38-05:00 jonathanjonesuiwdpt

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As part of a larger project, I’ve collected some generalizations about the political philosophy of Karl Marx. Any additions or corrections, preferably with a citation, would be appreciated. And if not, I hope it might to be useful to think through for a moment his hugely influential work (especially among many planners over the last century who denied that God works in our lives):

Thinking is itself a concrete act that takes place in history and has material causes. It is not some ghost outside the act, looking at it from some transcendent point of view outside time and space. History is truly scientific: everything flows, like a river. The logos, the law or formula for universal change, is moved with history, truth itself changes according to the pattern of dialectic. A thesis generates its own antithesis, and from this perpetual conflict emerges a synthesis, which then becomes a new thesis generating its own antithesis, and so on until the final synthesis. This is not god. There is a universality of change, or becoming, and the logical form, the dialectic. Its true content is matter, not spirit. Ideas do not cause historical conflicts; the causes are in the real world. Ideas are only the echo or the effect. Within the real world is the source of historical change, not in unpredictable individual characters or choices or passions, but in economic determinism. This is the key to making history a science: something predictable and controllable. The forces of the dialectic of history are economic classes. Class conflict is history’s engine. Only once the number of classes is reduced to one – the proletariat – is conflict reduced to zero. This is accomplished by the elimination of the only other remaining class, the bourgeoisie. The Communist revolution will be the last great event in history, for it will eliminate the bourgeoisie, leaving only the dictatorship of the proletariat, where the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all and from each according to his ability to each according to his need. All ideas are the products of social conditions. The history of all existing society is the history of class struggles. The highest truth is the historical future. Words produce truth instead of passively reflecting it. This truth is objective – oppression is structural, existing in the very structure of the economic classes, even if not felt in minds and desires. There is no such thing as a universal and unchangeable human nature. It is created by social conditions and changed by social conditions. It is a radically different nature in one society from another. Oppression is not caused by oppressors, by wicked individuals and choices. These are only instruments of a social and class system. Oppression can be ended by destroying the class system. Communism is an empirical science. All non-Communist states are oppressive. Conflict will end only when all classes except for one are eliminated. Men act differently only because they are members of different classes. Human nature is malleable. If class structure is changed, so is it its content. The revolution will produce a new man, one without conflict; it will radically change both human nature and history. The sufficient cause of such a change awaits the revolution. They remain abstract ideals, not concrete realities, until the social structure is radically altered. Selfish social structures make selfish individuals. A selfish structure is one that necessitates class conflict; an unselfish social structure is free of it. All are determined to act as they do by social structure. All ideas are determined by class. Choice was necessary, determined by the fate of the historical dialectic. Communist freedom is free from want and war. As there is no such thing an unchanging human nature, or species-being, universality is found only in words, in nomina. There are no real species; individual words do not refer to any common realities or universal natures. There is no one freedom or justice common to all classes and stages of humanity. As history moves in its dialectical way, and as society changes its class structures, different forms of humanity, and therefore different forms of freedom and justice, are produced, depending on the different forms of property. Each stage of history produces a different kind of freedom. The thought of any society is a by-product of its economic class structure, its roots in the social soil. Communism spreads of necessity, by its own nature; it is capitalism’s destiny, by its own nature, to fail. The writer is only an instrument; humans are moved by their world and are their destiny. Thought is just as much an effect of social conditions as wealth is. Will and choice are not free; they are not independent of the causal chains that bind him, which are social. The system is scientific because it leaves nothing uncaused, nothing unaccounted for, nothing explained. Thought and understanding are effects, not causes. These cannot arise unless they are in turn caused by real material conditions. And when the thoughts do arise, they cannot cause material effects. The power of thought does not cause or motivate humans to act. Economic determinism is what makes history a science. Economics is a first cause. Effects cannot exceed their causes in this scientific principle of causality – nothing comes to be without an adequate cause, even a necessary and deterministic cause. God would undermine scientific materialism, thus atheism is non-negotiable. Good and evil are relative to history, not static, timeless abstract ideas. These are historically relative terms and an evil may become good by its usefulness. Modern labor has stripped man of his national character, leading to an end to nationalism and nations. Even the inevitable need causes. Things will necessarily occur, but through necessary causes. All things have causes that are necessary and material, including thoughts. Thoughts and ideas, relative to history and social class, are caused by real events. Ideas do not cause real events. Thinking is not a real event. Ideas are the products of real events, not the causes of them. Real events are only material events, not causes of them. Material events are not the products of mental events. Not only justice but human nature itself is malleable. This is why human justice changes. What is justice to one is injustice to another. Justice is a class concept, not an abstract logical class concept, a genus, as there is no such thing as generic justice. It is a social class concept. Each social class seeks its own self-interest and calls that just. Justice is not a real thing; it is a concept and a fantasy. Ideas should not be endowed with God-like attributes. There is no existence of an immaterial, perfect, ideal, timeless, unchanging standard of goodness or justice. Changing ages and societies cannot be judged by the same unchanging standard. These are nothing but prejudices produced by the changing forms of society. Social changes cause ideas rather than ideas causing social changes. Visible, material things move the invisible, spiritual things, like ideas and choices. There are no changeless and universal truths. Facts are known by senses, not with abstract ideas and arguments. Ideas are themselves only the shadows cast by real material events. In ideas, there is upward progress from the religious to the philosophical to the positive-scientific. Human individuality is not determined by nature, but the product of thought, which is itself the product of class structure and social changes, which are rooted in economic changes. To change economics is to change individuality. There is no innate, natural, private, mental self-consciousness. The self is a product of the world. Self-consciousness is determined by economics. Thought is the effect of matter. All is determined; history chooses humans. Selfishness can be changed by economic change. As the economic cause is powerful enough to change the self itself, then it is powerful enough to change the consequences of individuality. Material social conditions are the sole and sufficient causes, and thoughts are merely their effects. There is nothing universal to humanity throughout history and nothing innate to human nature. Ideas are but the puppets of the puppet-master that is economics. God and freedom and immortality and truth and goodness and beauty and justice and wisdom and love and holiness are nothing but shadows cast on the walls of consciousness by the real actors of the human drama, which is economic exploitation.

Jonathan

Marxism

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