essay questions on marxism

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165 Karl Marx Essay Topics

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• Karl Marx’s and Max Weber’s Contributions to Sociology
• Durkheim and Marx: The Division of Labor
• Marx vs. Weber: Capitalism – Compare and Contrast Essay
• Liberal & Karl Marx View on Property
• Karl Marx Views on History
• Karl Marx and International Relations Theories
• Frederick Taylor’s and Karl Marx’ View of Workers
• Karl Marx and Marx Weber: Suffering in the Society This paper discusses how Karl Max and Marx Weber have explained the nature and cause of suffering in society. It also discusses Marx Weber regarding the connection between religion and capitalism.
• Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche: Comparative Analysis Marx’s view of human nature formed the basis for his philosophy. Hegel created German idealism. Nietzsche utilized topics like social criticism, psychology, religion and morality.
• Marx’s Four Types of Alienation Marx alienation focuses on the capitalist mode of production and an objective approach resulting from the reality that evolves in an individual’s knowledge in capitalist society.
• Karl Marx’s Conflict Theory and Alienation The current paper is devoted to Karl Marx’s conflict theory and the construct of alienation analysis and identifying its usefulness for social workers.
• Class and Alienation According to Marx This paper explains Karl Marx’s theory and gives the links between class and alienation, which was developed during capitalism and juxtaposes the facts against life today.
• Marx’s vs. Lenin’s Imperialism Theories The term ‘imperialism’ is often used by different scholars and theorists in varying perspectives to refer to a number of ideologies.
• Comparison and Contrast of Marx and Weber’s Theories of Capitalism The contrast promises to be necessary since capitalism is portrayed differently in the views of these two well-known sociologists.
• MacDonaldization and Marx’s Social Change Model McDonaldization is the take-up of the characteristics of a fast-food place by the society through rationalization of traditional ideologies, modes of management and thinking.
• “The Communist Manifesto” Book by Karl Marx The work “The Communist Manifesto” by Karl Marx, depicts the bourgeoisie and the proletariat and how their lives are affected by the domination of the former as a ruling class.
• Analysis of “A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy” by Marx The paper interprets a passage from Karl Marx’s work on what key concepts characterize a society and discusses the benefits and evolution from existence to conscious thinking.
• Marx’s Objections to Capitalism This essay describes and evaluates Marx’s three main objections to capitalism and criticizes them on the grounds of his underestimation of capitalism’s creative force.
• Review of Weber’s and Marx’s Theories The paper provides a detailed review of Weber’s and Marx’s theories and presents the similarities and differences between them.
• Review of “Capital” by Carl Marx In the paper special attention put on exploring the Capital and The Communist Manifesto, which are extremely important in understanding the market relationships of modern society.
• The Contribution of Karl Marx to Economics and Philosophy This paper aims to explore the contribution of Karl Marx not only to the socialist movement’s history but also to global society as it is known today.
• Karl Marx’s Fetishism of Commodities Marx examines the peculiar economic properties of market products in capitalist societies using the concept of the fetishism of commodities.
• Cruel Optimism: Karl Marx’s Ideas and the American Dream The work provides a summary and an analysis of the work of Berlant L. “Cruel optimism: On Marx, loss and the senses” in regard to Karl Marx’s ideas and the American Dream.
• Evaluating Marx’s Labor Theory of Value Evaluating Marx’s labor theory of value develops a comprehension among the public regarding the value of different commodities and respective employee wages.
• Marx: The Primitive Accumulation of Capital In the document, the author examines Marx’s point of view on the initial accumulation of capital, analyzes his arguments, and expresses his own opinion on this issue.
• Weber’s and Marx’s Views on Capitalism Comparison The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast political theories and highlight similarities and differences between Marx and Weber.
• Karl Marx and His Contributions to Study of Economics Brief biography including dates of birth and death; details about childhood, home life, and education; and professional progress.
• Karl Marx’s Communism Manifesto Karl Marx who was a political theorist alongside another German called Friedrich Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto with the aim of improving the relationship among people.
• Analysis of Excerpts by Smith and Marx on Economic Development The article analyzes excerpts from the works of Smith and Marx in order to explain the interdependence between historical events and subsequent economic development.
• Proletariat and Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx This paper will describe the situation of the proletariat and the solution proposed by Marx to the problems of this class.
• Risk Society and Karl Marx’s Response to It A German philosopher who has been credited with the Communism introduction, Karl Marx developed a socio-political and economic theory whose impact is still felt to date.
• Karl Marx and Utopian Socialists Marx had ideas close to the Utopian ones, the ideas according to which there would be no poverty which he and his family had to live in.
• Marxism: The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels can still be regarded as relevant to the nowadays political social and economic situation; however, there is no more class struggle.
• Marx’s Criticism of Capitalism and Sociological Theory This paper tells about Marx who contributed to sociological theory by linking the economic structure of the society and how it affected social interactions.
• The German Ideology by Karl Marx Karl Marx is one of the greatest contributors in the field of political ideology. His perspective of ideology was brought out clearly in the book The German Ideology.
• Karl Marx: Manifesto of the Communist Party Marx visualizes and blames the traditional feudal relationship for creating only two classes, among which the bourgeois class is the enhancement of capital over wage labor.
• The Philosophy of Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill The philosophy of Karl Marx is entirely different as compared to that of John Stuart Mill. The key ideas of Marxism relate to being alienated from a hostile capitalistic world.
• Karl Marx’s Life, Times, and Ideas in Economics Karl Marx was truly one of the most influential philosophers, economists, revolutionary and socialist thinkers of the 19th century and his work is often explored today.
• Marx’s and Weber’s Opposing Views of Capitalism Weber is among the profound critics of Marxist ideologies. They have opposing views on the issue of capitalism even though they share some similarities on the same topic.
• “The Communist Manifesto” Book by Marx and Engels The relationships between freemen and slaves are frequently discussed in modern society to find out the roots of social inequality.
• Karl Marx’s Critique of Capitalism This paper will examine the key ideas of Marx regarding class division, labor, ideology, and fetishism of commodities in the context of capitalism.
• Karl Marx and His Social Theory In his work, Marx focuses on the issues of labor and class struggle noting that the political economy has divided the society into two main classes.
• Karl Marx’ Philosophical Ideas Karl Marx’s capital is one of the most controversial theories of economic development. This theory is as a result of revelation of the Marxist philosophy.
• European Socialism: Francois Guizot, Karl Marx and Jean Jaures Practical reproduction of social differences in governance structures can make decisions that are in the best interests of the nation.
• Marx’s Labor Theory in Garnham’s and Fuchs’s Views There are different viewpoints regarding Marx’s labor theory. This paper addresses that of Nicholas Garnham and the one offered by Christian Fuchs.
• Religion in Marx’s and Nietzsche’s Philosophies This paper explores the similarities and differences between Marx and Nietzsche’s views on religion and politics.
• Karl Marx and Adam Smith’ Views on Working Class Karl Marx and Adam Smith are two prominent figures. This paper examines their works to determine which argument about perceive working class is more reasonable.
• Karl Marx’s Sociology and Its Principles In this paper, the general description of Marx’s sociology is given. A review of literature that focuses on different aspects of Marx’s theory about society is provided.
• The Vision of Capitalism: Adam Smith vs Karl Marx Comparing Smith’s vision of the impact of the capitalist economy to that of Marx, it can be claimed that the former offers a more positive evaluation of the relevant outcomes.
• Political Theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
• Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto and Its Impact on Society
• Influence of Karl Marx on the Feminist Movement
• The Social and Economic Features of Jabal Nablus and Karl Marx’s Methodology
• The Similarities and Differences in the Views of Karl Marx and Max Weber
• Karl Marx: The Greatest Thinker and Philosopher of His Time
• The Life and Political Activities of Karl Marx
• Karl Marx’s Communism and How Communism Has Manifested in Russia and China
• Religion and the Perspectives of Karl Marx
• Feminist Movement and Theories of Karl Marx
• The Reasons Why the Predictions of Karl Marx Never Materialized
• The Life, Times, and Economic Contributions of Karl Marx
• Man’s Spirit Destruction and the Alienation Theory of Karl Marx
• Adam Smith and Karl Marx: Contrasting Views of Capitalism
• The Beauty and Cruelty in Human Nature: An Analysis of the Kite Runner From Biblical View and Karl Marx’s
• Karl Marx and the Industrial Revolution
• The Early Life and Philosophical Ideologies of Karl Marx
• Karl Marx and Commodity Fetishism Analysis Philosophy
• Exploring Karl Marx and Jean-Jacque Rousseau’s Views on Free
• The Similarities and Differences Between the Views of John Locke and Karl Marx on Violent Revolutions
• Political and Economic Theories of Karl Marx
• Marxism and the Marxist Theory of Karl Marx
• The Social, Political, and Economic Characteristics of Karl Marx’s Utopia in the Communist Manifesto
• The Differences and Similarities of Karl Marx‘s Theory of Anomie
• Karl Marx’s Predictions and America After the Civil War
• The Theories and Principals of Karl Marx, and the Effect His Ideas Have Had on the World Today
• Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx Views on Sociology of Religion
• Why Karl Marx Criticizes the Ideology of Capitalism?
• Karl Marx: Established Idea of Communist Society in Response to Capitalism
• Money, Interest, and Capital Accumulation in Karl Marx’s
• The Ideas and Thoughts of Karl Marx on Social and Economic Issues
• The Early Life, Achievements and Influence of Karl Marx
• Gender and Race Inequality by Karl Marx
• Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud: Human Perception and Morality
• The Most Influential Theories of Karl Marx, a German Philosopher
• The Relation Between State and Society According to Karl Marx
• Contemporary World Economy and the Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx
• Karl Marx Set the Wheels of Modern Communism and Socialism in Motion
• The Importance of Karl Marx’s Theories in Family Ethics
• Social and Economic Theories Developed by Karl Marx
• State Power and the Wrongness of Karl Marx’s Assumption
• Political Thinking and the Contributions of Karl Marx
• Society and Freedom According to Jean Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx
• The Insights Into International Relations in the Writings of Karl Marx
• The Link Between Karl Marx and the Russian Revolution
• Why Karl Marx Thought Communism Was the Ideal Political Party
• Karl Marx’s Sociological Theories and Leadership
• The Dangers and Pitfalls of a Capitalist Regime in the Works of Karl Marx
• Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto and the Industrial Proletariat
• Religion and Education According to Max Weber and Karl Marx
• The Industrial Revolution and Karl Marx History
• The Banking School and the Monetary Thought of Karl Marx
• Karl Marx’s Social Theories and the Idea of a Temporary Worker
• Comparing and Contrasting the Role of the Market in the Political Theories of Karl Marx and Milton Friedman
• Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto and the Family Business
• Religious Controversy During the Time of Karl Marx
• Why Karl Marx and Lenin Were Influential Figures and Economic?
• Karl Marx, German Economist, and Revolutionary Socialist
• The Life and Works of Adam Smith and Karl Marx
• Karl Marx and the Impacts of Colonialism in the World History
• Modern Day International Economy and Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
• Relationship Between Labor and Capital According to Karl Marx
• Karl Marx Rise and Fall of the Revolution
• Was Karl Marx the Biggest Talker of American Terrorist Socialist Ideals
• Karl Marx: Major Features of Capitalist Mode of Production
• Karl Marx and Marxism on Modern Thought and Society
• The Practical Cognition and the Theories of Knowledge by Karl Marx
• Karl Marx’s Socioeconomic and Political Theories
• What Would Karl Marx Say About Exploitation in Regards to Child Labour
• Karl Marx Was the Greatest Thinker and Philosopher
• The Reasons Why Karl Marx Is the Most Controversial Economic in History
• Karl Marx’s Capital Concepts Related to Labor
• Globalization and the Applicability of the Writings of Karl Marx
• Karl Marx’s Dialectical Perspectives of History
• Does Karl Marx’s Critique of Capitalism Rest on a Fallacious Philosophy of History?
• How Does Karl Marx Account for the Industrialization of Society?
• Was Karl Marx History’s Greatest Optimist?
• How Does “The Communist Manifesto” by Karl Marx Use Strong Diction?
• What Is Karl Marx Best Known For?
• Is Karl Marx a Great Thinker?
• Why Can Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx Be Regarded as Structuralists?
• What Was Karl Marx’s View of History?
• Can Feminism and Marxism Come Together?
• How Does Marxism Explain the Role of Education in Society?
• Does Marxism Adequately Explain the 1917 Russian Revolution?
• Why Was Karl Marx So Disparaging of the Utopian Socialists?
• How Did Lenin Revise Marxism?
• What Is Karl Marx’s Main Theory?
• How Does Cloud Atlas Offer an Interpretation of Marxism in a Highly Technological Society?
• What Is the Biggest Contribution of Karl Marx to the Society?
• Is Marxism Useful for Understanding Society Today?
• What Is the Main Idea Behind Karl Marx’s Theory of Socialism?
• How Much Did Stalin Deviate From Marxism?
• What Is the Famous Statement of Karl Marx?
• How Was the Status Quo Challenged by Marxism and Socialism in Russia at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century?
• Why Did Karl Marx Not Believe in God?
• What Does Marxism Tell Us About Economic Globalization Today?
• How Has Marxism Contributed to Society?
• Why Was Karl Marx So Influential in the 20th Century?
• What Role Does Culture Play in Western Marxism?
• Is Marxism Still Relevant Today?
• Why Did Western Europe Never Fully Envelope Marxism?
• How Important Was Marxism for the Development of Mozambique and Angola?
• Why Has Marxism Been Neglected for International Relations?
• Marxist Literary Criticism and its Influence on Interpretations of Classic Novels
• The Relevance of Marxism in Contemporary Societies
• Class Conflict and Power Relations in Literature: Marxist Perspective on Selected Literary Works
• Marx’s Vision of Communism: Assessing the Feasibility of a Classless Society
• The Influence of Marxist Critical Theory on Feminist Literature: Unraveling Intersections of Oppression
• Marxist Perspectives on Revolution: Case Studies from Historical and Modern Contexts
• Marxist Criticism and the Depiction of Social Hierarchies in 19th-century Novels
• The Influence of Marxism on Feminist Theories
• Analyzing Marx’s Theory of Surplus Value and Economic Inequality
• Exploring the National Question in Literary Works: Marxist Analysis of Ethnic and National Identity
• The Relevance of Marx’s Labor Theory of Value in Contemporary Capitalist Economies
• Marx’s Theory of Historical Dialectics: Implications for Understanding Social Progress

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StudyCorgi . "165 Karl Marx Essay Topics." November 12, 2021. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/karl-marx-essay-topics/.

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These essay examples and topics on Karl Marx were carefully selected by the StudyCorgi editorial team. They meet our highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, and fact accuracy. Please ensure you properly reference the materials if you’re using them to write your assignment.

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121 Marxism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Marxism is a complex and multifaceted ideology that has had a profound impact on politics, economics, and social theory. Whether you are a student studying Marxism in a university course or simply interested in learning more about this influential perspective, there are a plethora of essay topics to explore. In this article, we will provide 121 Marxism essay topic ideas and examples to inspire your research and writing.

• The concept of alienation in Marxist theory
• The role of class struggle in Marxist thought
• The relationship between capitalism and imperialism in Marxist theory
• How does Marxism critique liberal democracy?
• The impact of globalization on Marxist theory
• The role of the state in Marxist thought
• How does Marx define exploitation in a capitalist society?
• The concept of surplus value in Marxist economics
• The relationship between Marxism and feminism
• The role of ideology in maintaining capitalist power structures
• The relevance of Marxist theory in the 21st century
• The connection between Marxism and environmentalism
• How does Marxism critique religion?
• The role of education in perpetuating capitalist ideology
• The relationship between Marxism and postcolonial theory
• The concept of false consciousness in Marxist theory
• The impact of technology on Marxist theory
• The role of culture in perpetuating capitalist hegemony
• The relationship between Marxism and psychoanalysis
• The concept of historical materialism in Marxist thought
• How does Marx define social class?
• The role of the working class in Marxist revolution
• The impact of neoliberalism on Marxist theory
• The relationship between Marxism and anarchism
• The concept of class consciousness in Marxist theory
• How does Marx define the means of production?
• The role of the bourgeoisie in capitalist society
• The impact of imperialism on Marxist theory
• The relationship between Marxism and critical theory
• The concept of dialectical materialism in Marxist philosophy
• How does Marx define the state?
• The role of the proletariat in Marxist revolution
• The impact of colonialism on Marxist theory
• The relationship between Marxism and poststructuralism
• The concept of historical materialism in Marxist history
• How does Marx define social inequality?
• The role of the ruling class in perpetuating capitalist exploitation
• The impact of neoliberal globalization on Marxist theory
• The relationship between Marxism and intersectionality
• The concept of class struggle in Marxist politics
• How does Marx define the ruling class?
• The role of the working class in challenging capitalist hegemony
• The impact of imperialism on Marxist international relations
• The relationship between Marxism and globalization
• The concept of historical materialism in Marxist sociology
• How does Marx define economic exploitation?
• The role of the bourgeoisie in perpetuating capitalist inequality
• The impact of neoliberal capitalism on Marxist theory
• The relationship between Marxism and cultural studies
• The concept of dialectical materialism in Marxist literature
• How does Marx define the capitalist mode of production?
• The role of the proletariat in overthrowing capitalist power structures
• The impact of colonialism on Marxist theory of development
• The relationship between Marxism and decolonial theory
• The concept of historical materialism in Marxist anthropology
• How does Marx define the labor theory of value?
• The role of the ruling class in maintaining capitalist exploitation
• The impact of neoliberal globalization on Marxist political economy
• The relationship between Marxism and queer theory
• The concept of class struggle in Marxist social movements
• How does Marx define the capitalist class system?
• The role of the working class in resisting capitalist oppression
• The impact of imperialism on Marxist theories of imperialism
• The relationship between Marxism and indigenous studies
• The concept of historical materialism in Marxist philosophy of history
• How does Marx define the contradictions of capitalism?
• The role of the bourgeoisie in perpetuating capitalist domination
• The impact of neoliberal capitalism on Marxist theories of crisis
• The relationship between Marxism and disability studies
• The concept of dialectical materialism in Marxist theory of knowledge
• How does Marx define the exploitation of labor?
• The role of the proletariat in challenging capitalist exploitation
• The impact of colonialism on Marxist theories of revolution
• The relationship between Marxism and critical race theory
• The concept of historical materialism in Marxist theories of social change
• How does Marx define the commodification of labor?
• The role of the ruling class in maintaining capitalist power
• The impact of neoliberal globalization on Marxist theories of resistance
• The relationship between Marxism and feminist theory
• The concept of class struggle in Marxist theories of revolution
• How does Marx define the role of ideology in maintaining capitalist hegemony?
• The role of the working class in Marxist theories of social change
• The concept of historical materialism in Marxist theories of history
• How does Marx define the relationship between capitalism and imperialism?
• The role of the bourgeoisie in Marxist theories of exploitation
• The relationship between Marxism and environmental studies
• The concept of dialectical materialism in Marxist theories of knowledge
• How does Marx define the relationship between class and power?
• The role of the proletariat in Marxist theories of revolution
• The impact of colonialism on Marxist theories of resistance
• How does Marx define the relationship between labor and value?
• The role of the ruling class in Marxist theories of domination
• How does Marx define the role of the state in maintaining capitalist power?
• How does Marx define the relationship between capitalism and globalization?
• How does Marx define the relationship between class and ideology?
• How does Marx define the relationship between labor and power?
• How does Marx define the role of the state in perpetuating capitalist hegemony?

These essay topic ideas and examples are just a starting point for exploring the rich and diverse world of Marxism. Whether you are interested in economic theory, political philosophy, or social movements, there is a wealth of material to delve into within the Marxist tradition. By engaging with these topics and conducting your own research, you can deepen your understanding of Marxism and its continued relevance in today's world.

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Karl Marx: ten things to read if you want to understand him

Lecturer in Political Science, University of Exeter

Lecturer in Politics, Manchester Metropolitan University

Disclosure statement

James Muldoon is a member of the British Labour Party.

Robert P. Jackson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Manchester Metropolitan University and University of Exeter provide funding as members of The Conversation UK.

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As the world reflects on 200 years since the birth of Karl Marx, his writings are being sampled by more and more people. If you’re new to the work of one of the greatest social scientists of all time, here’s where to start.

Marx’s own writing

James Muldoon, University of Exeter

The long history of brutal, totalitarian “Marxist” regimes around the world has left many people with the impression that Marx was an authoritarian thinker. But readers who dive into his work for the first time are often surprised to discover an Enlightenment humanist and a philosopher of emancipation, one who envisaged well-rounded human beings living rich, varied and fulfilling lives in a post-capitalist society. Marx’s writings don’t just propose a revolutionary political project; they offer a moral critique of the alienation of individuals living in capitalist societies.

1. An Introduction to a Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right ( Available here )

Originally published in 1844 in a radical Parisian newspaper, this fascinating short essay captures many of Marx’s early criticisms of modern society and his radical vision of emancipation. It also introduces several of the key themes that would shape his later writings.

Marx claims that the bourgeois revolutions of the 18th century may have benefited a wealthy and educated class, but did not challenge private forms of domination in the factory, home and field. Marx theorises the revolutionary subject of the working class, and proposes its historic task: to abolish private property and achieve self-emancipation.

2. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 ( Available here )

Not published within his lifetime, and only released in 1932 by officials in the Soviet Union, these notes written by Marx are an important source for his theory of capitalist alienation. They reveal the essential outline of what “Marxism” is, and provide the philosophical basis for humanist readings of Marx.

In these manuscripts, Marx analyses the harmful effects of the organisation of labour in modern industrial societies. Modern workers, he argues, have become estranged from the goods they produced, from their own labour activity, and from their fellow workers. Rather than achieving a sense of satisfaction and self-actualisation in their labour, workers are left exhausted and spiritually depleted. For Marx, the antidote to modern alienation is a humanist conception of communism based on free and cooperative production.

3. The Communist Manifesto ( Available here )

Opening with the famous line, “a spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of communism”, the Communist Manifesto has become one of the most influential political documents ever written. Co-authored with Friedrich Engels, this pamphlet was commissioned by London’s Communist League and published on the cusp of the various revolutions that rocked Europe in 1848.

The manifesto presents Marx’s materialist conception of history and his theory of class struggle. It outlines the growing tensions between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat under capitalist relations of production, and predicts the triumph of the workers.

4. The German Ideology ( Available here )

For anyone seeking to understand Marxism’s deeper philosophical and historical underpinnings, this is one of his most important texts. Written in around 1846, again with Engels, The German Ideology provides the full development of the two men’s methodology, historical materialism , which seeks to understand the history of humankind based on the development of its modes of production.

Marx and Engels argue that individuals’ social consciousness depends on the material conditions in which they live. He traces the development of different historical modes of production and argues that the present capitalist one will be replaced by communism. Some interpreters view this text as the point where Marx’s thought began to emerge in its mature form.

5. Capital (Volume 1) ( Available here )

Published in 1867, Capital is Marx’s critical diagnosis of the capitalist mode of production. In it, he details the ultimate source of wealth under capitalism: the exploited labour of workers. Workers are free to sell their labour to any capitalist, but since they must sell their labour in order to survive, they are dominated by the class of capitalists as a whole. And through their labour, workers reproduce and reinforce both the economic conditions of their existence and also the social and ideological structure of their society.

In Capital, Marx outlines a number of capitalism’s internal contradictions, such as a declining rate of profit and the tendency for the formation of capitalist monopolies. While certain aspects of the text have been questioned , Marx’s analysis informs economic debate to this day. For anyone trying to understand why capitalism keeps falling into crisis, it’s still hugely relevant.

On Marx and Marxism

Robert Jackson, Manchester Metropolitan University

1. A Companion to Marx’s Capital – David Harvey

From social movements to student reading groups, from Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century to articles in the Financial Times , Marx’s economic writings are at the centre of debate once again. And one of the figures most associated with these discussions is the geographer David Harvey.

Based on his popular online lecture series, Reading Capital with David Harvey , this book makes Marx’s Capital accessible to a broader audience. Guiding readers through Marx’s challenging (but rewarding) study of the “laws of motion” of capitalism, Harvey provides an open and critical reading. He draws out the connections between this world-changing text and today’s society – a society which, after all, is still shaped by the economic crisis of 2008.

2. Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life – Jonathan Sperber

For Jonathan Sperber , a historian of modern Germany, Marx is “more a figure from the past than a prophet of the present”. And, as its title suggests, this biography places Marx’s life in the context of the 19th century. It’s an accessible introduction to the history of his political thought, particularly as a critic of his contemporaries. Sperber discusses Marx in his many roles – a son, a student, a journalist and political activist – and introduces the multitude of characters connected with him. While Francis Wheen’s well-known Karl Marx: A Life is a more freewheeling account, Sperber’s writing is both highly readable and more deeply rooted in historical scholarship.

3. From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation – Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

Writing about the US just over 150 years ago, Marx noted that: “Labour in a white skin cannot emancipate itself where it is branded in a black skin.” And the influence of his ideas about the relationship between race and class is visible in debates right up to the present day.

Penned by academic and activist Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor , who came to popular prominence in the recent #BlackLivesMatter movement, this is a timely read for those interested in the various ways Marx’s thought is being rebooted for the 21st century. A penetrating book, it connects the origins of racism to the structures of economic inequality. With plenty of Marxist ideas (among others) in her toolbox, Taylor critically examines the notion of a “colour-blind” society and the US’s post-Obama order to great effect.

4. Why Marx was Right – Terry Eagleton

A call to reconsider the widely accepted notion that Marx is a “dead dog” from renowned literary theorist Terry Eagleton . In this provocative and highly readable book, Eagleton questions the plausibility of ten of the most common objections to Marx’s thought – among them, that Marx’s ideas are outdated in post-industrial societies, that Marxism always leads to tyranny in practice, that Marx’s theory is deterministic and undermines human freedom. Always witty and passionate, Eagleton peppers his spirited defence (with some reservations) of Marx’s ideas with his own literary and cultural insights.

5. Jacobin magazine – edited by Bhaskar Sunkara (available online )

In the era of the Occupy movement , “ taking a knee ” and #MeToo , the discussion of Marx’s ideas has gained an increasing presence on the internet. One of the most notable examples is the socialist magazine and online platform Jacobin, edited by Bhaskar Sunkara , which currently reaches around 1m viewers a month .

Covering topics from international politics and environmental movements to the recent education strikes in Oklahoma and West Virginia and Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign, it’s a lively source for anyone who wants to see an analysis of contemporary politics that’s influenced by Marx’s thought.

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• Class struggle
• The contributions of Engels
• The work of Kautsky and Bernstein
• The radicals
• The Austrians
• The dictatorship of the proletariat
• Marxism in Cuba
• Marxism in the developing world
• Marxism in the West

Where did Marxism come from?

Why is marxism important, how is marxism different from other forms of socialism, how does marxism differ from leninism.

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Marxism originated in the thought of the radical philosopher and economist Karl Marx , with important contributions from his friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels . Marx and Engels authored  The Communist Manifesto  (1848), a pamphlet outlining their theory of historical materialism and predicting the ultimate overthrow of capitalism by the industrial proletariat . Engels edited the second and third volumes of Marx’s analysis and critique of capitalism,  Das Kapital , both published after Marx’s death. 

In the mid-19th century, Marxism helped to consolidate, inspire, and radicalize elements of the labour and socialist movements in western Europe, and it was later the basis of Marxism-Leninism and Maoism , the revolutionary doctrines developed by Vladimir Lenin in Russia and Mao Zedong in China, respectively. It also inspired a more moderate form of socialism in Germany, the precursor of modern  social democracy .  

Under socialism , the means of production are owned or controlled by the state for the benefit of all, an arrangement that is compatible with democracy and a peaceful transition from capitalism . Marxism justifies and predicts the emergence of a stateless and classless society without private property. That vaguely socialist society, however, would be preceded by the violent seizure of the state and the means of production by the proletariat , who would rule in an interim dictatorship . 

Marxism predicted a spontaneous revolution by the proletariat , but Leninism insisted on the need for leadership by a vanguard party of professional revolutionaries (such as Vladimir Lenin himself). Marxism predicted a temporary dictatorship of the proletariat , whereas Leninism, in practice, established a permanent dictatorship of the Communist Party . Marxism envisioned a revolution of proletarians in industrialized countries, while Leninism also emphasized the revolutionary potential of peasants in primarily agrarian societies (such as Russia).

Marxism , a body of doctrine developed by Karl Marx and, to a lesser extent, by Friedrich Engels in the mid-19th century. It originally consisted of three related ideas: a philosophical anthropology , a theory of history, and an economic and political program. There is also Marxism as it has been understood and practiced by the various socialist movements, particularly before 1914. Then there is Soviet Marxism as worked out by Vladimir Ilich Lenin and modified by Joseph Stalin , which under the name of Marxism-Leninism ( see Leninism ) became the doctrine of the communist parties set up after the Russian Revolution (1917). Offshoots of this included Marxism as interpreted by the anti-Stalinist Leon Trotsky and his followers, Mao Zedong ’s Chinese variant of Marxism-Leninism, and various Marxisms in the developing world. There were also the post-World War II nondogmatic Marxisms that have modified Marx’s thought with borrowings from modern philosophies, principally from those of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger but also from Sigmund Freud and others.

(Read Leon Trotsky’s 1926 Britannica essay on Lenin.)

The thought of Karl Marx

The written work of Marx cannot be reduced to a philosophy , much less to a philosophical system. The whole of his work is a radical critique of philosophy, especially of G.W.F. Hegel ’s idealist system and of the philosophies of the left and right post- Hegelians . It is not, however, a mere denial of those philosophies. Marx declared that philosophy must become reality. One could no longer be content with interpreting the world; one must be concerned with transforming it, which meant transforming both the world itself and human consciousness of it. This, in turn, required a critique of experience together with a critique of ideas. In fact, Marx believed that all knowledge involves a critique of ideas. He was not an empiricist . Rather, his work teems with concepts (appropriation, alienation , praxis, creative labour, value, and so on) that he had inherited from earlier philosophers and economists, including Hegel, Johann Fichte , Immanuel Kant , Adam Smith , David Ricardo , and John Stuart Mill . What uniquely characterizes the thought of Marx is that, instead of making abstract affirmations about a whole group of problems such as human nature , knowledge, and matter , he examines each problem in its dynamic relation to the others and, above all, tries to relate them to historical, social, political, and economic realities.

In 1859, in the preface to his Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie ( Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy ), Marx wrote that the hypothesis that had served him as the basis for his analysis of society could be briefly formulated as follows:

In the social production that men carry on, they enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material forces of production. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure, and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness . The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political, and intellectual processes of life. It is not the consciousness of men which determines their existence; it is on the contrary their social existence which determines their consciousness.

Raised to the level of historical law, this hypothesis was subsequently called historical materialism. Marx applied it to capitalist society, both in Manifest der kommunistischen Partei (1848; The Communist Manifesto ) and Das Kapital (vol. 1, 1867; “Capital”) and in other writings. Although Marx reflected upon his working hypothesis for many years, he did not formulate it in a very exact manner: different expressions served him for identical realities. If one takes the text literally, social reality is structured in the following way:

1. Underlying everything as the real basis of society is the economic structure. This structure includes (a) the “material forces of production,” that is, the labour and means of production, and (b) the overall “relations of production,” or the social and political arrangements that regulate production and distribution. Although Marx stated that there is a correspondence between the “material forces” of production and the indispensable “relations” of production, he never made himself clear on the nature of the correspondence, a fact that was to be the source of differing interpretations among his later followers.

2. Above the economic structure rises the superstructure, consisting of legal and political “forms of social consciousness” that correspond to the economic structure. Marx says nothing about the nature of this correspondence between ideological forms and economic structure, except that through the ideological forms individuals become conscious of the conflict within the economic structure between the material forces of production and the existing relations of production expressed in the legal property relations. In other words, “The sum total of the forces of production accessible to men determines the condition of society” and is at the base of society. “The social structure and the state issue continually from the life processes of definite individuals . . . as they are in reality , that is acting and materially producing.” The political relations that individuals establish among themselves are dependent on material production, as are the legal relations. This foundation of the social on the economic is not an incidental point: it colours Marx’s whole analysis. It is found in Das Kapital as well as in Die deutsche Ideologie (written 1845–46; The German Ideology ) and the Ökonomisch-philosophische Manuskripte aus dem Jahre 1844 ( Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 ).

Evaluate the Marxist View of the Role of Education in Society

Last Updated on November 18, 2022 by Karl Thompson

According to Marxists, modern societies are capitalist, and are structured along class-lines, and such societies are divided into two major classes – The Bourgeois elite who own and control the means of production who exploit the Proletariat by extracting surplus value from them.

Traditional Marxists understand the role of education in this context – education is controlled by the elite class (The Bourgeoisie) and schools forms a central part of the superstructure through which they maintain ideological control of the proletariat.

Education has four main roles in society according to Marxists:

Louis Althusser argued that state education formed part of the ‘ ideological state apparatus ‘: the government and teachers control the masses by injecting millions of children with a set of ideas which keep people unaware of their exploitation and make them easy to control.

According to Althusser, education operates as an ideological state apparatus in two ways; Firstly, it transmits a general ideology which states that capitalism is just and reasonable – the natural and fairest way of organising society, and portraying alternative systems as unnatural and irrational Secondly, schools encourage pupils to passively accept their future roles, as outlined in the next point…

The second function schools perform for Capitalism is that they produce a compliant and obedient workforce…

In ‘Schooling in Capitalist America’ (1976) Bowles and Gintis suggest that there is a correspondence between values learnt at school and the way in which the workplace operates. The values, they suggested, are taught through the ‘Hidden Curriculum’, which consists of those things that pupils learn through the experience of attending school rather than the main curriculum subjects taught at the school. So pupils learn those values that are necessary for them to tow the line in menial manual jobs.

Fourthly, schools legitimate class inequality . Marxists argue that in reality class background and money determines how good an education you get, but people do not realize this because schools spread the ‘myth of meritocracy’ – in school we learn that we all have an equal chance to succeed and that our grades depend on our effort and ability. Thus if we fail, we believe it is our own fault. This legitimates or justifies the system because we think it is fair when in reality it is not.

Willis argued that pupils rebelling are evidence that not all pupils are brainwashed into being passive, subordinate people as a result of the hidden curriculum. Willis therefore criticizes Traditional Marxism. These pupils also realise that they have no real opportunity to succeed in this system, so they are clearly not under ideological control.

Evaluating the Marxist Perspective on Education

Traditional Marxist views of education are extremely dated, even the the new ‘Neo-Marxist’ theory of Willis is 40 years old, but how relevant are they today?

To criticise the idea of the Ideological State Apparatus, Henry Giroux, says the theory is too deterministic. He argues that working class pupils are not entirely molded by the capitalist system, and do not accept everything that they are taught. Also, education can actually harm the Bourgeois – many left wing, Marxist activists are university educated, so clearly they do not control the whole of the education system.

However, if you look at the world’s largest education system, China, this could be seen as supporting evidence for the idea of the correspondence principle at work – many of those children will go into manufacturing, as China is the world’s main manufacturing country in the era of globalisation.

The Marxist Theory of the reproduction of class inequality and its legitimation through the myth of meritocracy does actually seem to be true today. There is a persistent correlation between social class background and educational achievement – with the middle classes able to take advantage of their material and cultural capital to give their children a head start and then better grades and jobs. It is also the case that children are not taught about this unfairness in schools, although a small handful do learn about it in Sociology classes.

Signposting and Related Posts

This essay was written as a top band answer for a 30 mark question which might appear in the education section of the AQA’s A-level sociology 7192/1 exam paper: Education with Theory and Methods.

The full knowledge post relevant to the above essay is here:

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32 Student Example: Marxist Criticism

The following student essay example of Marxist Criticism is taken from Beginnings and Endings: A Critical Edition .  This is the publication created by students in English 211. This essay discusses Raymond Carver’s short story, “A Small, Good Thing.”

“A Small, Good Thing” by Raymond Carver and the 1980s AIDS Epidemic

By Jasper Chappel

Raymond Carver’s short story “A Small, Good Thing” was published in 1983, in his collection Cathedral. In 1983 in the United States, the AIDS epidemic was barely beginning to be understood by the CDC and the general public. Under President Ronald Reagan since 1981, anti-communist and pro-capitalist sentiment was expected of Americans because of tense relations with the USSR. This political climate informed Carver’s writing of “A Small, Good Thing,” and the previous version of the same story published in 1981, titled “The Bath;” Carver’s personal life partially influenced the drastic changes between each story, and so did the emerging political tensions caused by the AIDS epidemic and relations with the USSR. “A Small, Good Thing,” despite being written in a turbulent time, encourages people to value each other, put less trust in institutions such as government and healthcare, and ultimately come together in times of hardship.

The baker is a criticism of capitalism and excessive labor with unfair pay. He has lost part of his humanity to his work, because maintaining financial security is a more immediate concern than forming relationships; he and other unnamed employees represent the proletariat. His behavior throughout the story shows his lack of feeling towards other people, and at the end, he admits as much, saying, “I’m just a baker. I don’t claim to be anything else… [M]aybe years ago I was a different kind of human being” (page 26). Industry has forced the characters to lose their individuality – none of the nurses are named or physically distinguishable from each other, and they do not offer Ann and Howard comfort or answers. When asked questions about Scotty’s condition, they simply say, “Doctor Francis will be here in a few minutes,” (page 6). Doctor Francis has reached a high enough class that he can retain some humanity while still doing his job, which is why he is afforded a name. However, he is nearing the status of the bourgeoisie, which is ultimately why he fails to give Scotty the correct diagnosis and treatment. He and Howard are somewhat similar in this regard; because Howard has the privilege to leave his job in the middle of a work day, and for an indefinite amount of time when Scotty is hospitalized, the audience can assume Howard is nearing a high-class position. He is not expendable, like a nurse or a baker would be.

Ann appears to be a full-time mom, and while this is unpaid labor, the reader is led to understand her emotions the most because she retains the most humanity in her job; she simply has the privilege to not work for a company. Her trade is motherhood, and when this is stripped from her, she feels more aimless than the others; just like if the nurse or the baker lost their positions, Ann forms her identity around the job of being a mom. The difference is that it is her job to empathize with others, to care for others, and she can find another niche to fill without sending in an application first. Her grief manifests in being unable to care for her son, despite her skills; she knows Scotty is in a coma and that something has gone horribly wrong, but because the bourgeoisie does not value self-employed, unpaid labor, her concerns are brushed aside.

From one perspective, Ann benefits from being a mother. From another, her characterization has reduced her to being only a mother. The only outside information we have for another main character is what Howard and the baker tell us about their lives. While Howard is driving home from the hospital, he reflects on his life and his good fortune, or his privilege. Ann does not do the same – the audience is unsure of whether Ann thinks the marriage is successful, if she went to college, or if she gave anything up to become a mother. She is only a mother and wife – a loving one, but a one-dimensional character. It seems that Ann is defined only by the fact she has a son. Ann’s designated role to help the men in the story remember their humanity is a stereotypically feminine role that is largely informed by Raymond Carver’s identity and life experiences, but is also in line with the idea that motherhood is a full-time job unrecognized by capitalism.

The bourgeoisie in this story are best represented by the hospital and doctor, and the situation with Scotty exposes the flawed system the proletariat have to live under. Scotty represents its most vulnerable victims, and the family Ann meets in the lobby of the hospital represents how tragedy can touch all our lives regardless of class or race. Ann and Howard learn through the events of the story, despite being middle-class and white, that certain tragedies touch all lives; this is a translation of the AIDS epidemic into literature. Disease does not discriminate based off class, sexuality, or race, but institutions and governments do.

Scotty has no speaking lines–the narrator only supplies information on what he saying, so the audience doesn’t have access to his exact words. All we know about him is that he probably likes aliens, has one friend he used to walk to school with, and “howls” before he dies, a very inhuman noise. Even though the story revolves around his injury, he only serves as a character who affects other characters. His injury allows the audience to see the contrast between employees who take care of people as a job, and people who take care of others free from industry interference. He also serves to bring the baker and Ann together; the baker needed to be reminded of his humanity and have a reason to turn his back on the capitalist system for a while. Ann is the most likely character to help him reconnect with his humanity, and in her grief she is more human than any other character. Although Howard also shows his humanity in his grief, it is Ann who helps him along, “’There, there,’ she said tenderly. ‘Howard, he’s gone. He’s gone now and we’ll have to get used to that. To being alone” (page 22). When Scotty’s death makes his parents feel alienated, just as capitalism alienates people from each other to prevent an uprising, they start to accept this; then the baker calls again, and Ann’s anger at his behavior pushes them into action, and eventually reconciliation and comfort.

When Ann encounters the black family in the waiting room, they serve as a mirror for her situation, and represent understanding each other’s humanity despite differences. There is a previous version of this short story called “The Bath,” which does not specify the race of the family, does not include the two dark-skinned orderlies, and lacks the reconciliation with the baker. Part of the fear around AIDS was due to the uncertainty about how it spread, but there was also an element of stigma around African-American populations and their inaccurate image in the media as drug users (therefore, re-use needles and spread AIDS). Early on, it became clear that AIDS was spreading through bodily fluids, but more information than that tended to be conflicting.

In 1985, according to the article “Save Our Kids, Keep AIDS Out” by Jennifer Brier, black and white families would unite in Queens to protest the CDC regulations stating that children diagnosed with AIDS should be allowed in public schools. We can see this sentiment represented before this occurrence in Ann’s desire to connect with the black family in the waiting room. Just like the mothers in the article fear their children being exposed to AIDS at school, a hospital must have been a nightmare for a mother in this time period. Seeing Scotty have his blood drawn, and other needles inserted into his veins, probably caused her panic each time; not only because his condition was not improving, but also for the risk of contracting AIDS the longer he stayed in the hospital. Scotty’s hospital stay can be considered a metaphor for how AIDS was considered during the time of publication. It comes out of nowhere, just like the car that hit Scotty, then disappeared without a trace. Those who are hit seem fine at first, but progressively, their condition declines. The doctors and nurses do not know enough about the disease, and sometimes, their intuition is wrong, causing tragic deaths. The message the audience is left with is this: a mother knows best for her child. This is echoed in the later movement in Queens, “Thus, parents and local communities, not a dishonest city bureaucracy or out-of-touch scientific establishment, were better able to make decisions about local children” (Brier 4).

In “A Small, Good Thing,” instead of exploiting the fear people had around the AIDS epidemic, Carver encourages people to find common ground and come together. Doctor Francis expresses his regrets in not being able to save Scotty, the family in the waiting room symbolizes connecting with each other despite differences, and the baker is able to acknowledge his loss of humanity over the years after witnessing Ann and Howard’s grief. This short story is a touching addition to the literary time period, and handles each political undertone with care and empathy.

Works Cited

Brier, Jennifer. “‘Save Our Kids, Keep AIDS out:” Anti-AIDS Activism and the Legacy of Community Control in Queens, New York.” Journal of Social History, vol. 39, no. 4, 2006, pp. 965–987. JSTOR,  www.jstor.org/stable/3790237 . Accessed 14 May 2021.

Carver, Raymond. “A Small, Good Thing.”  Ploughshares, vol. 8, no. 2/3, 1982, pp. 213–240. JSTOR,  www.jstor.org/stable/40348924 . Accessed 14 May 2021.

Carver, Raymond. “The Bath.”  Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, no. 6, 1981, pp. 32–41. JSTOR,  www.jstor.org/stable/42744338 . Accessed 14 May 2021.

McCaffery, Larry, et al. “An Interview with Raymond Carver.”  Mississippi Review, vol. 14, no. 1/2, 1985, pp. 62–82. JSTOR,  www.jstor.org/stable/20115387 . Accessed 14 May 2021.

Critical Worlds Copyright © 2024 by Liza Long is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Encyclopedia

Writing with artificial intelligence, marxist criticism.

• © 2023 by Angela Eward-Mangione - Hillsborough Community College

Marxist Criticism refers to a method you'll encounter in literary and cultural analysis. It breaks down texts and societal structures using foundational concepts like class, alienation, base, and superstructure. By understanding this, you'll gain insights into how power dynamics and socio-economic factors influence narratives and cultural perspectives

What is Marxist Criticism?

Marxist Criticism refers to both

• an interpretive framework
• a genre of discourse .

Marxist Criticism as both a theoretical approach and a conversational genre within academic discourse . Critics using this framework analyze literature and other cultural forms through the lens of Marxist theory, which includes an exploration of how economic and social structures influence ideology and culture. For example, a Marxist reading of a novel might explore how the narrative reinforces or challenges the existing social hierarchy and economic inequalities.

Marxist Criticism prioritizes four foundational Marxist concepts:

• class struggle
• the alienation of the individual under capitalism
• the relationship between a society’s economic base and
• its cultural superstructure.

Related Concepts

Dialectic ; Hermeneutics ; Literary Criticism ; Semiotics ; Textual Research Methods

Why Does Marxist Criticism Matter?

Marxist criticism thus emphasizes class, socioeconomic status, power relations among various segments of society, and the representation of those segments. Marxist literary criticism is valuable because it enables readers to see the role that class plays in the plot of a text.

What Are the Four Primary Perspectives of Marxism?

Did Karl Marx Create Marxist Criticism?

Karl Marx himself did not create Marxist criticism as a literary or cultural methodology . He was a philosopher, economist, and sociologist, and his works laid the foundation for Marxist theory in the context of social and economic analysis. The key concepts that Marx developed—such as class struggle, the theory of surplus value, and historical materialism—are central to understanding the mechanisms of capitalism and class relations.

Marxist criticism as a distinct approach to literature and culture developed later, as thinkers in the 20th century began to apply Marx’s ideas to the arts and humanities. It is a product of various scholars and theorists who found Marx’s social theories to be useful tools for analyzing and critiquing literature and culture. These include figures such as György Lukács, Walter Benjamin, Antonio Gramsci, and later the Frankfurt School, among others, who expanded Marxist theory into the realms of ideology, consciousness, and cultural production.

So, while Marx provided the ideological framework, it was later theorists who adapted his ideas into what is now known as Marxist criticism.

Who Are the Key Figures in Marxist Theory?

Bressler notes that “Marxist theory has its roots in the nineteenth-century writings of Karl Heinrich Marx, though his ideas did not fully develop until the twentieth century” (183).

Key figures in Marxist theory include Bertolt Brecht, Georg Lukács, and Louis Althusser. Although these figures have shaped the concepts and path of Marxist theory, Marxist literary criticism did not specifically develop from Marxism itself. One who approaches a literary text from a Marxist perspective may not necessarily support Marxist ideology.

For example, a Marxist approach to Langston Hughes’s poem “ Advertisement for the Waldorf-Astoria ” might examine how the socioeconomic status of the speaker and other citizens of New York City affect the speaker’s perspective. The Waldorf Astoria opened during the midst of the Great Depression. Thus, the poem’s speaker uses sarcasm to declare, “Fine living . . . a la carte? / Come to the Waldorf-Astoria! / LISTEN HUNGRY ONES! / Look! See what Vanity Fair says about the / new Waldorf-Astoria” (lines 1-5). The speaker further expresses how class contributes to the conflict described in the poem by contrasting the targeted audience of the hotel with the citizens of its surrounding area: “So when you’ve no place else to go, homeless and hungry / ones, choose the Waldorf as a background for your rags” (lines 15-16). Hughes’s poem invites readers to consider how class restricts particular segments of society.

What are the Foundational Questions of Marxist Criticism?

• What classes, or socioeconomic statuses, are represented in the text?
• Are all the segments of society accounted for, or does the text exclude a particular class?
• Does class restrict or empower the characters in the text?
• How does the text depict a struggle between classes, or how does class contribute to the conflict of the text?
• How does the text depict the relationship between the individual and the state? Does the state view individuals as a means of production, or as ends in themselves?

Example of Marxist Criticism

• The Working Class Beats: a Marxist analysis of Beat Writing and (studylib.net)

Discussion Questions and Activities: Marxist Criticism

• Define class, alienation, base, and superstructure in your own words.
• Explain why a base determines its superstructure.
• Choose the lines or stanzas that you think most markedly represent a struggle between classes in Langston Hughes’s “ Advertisement for the Waldorf-Astoria .” Hughes’s poem also addresses racial issues; consider referring to the relationship between race and class in your written response.
• Contrast the lines that appear in quotation marks and parentheses in Hughes’s poem. How do these lines differ? Does it seem like the lines in parentheses respond to the lines in quotation marks, the latter of which represent excerpts from an advertisement for the Waldorf-Astoria published in Vanity Fair? How does this contrast illustrate a struggle between classes?
• What is Hughes’s purpose for writing “ Advertisement for the Waldorf-Astoria ?” Defend your interpretation with evidence from the poem.

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Marxist Analysis Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Exploitation of resources, domination of the markets.

Marxism is a social, political, and economic ideology pioneered by German philosophers, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in the early part of the 19 th century. This ideology interprets human development through the history from materialistic point of view. Marxists hold that materialism is the foundation of society since; human beings must satisfy their basic needs before embarking on secondary needs such as politics, arts, science, and religion, among others.

Since capitalism is a dominant economic system, Marxist analysis suggests that capitalism oppresses the poor and empowers the rich; thus, it creates two antagonistic classes in society, which ultimately lead to revolution struggle of classes. Rosenberg (2007) argues that Marxists perceive capitalism as a form of an economic system that creates inequality in the society by favouring accumulation of wealth and class struggles (p. 8).

Therefore, Marxist analysis of a capitalism system on the international scale shows that it entails accumulation of capital from the poor countries into the rich countries thus causes global inequality and class struggles among nations. The existence of massive global inequality validates Marxist analysis that capitalism enhances global inequality.

Marxists view international relations as a complex system of capitalism that has penetrated and integrated into every aspect of production in the world. Since the basic ideology of capitalism is to accumulate wealth, developed countries employed capitalism system to infiltrate into developing countries, acquire resources, and control various modes of production.

During the colonial times, developed countries scrambled for resources in developing countries and accumulated a considerable deal of wealth, for they did not only obtain raw materials for their industries, but also cheap labour.

Milios (2000) asserts that there was massive exploitation of resources from developing countries during the colonial period, which led to unequal development of nations across the world (p.285). Thus, the economic, social, and political development gaps between developed and developing countries are attributes of capitalism system according to Marxist analysis.

It is true that, after colonialism, developing countries attained their independence; regrettably, neo-colonialism persisted as developing countries still employed capitalism strategies by establishing multinational companies. The objective of establishing multinational companies was to control modes of production and create monopoly in the industrial sector.

Since industries contribute significantly to economic growth and development of a country, monopolization of industries, by multinational companies, provides an opportunity for developed countries to amass wealth, a practice that leads to inequality.

According to Walker and Greenberg (2003), monopolization of industries by multinational companies infiltrated the ideology of industrial capitalism that led into increased cost of manufactured goods (p.38). The cost of manufactured goods increased since multinational companies wanted to exploit industrial resources and reap huge profits. Ultimately, industrial capitalism resulted into global inequality as resources flowed from developing countries to industrialized nations.

Marxists also argue that global inequality occurs due to unequal distribution of power and resources among various classes of people created by capitalistic systems. Capitalism creates different classes of people because accessibility to income-generating resources or employment, determines one’s capacity to emancipate from economic oppression in a capitalistic system.

Marxists argue that working classes are people who ensure that routine activities run in industries, for they perform activities such as producing commodities, selling, and managing organizational tasks under capitalist management that exploits them maximally.

Wolff and Zacharias (2007) argue that, from 1989 to 2000, interclass inequality in the United States increased from 30% to 42% (p.24). This trend is also similar in Europe since capitalist classes accumulate most resources with time. Overall, interclass inequality is increasing across the world since the current economic systems are virtually capitalistic.

Marxists perceive globalization as a construct of capitalism that results into power and class struggles. Individual members of the society are competing for the available resources so that they can attain social classes of their choice.

Moreover, countries and mega-companies are also striving to achieve international domination by keeping abreast with the demands of globalization. Given that the global economy is subject to local factors such as surplus and deficits, consumers and producers, which regulate it delicately in the world of capitalism, inequality is a weak link that determines their movement.

Thus, from a Marxist point of view, capitalism is shaping individual, companies, society and countries through globalization towards power and class struggles. Kuhn (2011) argues that globalization provides capitalists with international infrastructure that they employ to penetrate countries and amass wealth through free markets (p.17). Therefore, creation of free-market provides a favorable business environment that allows free movement of goods, services, and capital; therefore, it enhances global inequality.

Since developed countries have a competitive advantage in the world’s market, they advocate for liberalized trade and free markets. According to a Marxist analysis, the wave of globalization that is sweeping across the world is preparing countries to enter into liberalized trade and free markets, which are very competitive for developing countries to survive.

In the liberalized trade, no one regulates the movement of goods and services since they self-regulate through forces of supply and demand. The forces of supply and demand increase inequality as essential goods and services will move to developed countries leaving developed countries with deficiency.

Heilbroner (1999) asserts that globalization increases competitiveness in local and international markets, which subsequently increases inequality in trade potential (p.9). Since goods and services from developing countries face stiff competition in the liberalized markets, developing countries fetch low gross domestic product and achieve low economic growth, which is a factor of inequality.

Also, human resources are critical resources that a country depends on because; labor plays a significant role in economic growth and development of a nation. In the face of globalization and liberalized trade, developed countries tend to lose labor resources due to emigration of workers in search of better labor markets.

Easterling (2003) asserts that globalization dictates market wages and the extent of brain drain (p.5). Massive brain drain towards developed countries is a major challenge that is facing developing countries since it slows down economic growth and development, and aggravates states of inequality between the countries.

The existence of massive global inequality validates Marxist analysis that capitalism enhances global inequality. According to Wright (1999), Marxist analysis concludes that capitalism system is responsible for enhanced inequality in the world characterized by class and power struggles (p.16). Through capitalism, developed countries have been exploiting developing countries directly, by accumulating resources, and indirectly, through liberalization of markets.

Direct exploitation involves acquiring of resources, monopolization of industries, and use of cheap labor, while indirect exploitation involves giving unfair competition in markets, globalization of markets forces, and brain drain. Under influential economic forces of capitalism, developing countries are disadvantaged and thus trail in economic growth and development. Ultimately, global inequality increases due to capitalistic economic system.

Easterling, S., 2003. Marx’s Theory of Economic Crisis. International Social Review , 32, pp. 1-23.

Heilbroner, R., 1999. Marx’s Analysis of Capitalism. The Worldly Philosophers , pp.1-9.

Kuhn, R., 2011. Karl Max and Frederick Engels: Manifesto of Communist Party 1848. Communist League, pp.1-32.

Milios, J., 2000. Social Classes in Classical and Marxist Political Economy. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 59(2), pp. 283–302.

Rosenberg, J., 2007. Marxism and International Relations. University of Sussex , pp. 1-26.

Walker, R., & Greenberg, D., 2003. A Guide for the Ley Reader of Marxism. The Journal of Socialist Theory , 6(5), pp. 38-42.

Wolff, E., & Zacharias, A., 2007. Class Structure and Economic Inequality. Levy Economics Institute, pp. 1-42.

Wright, E., 1999. Foundations of Class Analysis: A Marxist Perspective. American Sociological Association, 6, pp. 1-23.

• Critical Examination of the Impacts of Globalization on National Sovereignty
• The Jeustice and Fairness Conception of John Rawls
• Marxist Theory and Social Classes
• President Barrack Obama 2013 Inaugural Speech
• White Collar Crimes From a Marxist Criminological Perspective
• Karl Marx's Critique of Capitalism
• The Concept and History of Liberal Nationalism
• Exercise of Prerogative Powers
• Socialism and Communism after Marx
• How Does Revolutionary Communism Compare With Democratic Socialism?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2018, December 27). Marxist Analysis. https://ivypanda.com/essays/marxist-analysis/

"Marxist Analysis." IvyPanda , 27 Dec. 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/marxist-analysis/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'Marxist Analysis'. 27 December.

IvyPanda . 2018. "Marxist Analysis." December 27, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/marxist-analysis/.

1. IvyPanda . "Marxist Analysis." December 27, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/marxist-analysis/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Marxist Analysis." December 27, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/marxist-analysis/.

Stratification and Inequality

Spring 2005

The Marxist approach to class analysis–Some discussion questions

• What are the basic meanings of the concepts: means of production, relations of production, and mode of production?
• Why and how are surplus labor and surplus value significant to a Marxist analysis?
• What does "class" mean in Marxist theory?  (This is difficult and likely to involve more than one answer.)
• According to the logic of Marxist theory, what determines social conflict (for example, is it interests, domination, exploitation or something else)?  Note, that the “logic of Marxist theory” means we should think about the implications of the theoretical argument, not just what Marx or others offering Marxist analysis have written.
• Within the logic of Marxist theory, where does competition come from and what role does it play in the analysis?
• What distinguishes primitive accumulation from the accumulation of capital generally?  (This is in volume I of Capital; although seeming a bit specific, the question has some far reaching implications about the theory.)
• How do the adoption of machines, markets, and the division of labor relate to each other?  (This is another really difficult question that cannot be answered simply by reading what Marx [or others] had to say.)
• Two related questions:  According to Marx’s analysis, how does the history of the bourgeoisie differ from the history of the proletariat?  According to Marx’s analysis, how does the conflict between the nobility and bourgeoisie differ from the conflict between the bourgeoisie and proletariat?  (These are fundamental questions that reveals critical assumptions about the logic of long-term historical class analysis and class relations in Marxist theory.)
• How predictive is Marxist theory?  (This is really a very tricky question.)
• What is unproductive labor?  (This question is most important because of the many arguments that have grown out of it.)
• Why does Marx argue that the necessity of the Factory Acts reveals the character of capitalism?  (Not a central question about the analysis, but a window into some of the predispositions.)

««« Return to Stratification & Inequality Syllabus

Works of Karl Marx 1844

On The Jewish Question

Written : Autumn 1843; First Published : February, 1844 in Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher ; Proofed and Corrected : by Andy Blunden, Matthew Grant and Matthew Carmody, 2008/9.

See Citizen in the Encyclopedia of Marxism, for an explanation of the various words for “citizen.”

I Bruno Bauer, The Jewish Question , Braunschweig, 1843

The German Jews desire emancipation. What kind of emancipation do they desire? Civic, political emancipation.

Bruno Bauer replies to them: No one in Germany is politically emancipated. We ourselves are not free. How are we to free you? You Jews are egoists if you demand a special emancipation for yourselves as Jews. As Germans, you ought to work for the political emancipation of Germany, and as human beings, for the emancipation of mankind, and you should feel the particular kind of your oppression and your shame not as an exception to the rule, but on the contrary as a confirmation of the rule.

Or do the Jews demand the same status as Christian subjects of the state ? In that case, they recognize that the Christian state is justified and they recognize, too, the regime of general oppression. Why should they disapprove of their special yoke if they approve of the general yoke? Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?

The Christian state knows only privileges . In this state, the Jew has the privilege of being a Jew. As a Jew, he has rights which the Christians do not have. Why should he want rights which he does not have, but which the Christians enjoy?

In wanting to be emancipated from the Christian state, the Jew is demanding that the Christian state should give up its religious prejudice. Does he, the Jew, give up his religious prejudice? Has he, then, the right to demand that someone else should renounce his religion?

By its very nature , the Christian state is incapable of emancipating the Jew; but, adds Bauer, by his very nature the Jew cannot be emancipated. So long as the state is Christian and the Jew is Jewish, the one is as incapable of granting emancipation as the other is of receiving it.

The Christian state can behave towards the Jew only in the way characteristic of the Christian state – that is, by granting privileges, by permitting the separation of the Jew from the other subjects, but making him feel the pressure of all the other separate spheres of society, and feel it all the more intensely because he is in religious opposition to the dominant religion. But the Jew, too, can behave towards the state only in a Jewish way – that is, by treating it as something alien to him, by counterposing his imaginary nationality to the real nationality, by counterposing his illusory law to the real law, by deeming himself justified in separating himself from mankind, by abstaining on principle from taking part in the historical movement, by putting his trust in a future which has nothing in common with the future of mankind in general, and by seeing himself as a member of the Jewish people, and the Jewish people as the chosen people.

On what grounds, then, do you Jews want emancipation? On account of your religion? It is the mortal enemy of the state religion. As citizens? In Germany, there are no citizens. As human beings? But you are no more human beings than those to whom you appeal.

Bauer has posed the question of Jewish emancipation in a new form, after giving a critical analysis of the previous formulations and solutions of the question. What, he asks, is the nature of the Jew who is to be emancipated and of the Christian state that is to emancipate him? He replies by a critique of the Jewish religion, he analyzes the religious opposition between Judaism and Christianity, he elucidates the essence of the Christian state – and he does all this audaciously, trenchantly, wittily, and with profundity, in a style of writing that is as precise as it is pithy and vigorous.

How, then, does Bauer solve the Jewish question? What is the result? The formulation of a question is its solution. The critique of the Jewish question is the answer to the Jewish question. The summary, therefore, is as follows:

We must emancipate ourselves before we can emancipate others.

The most rigid form of the opposition between the Jew and the Christian is the religious opposition. How is an opposition resolved? By making it impossible. How is religious opposition made impossible? By abolishing religion . As soon as Jew and Christian recognize that their respective religions are no more than different stages in the development of the human mind , different snake skins cast off by history , and that man is the snake who sloughed them, the relation of Jew and Christian is no longer religious but is only a critical, scientific , and human relation. Science , then, constitutes their unity. But, contradictions in science are resolved by science itself.

The German Jew, in particular, is confronted by the general absence of political emancipation and the strongly marked Christian character of the state. In Bauer’s conception, however, the Jewish question has a universal significance, independent of specifically German conditions. It is the question of the relation of religion to the state, of the contradiction between religious constraint and political emancipation . Emancipation from religion is laid down as a condition, both to the Jew who wants to be emancipated politically, and to the state which is to effect emancipation and is itself to be emancipated.

“Very well,” it is said, and the Jew himself says it, “the Jew is to become emancipated not as a Jew, not because he is a Jew, not because he possesses such an excellent, universally human principle of morality; on the contrary, the Jew will retreat behind the citizen and be a citizen , although he is a Jew and is to remain a Jew. That is to say, he is and remains a Jew , although he is a citizen and lives in universally human conditions: his Jewish and restricted nature triumphs always in the end over his human and political obligations. The prejudice remains in spite of being outstripped by general principles. But if it remains, then, on the contrary, it outstrips everything else.”

“Only sophistically, only apparently, would the Jew be able to remain a Jew in the life of the state. Hence, if he wanted to remain a Jew, the mere appearance would become the essential and would triumph; that is to say, his life in the state would be only a semblance or only a temporary exception to the essential and the rule.” (“The Capacity of Present-Day Jews and Christians to Become Free,” Einundzwanzig Bogen , pp. 57)

“France,” he says, “has recently shown us” (Proceedings of the Chamber of Deputies, December 26, 1840) “in the connection with the Jewish question – just as it has continually done in all other political questions – the spectacle of a life which is free, but which revokes its freedom by law, hence declaring it to be an appearance, and on the other hand contradicting its free laws by its action.” ( The Jewish Question , p. 64)

“In France, universal freedom is not yet the law, the Jewish question too has not yet been solved, because legal freedom – the fact that all citizens are equal – is restricted in actual life, which is still dominated and divided by religious privileges, and this lack of freedom in actual life reacts on law and compels the latter to sanction the division of the citizens, who as such are free, into oppressed and oppressors.” (p. 65)

When, therefore, would the Jewish question be solved for France?

“The Jew, for example, would have ceased to be a Jew if he did not allow himself to be prevented by his laws from fulfilling his duty to the state and his fellow citizens, that is, for example, if on the Sabbath he attended the Chamber of Deputies and took part in the official proceedings. Every religious privilege , and therefore also the monopoly of a privileged church, would have been abolished altogether, and if some or many persons, or even the overwhelming majority, still believed themselves bound to fulfil religious duties, this fulfilment ought to be left to them as a purely private matter.” (p. 65)

“There is no longer any religion when there is no longer any privileged religion. Take from religion its exclusive power and it will no longer exist.” (p. 66)

“Just as M. Martin du Nord saw the proposal to omit mention of Sunday in the law as a motion to declare that Christianity has ceased to exist, with equal reason (and this reason is very well founded) the declaration that the law of the Sabbath is no longer binding on the Jew would be a proclamation abolishing Judaism.” (p. 71)

Bauer, therefore, demands, on the one hand, that the Jew should renounce Judaism, and that mankind in general should renounce religion, in order to achieve civic emancipation. On the other hand, he quite consistently regards the political abolition of religion as the abolition of religion as such. The state which presupposes religion is not yet a true, real state.

“Of course, the religious notion affords security to the state. But to what state? To what kind of state?” (p. 97)

At this point, the one-sided formulation of the Jewish question becomes evident.

It was by no means sufficient to investigate: Who is to emancipate? Who is to be emancipated? Criticism had to investigate a third point. It had to inquire: What kind of emancipation is in question? What conditions follow from the very nature of the emancipation that is demanded? Only the criticism of political emancipation itself would have been the conclusive criticism of the Jewish question and its real merging in the “ general question of time .”

Because Bauer does not raise the question to this level, he becomes entangled in contradictions. He puts forward conditions which are not based on the nature of political emancipation itself. He raises questions which are not part of his problem, and he solves problems which leave this question unanswered. When Bauer says of the opponents of Jewish emancipation: “Their error was only that they assumed the Christian state to be the only true one and did not subject it to the same criticism that they applied to Judaism” (op. cit., p. 3), we find that his error lies in the fact that he subjects to criticism only the “Christian state,” not the “state as such,” that he does not investigate the relation of political emancipation to human emancipation and, therefore, puts forward conditions which can be explained only by uncritical confusion of political emancipation with general human emancipation. If Bauer asks the Jews: Have you, from your standpoint, the right to want political emancipation ? We ask the converse question: Does the standpoint of political emancipation give the right to demand from the Jew the abolition of Judaism and from man the abolition of religion?

The Jewish question acquires a different form depending on the state in which the Jew lives. In Germany, where there is no political state, no state as such, the Jewish question is a purely theological one. The Jew finds himself in religious opposition to the state, which recognizes Christianity as its basis. This state is a theologian ex professo . Criticism here is criticism of theology, a double-edged criticism – criticism of Christian theology and of Jewish theology. Hence, we continue to operate in the sphere of theology, however much we may operate critically within it.

In France, a constitutional state, the Jewish question is a question of constitutionalism, the question of the incompleteness of political emancipation . Since the semblance of a state religion is retained here, although in a meaningless and self-contradictory formula, that of a religion of the majority , the relation of the Jew to the state retains the semblance of a religious, theological opposition.

Only in the North American states – at least, in some of them – does the Jewish question lose its theological significance and become a really secular question. Only where the political state exists in its completely developed form can the relation of the Jew, and of the religious man in general, to the political state, and therefore the relation of religion to the state, show itself in its specific character, in its purity. The criticism of this relation ceases to be theological criticism as soon as the state ceases to adopt a theological attitude toward religion, as soon as it behaves towards religion as a state – i.e. , politically . Criticism, then, becomes criticism of the political state. At this point, where the question ceases to be theological, Bauer’s criticism ceases to be critical.

“In the United States there is neither a state religion nor a religion declared to be that of the majority, nor the predominance of one cult over another. The state stands aloof from all cults.” ( Marie ou l’esclavage aux Etats-Unis, etc. , by G. de Beaumont, Paris, 1835, p. 214)

Indeed, there are some North American states where “the constitution does not impose any religious belief or religious practice as a condition of political rights.” (op. cit., p. 225)

Nevertheless, “in the United States people do not believe that a man without religion could be an honest man.” (op. cit., p. 224)

Nevertheless, North America is pre-eminently the country of religiosity, as Beaumont, Tocqueville, and the Englishman Hamilton unanimously assure us. The North American states, however, serve us only as an example. The question is: What is the relation of complete political emancipation to religion? If we find that even in the country of complete political emancipation, religion not only exists, but displays a fresh and vigorous vitality, that is proof that the existence of religion is not in contradiction to the perfection of the state. Since, however, the existence of religion is the existence of defect, the source of this defect can only be sought in the nature of the state itself. We no longer regard religion as the cause , but only as the manifestation of secular narrowness. Therefore, we explain the religious limitations of the free citizen by their secular limitations. We do not assert that they must overcome their religious narrowness in order to get rid of their secular restrictions, we assert that they will overcome their religious narrowness once they get rid of their secular restrictions. We do not turn secular questions into theological ones. History has long enough been merged in superstition, we now merge superstition in history. The question of the relation of political emancipation to religion becomes for us the question of the relation of political emancipation to human emancipation. We criticize the religious weakness of the political state by criticizing the political state in its secular form, apart from its weaknesses as regards religion. The contradiction between the state and a particular religion, for instance Judaism, is given by us a human form as the contradiction between the state and particular secular elements; the contradiction between the state and religion in general as the contradiction between the state and its presuppositions in general.

The political emancipation of the Jew, the Christian, and, in general, of religious man, is the emancipation of the state from Judaism, from Christianity, from religion in general. In its own form, in the manner characteristic of its nature, the state as a state emancipates itself from religion by emancipating itself from the state religion – that is to say, by the state as a state not professing any religion, but, on the contrary, asserting itself as a state. The political emancipation from religion is not a religious emancipation that has been carried through to completion and is free from contradiction, because political emancipation is not a form of human emancipation which has been carried through to completion and is free from contradiction.

The limits of political emancipation are evident at once from the fact that the state can free itself from a restriction without man being really free from this restriction, that the state can be a free state [pun on word Freistaat, which also means republic] without man being a free man . Bauer himself tacitly admits this when he lays down the following condition for political emancipation:

“Every religious privilege, and therefore also the monopoly of a privileged church, would have been abolished altogether, and if some or many persons, or even the overwhelming majority, still believed themselves bound to fulfil religious duties, this fulfilment ought to be left to them as a purely private matter.” [ The Jewish Question , p. 65]

It is possible, therefore, for the state to have emancipated itself from religion even if the overwhelming majority is still religious. And the overwhelming majority does not cease to be religious through being religious in private.

But, the attitude of the state, and of the republic [free state] in particular, to religion is, after all, only the attitude to religion of the men who compose the state. It follows from this that man frees himself through the medium of the state , that he frees himself politically from a limitation when, in contradiction with himself, he raises himself above this limitation in an abstract, limited , and partial way. It follows further that, by freeing himself politically , man frees himself in a roundabout way , through an intermediary , although an essential intermediary . It follows, finally, that man, even if he proclaims himself an atheist through the medium of the state – that is, if he proclaims the state to be atheist – still remains in the grip of religion, precisely because he acknowledges himself only by a roundabout route, only through an intermediary . Religion is precisely the recognition of man in a roundabout way, through an intermediary. The state is the intermediary between man and man’s freedom. Just as Christ is the intermediary to whom man transfers the burden of all his divinity, all his religious constraint , so the state is the intermediary to whom man transfers all his non-divinity and all his human unconstraint .

The political elevation of man above religion shares all the defects and all the advantages of political elevation in general. The state as a state annuls, for instance, private property, man declares by political means that private property is abolished as soon as the property qualification for the right to elect or be elected is abolished, as has occurred in many states of North America. Hamilton quite correctly interprets this fact from a political point of view as meaning:

“the masses have won a victory over the property owners and financial wealth.” [Thomas Hamilton, Men and Manners in America , 2 vols, Edinburgh, 1833, p. 146]

Is not private property abolished in idea if the non-property owner has become the legislator for the property owner? The property qualification for the suffrage is the last political form of giving recognition to private property.

Nevertheless, the political annulment of private property not only fails to abolish private property but even presupposes it. The state abolishes, in its own way, distinctions of birth, social rank, education, occupation, when it declares that birth, social rank, education, occupation, are non-political distinctions, when it proclaims, without regard to these distinction, that every member of the nation is an equal participant in national sovereignty, when it treats all elements of the real life of the nation from the standpoint of the state. Nevertheless, the state allows private property, education, occupation, to act in their way – i.e. , as private property, as education, as occupation, and to exert the influence of their special nature. Far from abolishing these real distinctions, the state only exists on the presupposition of their existence; it feels itself to be a political state and asserts its universality only in opposition to these elements of its being. Hegel, therefore, defines the relation of the political state to religion quite correctly when he says:

“In order [...] that the state should come into existence as the self-knowing, moral reality of the mind, its distinction from the form of authority and faith is essential. But this distinction emerges only insofar as the ecclesiastical aspect arrives at a separation within itself. It is only in this way that the state, above the particular churches, has achieved and brought into existence universality of thought, which is the principle of its form” (Hegel’s Philosophy of Right , 1st edition, p. 346).

Of course! Only in this way, above the particular elements, does the state constitute itself as universality.

The perfect political state is, by its nature, man’s species-life, as opposed to his material life. All the preconditions of this egoistic life continue to exist in civil society outside the sphere of the state, but as qualities of civil society. Where the political state has attained its true development, man – not only in thought, in consciousness, but in reality, in life – leads a twofold life, a heavenly and an earthly life: life in the political community, in which he considers himself a communal being, and life in civil society, in which he acts as a private individual, regards other men as a means, degrades himself into a means, and becomes the plaything of alien powers. The relation of the political state to civil society is just as spiritual as the relations of heaven to earth. The political state stands in the same opposition to civil society, and it prevails over the latter in the same way as religion prevails over the narrowness of the secular world – i.e. , by likewise having always to acknowledge it, to restore it, and allow itself to be dominated by it. In his most immediate reality, in civil society, man is a secular being. Here, where he regards himself as a real individual, and is so regarded by others, he is a fictitious phenomenon. In the state, on the other hand, where man is regarded as a species-being, he is the imaginary member of an illusory sovereignty, is deprived of his real individual life and endowed with an unreal universality.

Man, as the adherent of a particular religion, finds himself in conflict with his citizenship and with other men as members of the community. This conflict reduces itself to the secular division between the political state and civil society . For man as a bourgeois [i.e., as a member of civil society, “bourgeois society” in German] , “life in the state” is “only a semblance or a temporary exception to the essential and the rule.” Of course, the bourgeois , like the Jew, remains only sophistically in the sphere of political life, just as the citoyen [‘citizen’ in French, i.e. , the participant in political life] only sophistically remains a Jew or a bourgeois . But, this sophistry is not personal. It is the sophistry of the political state itself. The difference between the merchant and the citizen [ Staatsbürger ] , between the day-laborer and the citizen, between the landowner and the citizen, between the merchant and the citizen, between the living individual and the citizen . The contradiction in which the religious man finds himself with the political man is the same contradiction in which the bourgeois finds himself with the citoyen , and the member of civil society with his political lion’s skin .

This secular conflict, to which the Jewish question ultimately reduces itself, the relation between the political state and its preconditions, whether these are material elements, such as private property, etc., or spiritual elements, such as culture or religion, the conflict between the general interest and private interest, the schism between the political state and civil society – these secular antitheses Bauer allows to persist, whereas he conducts a polemic against their religious expression.

“It is precisely the basis of civil society, the need that ensures the continuance of this society and guarantees its necessity, which exposes its existence to continual dangers, maintains in it an element of uncertainty, and produces that continually changing mixture of poverty and riches, of distress and prosperity, and brings about change in general.” (p. 8)

Compare the whole section: “Civil Society” (pp. 8-9), which has been drawn up along the basic lines of Hegel’s philosophy of law. Civil society, in its opposition to the political state, is recognized as necessary, because the political state is recognized as necessary.

Political emancipation is, of course, a big step forward. True, it is not the final form of human emancipation in general, but it is the final form of human emancipation within the hitherto existing world order. It goes without saying that we are speaking here of real, practical emancipation.

Man emancipates himself politically from religion by banishing it from the sphere of public law to that of private law. Religion is no longer the spirit of the state, in which man behaves – although in a limited way, in a particular form, and in a particular sphere – as a species-being, in community with other men. Religion has become the spirit of civil society , of the sphere of egoism, of bellum omnium contra omnes . It is no longer the essence of community , but the essence of difference . It has become the expression of man’s separation from his community , from himself and from other men – as it was originally. It is only the abstract avowal of specific perversity, private whimsy , and arbitrariness. The endless fragmentation of religion in North America, for example, gives it even externally the form of a purely individual affair. It has been thrust among the multitude of private interests and ejected from the community as such. But one should be under no illusion about the limits of political emancipation. The division of the human being into a public man and a private man , the displacement of religion from the state into civil society, this is not a stage of political emancipation but its completion; this emancipation, therefore, neither abolished the real religiousness of man, nor strives to do so.

The decomposition of man into Jew and citizen, Protestant and citizen, religious man and citizen, is neither a deception directed against citizenhood, nor is it a circumvention of political emancipation, it is political emancipation itself , the political method of emancipating oneself from religion. Of course, in periods when the political state as such is born violently out of civil society, when political liberation is the form in which men strive to achieve their liberation, the state can and must go as far as the abolition of religion , the destruction of religion. But it can do so only in the same way that it proceeds to the abolition of private property, to the maximum, to confiscation, to progressive taxation, just as it goes as far as the abolition of life, the guillotine . At times of special self-confidence, political life seeks to suppress its prerequisite, civil society and the elements composing this society, and to constitute itself as the real species-life of man, devoid of contradictions. But, it can achieve this only by coming into violent contradiction with its own conditions of life, only by declaring the revolution to be permanent, and, therefore, the political drama necessarily ends with the re-establishment of religion, private property, and all elements of civil society, just as war ends with peace.

Indeed, the perfect Christian state is not the so-called Christian state – which acknowledges Christianity as its basis, as the state religion, and, therefore, adopts an exclusive attitude towards other religions. On the contrary, the perfect Christian state is the atheistic state, the democratic state, the state which relegates religion to a place among the other elements of civil society. The state which is still theological, which still officially professes Christianity as its creed, which still does not dare to proclaim itself as a state , has, in its reality as a state, not yet succeeded in expressing the human basis – of which Christianity is the high-flown expression – in a secular, human form. The so-called Christian state is simply nothing more than a non-state, since it is not Christianity as a religion, but only the human background of the Christian religion, which can find its expression in actual human creations.

The so-called Christian state is the Christian negation of the state, but by no means the political realization of Christianity. The state which still professes Christianity in the form of religion, does not yet profess it in the form appropriate to the state, for it still has a religious attitude towards religion – that is to say, it is not the true implementation of the human basis of religion, because it still relies on the unreal, imaginary form of this human core. The so-called Christian state is the imperfect state, and the Christian religion is regarded by it as the supplementation and sanctification of its imperfection. For the Christian state, therefore, religion necessarily becomes a means ; hence, it is a hypocritical state. It makes a great difference whether the complete state, because of the defect inherent in the general nature of the state, counts religion among its presuppositions , or whether the incomplete state, because of the defect inherent in its particular existence as a defective state, declares that religion is its basis. In the latter case, religion becomes imperfect politics . In the former case, the imperfection even of consummate politics becomes evident in religion. The so-called Christian state needs the Christian religion in order to complete itself as a state . The democratic state, the real state, does not need religion for its political completion. On the contrary, it can disregard religion because in it the human basis of religion is realized in a secular manner. The so-called Christian state, on the other hand, has a political attitude to religion and a religious attitude to politics. By degrading the forms of the state to mere semblance, it equally degrades religion to mere semblance.

In order to make this contradiction clearer, let us consider Bauer’s projection of the Christian state, a projection based on his observation of the Christian-German state.

“Recently,” says Bauer, “in order to prove the impossibility or non-existence of a Christian state, reference has frequently been made to those sayings in the Gospel with which the [present-day] state not only does not comply, but cannot possibly comply, if it does not want to dissolve itself completely [as a state].” “But the matter cannot be disposed of so easily. What do these Gospel sayings demand? Supernatural renunciation of self, submission to the authority of revelation, a turning-away from the state, the abolition of secular conditions. Well, the Christian state demands and accomplishes all that. It has assimilated the spirit of the Gospel , and if it does not reproduce this spirit in the same terms as the Gospel, that occurs only because it expresses this spirit in political forms, i.e. , in forms which, it is true, are taken from the political system in this world, but which in the religious rebirth that they have to undergo become degraded to a mere semblance. This is a turning-away from the state while making use of political forms for its realization.” (p. 55)

Bauer then explains that the people of a Christian state is only a non-people, no longer having a will of its own, but whose true existence lies in the leader to whom it is subjected, although this leader by his origin and nature is alien to it – i.e. , given by God and imposed on the people without any co-operation on its part. Bauer declares that the laws of such a people are not its own creation, but are actual revelations, that its supreme chief needs privileged intermediaries with the people in the strict sense, with the masses, and that the masses themselves are divided into a multitude of particular groupings which are formed and determined by chance, which are differentiated by their interests, their particular passions and prejudices, and obtain permission as a privilege, to isolate themselves from one another, etc. (p. 56)

However, Bauer himself says:

“Politics, if it is to be nothing but religion, ought not to be politics, just as the cleaning of saucepans, if it is to be accepted as a religious matter, ought not to be regarded as a matter of domestic economy.” (p. 108)

In the Christian-German state, however, religion is an “economic matter” just as “economic matters” belong to the sphere of religion. The domination of religion in the Christian-German state is the religion of domination.

The separation of the “spirit of the Gospel” from the “letter of the Gospel” is an irreligious act. A state which makes the Gospel speak in the language of politics – that is, in another language than that of the Holy Ghost – commits sacrilege, if not in human eyes, then in the eyes of its own religion. The state which acknowledges Christianity as its supreme criterion, and the Bible as its Charter , must be confronted with the words of Holy Scripture, for every word of Scripture is holy. This state, as well as the human rubbish on which it is based, is caught in a painful contradiction that is insoluble from the standpoint of religious consciousness when it is referred to those sayings of the Gospel with which it “not only does not comply, but cannot possibly comply, if it does not want to dissolve itself completely as a state .” And why does it not want to dissolve itself completely? The state itself cannot give an answer either to itself or to others. In its own consciousness , the official Christian state is an imperative , the realization of which is unattainable, the state can assert the reality of its existence only by lying to itself, and therefore always remains in its own eyes an object of doubt, an unreliable, problematic object. Criticism is, therefore, fully justified in forcing the state that relies on the Bible into a mental derangement in which it no longer knows whether it is an illusion or a reality , and in which the infamy of its secular aims, for which religion serves as a cloak, comes into insoluble conflict with the sincerity of its religious consciousness, for which religion appears as the aim of the world. This state can only save itself from its inner torment if it becomes the police agent of the Catholic Church. In relation to the church, which declares the secular power to be its servant, the state is powerless, the secular power which claims to be the rule of the religious spirit is powerless.

It is, indeed, estrangement which matters in the so-called Christian state, but not man . The only man who counts, the king, is a being specifically different from other men, and is, moreover, a religious being, directly linked with heaven, with God. The relationships which prevail here are still relationships dependent of faith . The religious spirit, therefore, is still not really secularized.

But, furthermore, the religious spirit cannot be really secularized, for what is it in itself but the non-secular form of a stage in the development of the human mind? The religious spirit can only be secularized insofar as the stage of development of the human mind of which it is the religious expression makes its appearance and becomes constituted in its secular form. This takes place in the democratic state. Not Christianity, but the human basis of Christianity is the basis of this state. Religion remains the ideal, non-secular consciousness of its members, because religion is the ideal form of the stage of human development achieved in this state.

The members of the political state are religious owing to the dualism between individual life and species-life, between the life of civil society and political life. They are religious because men treat the political life of the state, an area beyond their real individuality, as if it were their true life. They are religious insofar as religion here is the spirit of civil society, expressing the separation and remoteness of man from man. Political democracy is Christian since in it man, not merely one man but everyman, ranks as sovereign , as the highest being, but it is man in his uncivilized, unsocial form, man in his fortuitous existence, man just as he is, man as he has been corrupted by the whole organization of our society, who has lost himself, been alienated, and handed over to the rule of inhuman conditions and elements – in short, man who is not yet a real species-being. That which is a creation of fantasy, a dream, a postulate of Christianity, i.e. , the sovereignty of man – but man as an alien being different from the real man – becomes, in democracy, tangible reality, present existence, and secular principle.

In the perfect democracy, the religious and theological consciousness itself is in its own eyes the more religious and the more theological because it is apparently without political significance, without worldly aims, the concern of a disposition that shuns the world, the expression of intellectual narrow-mindedness, the product of arbitrariness and fantasy, and because it is a life that is really of the other world. Christianity attains, here, the practical expression of its universal-religious significance in that the most diverse world outlooks are grouped alongside one another in the form of Christianity and still more because it does not require other people to profess Christianity, but only religion in general, any kind of religion (cf. Beaumont’s work quoted above). The religious consciousness revels in the wealth of religious contradictions and religious diversity.

We have, thus, shown that political emancipation from religion leaves religion in existence, although not a privileged religion. The contradiction in which the adherent of a particular religion finds himself involved in relation to his citizenship is only one aspect of the universal secular contradiction between the political state and civil society . The consummation of the Christian state is the state which acknowledges itself as a state and disregards the religion of its members. The emancipation of the state from religion is not the emancipation of the real man from religion.

Therefore, we do not say to the Jews, as Bauer does: You cannot be emancipated politically without emancipating yourselves radically from Judaism. On the contrary, we tell them: Because you can be emancipated politically without renouncing Judaism completely and incontrovertibly, political emancipation itself is not human emancipation. If you Jews want to be emancipated politically, without emancipating yourselves humanly, the half-hearted approach and contradiction is not in you alone, it is inherent in the nature and category of political emancipation. If you find yourself within the confines of this category, you share in a general confinement. Just as the state evangelizes when, although it is a state, it adopts a Christian attitude towards the Jews, so the Jew acts politically when, although a Jew, he demands civic rights.

But, if a man, although a Jew, can be emancipated politically and receive civic rights, can he lay claim to the so-called rights of man and receive them? Bauer denies it.

“The question is whether the Jew as such, that is, the Jew who himself admits that he is compelled by his true nature to live permanently in separation from other men, is capable of receiving the universal rights of man and of conceding them to others.”

“For the Christian world, the idea of the rights of man was only discovered in the last century. It is not innate in men; on the contrary, it is gained only in a struggle against the historical traditions in which hitherto man was brought up. Thus the rights of man are not a gift of nature, not a legacy from past history, but the reward of the struggle against the accident of birth and against the privileges which up to now have been handed down by history from generation to generation. These rights are the result of culture, and only one who has earned and deserved them can possess them.”

“Can the Jew really take possession of them? As long as he is a Jew, the restricted nature which makes him a Jew is bound to triumph over the human nature which should link him as a man with other men, and will separate him from non-Jews. He declares by this separation that the particular nature which makes him a Jew is his true, highest nature, before which human nature has to give way.”

“Similarly, the Christian as a Christian cannot grant the rights of man.” (p. 19-20)

According to Bauer, man has to sacrifice the “ privilege of faith ” to be able to receive the universal rights of man. Let us examine, for a moment, the so-called rights of man – to be precise, the rights of man in their authentic form, in the form which they have among those who discovered them, the North Americans and the French. These rights of man are, in part, political rights, rights which can only be exercised in community with others. Their content is participation in the community , and specifically in the political community, in the life of the state . They come within the category of political freedom , the category of civic rights , which, as we have seen, in no way presuppose the incontrovertible and positive abolition of religion – nor, therefore, of Judaism. There remains to be examined the other part of the rights of man – the droits de l’homme , insofar as these differ from the droits du citoyen .

Included among them is freedom of conscience, the right to practice any religion one chooses. The privilege of faith is expressly recognized either as a right of man or as the consequence of a right of man, that of liberty.

Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen , 1791, Article 10: “No one is to be subjected to annoyance because of his opinions, even religious opinions.” “The freedom of every man to practice the religion of which he is an adherent.”

Declaration of the Rights of Man , etc., 1793, includes among the rights of man, Article 7: “The free exercise of religion.” Indeed, in regard to man’s right to express his thoughts and opinions, to hold meetings, and to exercise his religion, it is even stated: “The necessity of proclaiming these rights presupposes either the existence or the recent memory of despotism.” Compare the Constitution of 1795, Section XIV, Article 354.

Constitution of Pennsylvania , Article 9, § 3: “All men have received from nature the imprescriptible right to worship the Almighty according to the dictates of their conscience, and no one can be legally compelled to follow, establish, or support against his will any religion or religious ministry. No human authority can, in any circumstances, intervene in a matter of conscience or control the forces of the soul.”

Constitution of New Hampshire , Article 5 and 6: “Among these natural rights some are by nature inalienable since nothing can replace them. The rights of conscience are among them.” (Beaumont, op. cit., pp. 213,214)

Incompatibility between religion and the rights of man is to such a degree absent from the concept of the rights of man that, on the contrary, a man’s right to be religious , in any way he chooses, to practise his own particular religion, is expressly included among the rights of man. The privilege of faith is a universal right of man .

The droits de l’homme , the rights of man, are, as such, distinct from the droits du citoyen , the rights of the citizen. Who is homme as distinct from citoyen ? None other than the member of civil society . Why is the member of civil society called “man,” simply man; why are his rights called the rights of man ? How is this fact to be explained? From the relationship between the political state and civil society, from the nature of political emancipation.

Above all, we note the fact that the so-called rights of man, the droits de l’homme as distinct from the droits du citoyen , are nothing but the rights of a member of civil society – i.e. , the rights of egoistic man, of man separated from other men and from the community. Let us hear what the most radical Constitution, the Constitution of 1793, has to say:

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen . Article 2. “These rights, etc., (the natural and imprescriptible rights) are: equality, liberty, security, property.”

What constitutes liberty?

Article 6. “Liberty is the power which man has to do everything that does not harm the rights of others,” or, according to the Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1791: “Liberty consists in being able to do everything which does not harm others.”

Liberty, therefore, is the right to do everything that harms no one else. The limits within which anyone can act without harming someone else are defined by law, just as the boundary between two fields is determined by a boundary post. It is a question of the liberty of man as an isolated monad, withdrawn into himself. Why is the Jew, according to Bauer, incapable of acquiring the rights of man?

“As long as he is a Jew, the restricted nature which makes him a Jew is bound to triumph over the human nature which should link him as a man with other men, and will separate him from non-Jews.”

But, the right of man to liberty is based not on the association of man with man, but on the separation of man from man. It is the right of this separation, the right of the restricted individual, withdrawn into himself.

The practical application of man’s right to liberty is man’s right to private property .

What constitutes man’s right to private property?

Article 16. (Constitution of 1793): “The right of property is that which every citizen has of enjoying and of disposing at his discretion of his goods and income, of the fruits of his labor and industry.”

The right of man to private property is, therefore, the right to enjoy one’s property and to dispose of it at one’s discretion ( à son gré ), without regard to other men, independently of society, the right of self-interest. This individual liberty and its application form the basis of civil society. It makes every man see in other men not the realization of his own freedom, but the barrier to it. But, above all, it proclaims the right of man

“of enjoying and of disposing at his discretion of his goods and income, of the fruits of his labor and industry.”

There remain the other rights of man: �galit� and s�ret� .

Equality, used here in its non-political sense, is nothing but the equality of the libert� described above – namely: each man is to the same extent regarded as such a self-sufficient monad. The Constitution of 1795 defines the concept of this equality, in accordance with this significance, as follows:

Article 3 (Constitution of 1795): “Equality consists in the law being the same for all, whether it protects or punishes.”

And security?

Article 8 (Constitution of 1793): “Security consists in the protection afforded by society to each of its members for the preservation of his person, his rights, and his property.”

Security is the highest social concept of civil society, the concept of police , expressing the fact that the whole of society exists only in order to guarantee to each of its members the preservation of his person, his rights, and his property. It is in this sense that Hegel calls civil society “the state of need and reason.”

The concept of security does not raise civil society above its egoism. On the contrary, security is the insurance of egoism.

None of the so-called rights of man, therefore, go beyond egoistic man, beyond man as a member of civil society – that is, an individual withdrawn into himself, into the confines of his private interests and private caprice, and separated from the community. In the rights of man, he is far from being conceived as a species-being; on the contrary, species-life itself, society, appears as a framework external to the individuals, as a restriction of their original independence. The sole bond holding them together is natural necessity, need and private interest, the preservation of their property and their egoistic selves.

It is puzzling enough that a people which is just beginning to liberate itself, to tear down all the barriers between its various sections, and to establish a political community, that such a people solemnly proclaims ( Declaration of 1791) the rights of egoistic man separated from his fellow men and from the community, and that indeed it repeats this proclamation at a moment when only the most heroic devotion can save the nation, and is therefore imperatively called for, at a moment when the sacrifice of all the interest of civil society must be the order of the day, and egoism must be punished as a crime. ( Declaration of the Rights of Man , etc., of 1793) This fact becomes still more puzzling when we see that the political emancipators go so far as to reduce citizenship, and the political community , to a mere means for maintaining these so-called rights of man, that, therefore, the citoyen is declared to be the servant of egotistic homme , that the sphere in which man acts as a communal being is degraded to a level below the sphere in which he acts as a partial being, and that, finally, it is not man as citoyen , but man as private individual [ bourgeois ] who is considered to be the essential and true man.

“The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man.” ( Declaration of the Rights, etc ., of 1791, Article 2)

“Government is instituted in order to guarantee man the enjoyment of his natural and imprescriptible rights.” ( Declaration , etc., of 1793, Article 1)

Hence, even in moments when its enthusiasm still has the freshness of youth and is intensified to an extreme degree by the force of circumstances, political life declares itself to be a mere means , whose purpose is the life of civil society. It is true that its revolutionary practice is in flagrant contradiction with its theory. Whereas, for example, security is declared one of the rights of man, violation of the privacy of correspondence is openly declared to be the order of the day. Whereas “unlimited freedom of the press” (Constitution of 1793, Article 122) is guaranteed as a consequence of the right of man to individual liberty, freedom of the press is totally destroyed, because “freedom of the press should not be permitted when it endangers public liberty.” (“Robespierre jeune,” Historie parlementaire de la R�volution fran�aise by Buchez and Roux, vol.28, p. 159) That is to say, therefore: The right of man to liberty ceases to be a right as soon as it comes into conflict with political life, whereas in theory political life is only the guarantee of human rights, the rights of the individual, and therefore must be abandoned as soon as it comes into contradiction with its aim , with these rights of man. But, practice is merely the exception, theory is the rule. But even if one were to regard revolutionary practice as the correct presentation of the relationship, there would still remain the puzzle of why the relationship is turned upside-down in the minds of the political emancipators and the aim appears as the means, while the means appears as the aim. This optical illusion of their consciousness would still remain a puzzle, although now a psychological, a theoretical puzzle.

The puzzle is easily solved.

Political emancipation is, at the same time, the dissolution of the old society on which the state alienated from the people, the sovereign power, is based. What was the character of the old society? It can be described in one word – feudalism . The character of the old civil society was directly political – that is to say, the elements of civil life, for example, property, or the family, or the mode of labor, were raised to the level of elements of political life in the form of seigniory, estates, and corporations. In this form, they determined the relation of the individual to the state as a whole – i.e. , his political relation, that is, his relation of separation and exclusion from the other components of society. For that organization of national life did not raise property or labor to the level of social elements; on the contrary, it completed their separation from the state as a whole and constituted them as discrete societies within society. Thus, the vital functions and conditions of life of civil society remained, nevertheless, political, although political in the feudal sense – that is to say, they secluded the individual from the state as a whole and they converted the particular relation of his corporation to the state as a whole into his general relation to the life of the nation, just as they converted his particular civil activity and situation into his general activity and situation. As a result of this organization, the unity of the state, and also the consciousness, will, and activity of this unity, the general power of the state, are likewise bound to appear as the particular affair of a ruler and of his servants, isolated from the people.

The political revolution which overthrew this sovereign power and raised state affairs to become affairs of the people, which constituted the political state as a matter of general concern, that is, as a real state, necessarily smashed all estates, corporations, guilds, and privileges, since they were all manifestations of the separation of the people from the community. The political revolution thereby abolished the political character of civil society . It broke up civil society into its simple component parts; on the one hand, the individuals ; on the other hand, the material and spiritual elements constituting the content of the life and social position of these individuals. It set free the political spirit, which had been, as it were, split up, partitioned, and dispersed in the various blind alleys of feudal society. It gathered the dispersed parts of the political spirit, freed it from its intermixture with civil life, and established it as the sphere of the community, the general concern of the nation, ideally independent of those particular elements of civil life. A person’s distinct activity and distinct situation in life were reduced to a merely individual significance. They no longer constituted the general relation of the individual to the state as a whole. Public affairs as such, on the other hand, became the general affair of each individual, and the political function became the individual’s general function.

But, the completion of the idealism of the state was at the same time the completion of the materialism of civil society. Throwing off the political yoke meant at the same time throwing off the bonds which restrained the egoistic spirit of civil society. Political emancipation was, at the same time, the emancipation of civil society from politics, from having even the semblance of a universal content.

Feudal society was resolved into its basic element – man , but man as he really formed its basis – egoistic man.

This man , the member of civil society, is thus the basis, the precondition, of the political state. He is recognized as such by this state in the rights of man.

The liberty of egoistic man and the recognition of this liberty, however, is rather the recognition of the unrestrained movement of the spiritual and material elements which form the content of his life.

Hence, man was not freed from religion, he received religious freedom. He was not freed from property, he received freedom to own property. He was not freed from the egoism of business, he received freedom to engage in business.

The establishment of the political state and the dissolution of civil society into independent individuals – whose relation with one another epend on law , just as the relations of men in the system of estates and guilds depended on privilege – is accomplished by one and the same act . Man as a member of civil society, unpolitical man, inevitably appears, however, as the natural man. The “rights of man” appears as “natural rights,” because conscious activity is concentrated on the political act . Egoistic man is the passive result of the dissolved society, a result that is simply found in existence , an object of immediate certainty , therefore a natural object. The political revolution resolves civil life into its component parts, without revolutionizing these components themselves or subjecting them to criticism. It regards civil society, the world of needs, labor, private interests, civil law, as the basis of its existence , as a precondition not requiring further substantiation and therefore as its natural basis . Finally, man as a member of civil society is held to be man in the proper sense, homme as distinct from citoyen , because he is man in his sensuous, individual, immediate existence, whereas political man is only abstract, artificial man, man as an allegorical, juridical person. The real man is recognized only in the shape of the egoistic individual, the true man is recognized only in the shape of the abstract citizen .

Therefore, Rousseau correctly described the abstract idea of political man as follows:

“Whoever dares undertake to establish a people’s institutions must feel himself capable of changing, as it were, human nature, of transforming each individual, who by himself is a complete and solitary whole, into a part of a larger whole, from which, in a sense, the individual receives his life and his being, of substituting a limited and mental existence for the physical and independent existence. He has to take from man his own powers, and give him in exchange alien powers which he cannot employ without the help of other men.”

All emancipation is a reduction of the human world and relationships to man himself .

Political emancipation is the reduction of man, on the one hand, to a member of civil society, to an egoistic, independent individual, and, on the other hand, to a citizen , a juridical person.

Only when the real, individual man re-absorbs in himself the abstract citizen, and as an individual human being has become a species-being in his everyday life, in his particular work, and in his particular situation, only when man has recognized and organized his “own powers” as social powers, and, consequently, no longer separates social power from himself in the shape of political power, only then will human emancipation have been accomplished.

II Bruno Bauer, “The Capacity of Present-day Jews and Christians to Become Free,” Einundzwanzig Bogen aus der Schweiz , pp. 56-71

It is in this form that Bauer deals with the relation between the Jewish and the Christian religions, and also with their relation to criticism. Their relation to criticism is their relation “to the capacity to become free.”

The result arrived at is:

“The Christian has to surmount only one stage, namely, that of his religion, in order to give up religion altogether,”

and therefore become free.

“The Jew, on the other hand, has to break not only with his Jewish nature, but also with the development towards perfecting his religion, a development which has remained alien to him.” (p. 71)

Thus, Bauer here transforms the question of Jewish emancipation into a purely religious question. The theological problem as to whether the Jew or the Christian has the better prospect of salvation is repeated here in the enlightened form: which of them is more capable of emancipation . No longer is the question asked: Is it Judaism or Christianity that makes a man free? On the contrary, the question is now: Which makes man freer, the negation of Judaism or the negation of Christianity?

“If the Jews want to become free, they should profess belief not in Christianity, but in the dissolution of Christianity, in the dissolution of religion in general, that is to say, in enlightenment, criticism, and its consequences, free humanity.” (p. 70)

For the Jew, it is still a matter of a profession of faith, but no longer a profession of belief in Christianity, but of belief in Christianity in dissolution.

Bauer demands of the Jews that they should break with the essence of the Christian religion, a demand which, as he says himself, does not arise out of the development of Judaism.

Since Bauer, at the end of his work on the Jewish question, had conceived Judaism only as crude religious criticism of Christianity, and therefore saw in it “merely” a religious significance, it could be foreseen that the emancipation of the Jews, too, would be transformed into a philosophical-theological act.

Bauer considers that the ideal , abstract nature of the Jew, his religion , is his entire nature. Hence, he rightly concludes:

“The Jew contributes nothing to mankind if he himself disregards his narrow law,” if he invalidates his entire Judaism. (p. 65)

Accordingly, the relation between Jews and Christians becomes the following: the sole interest of the Christian in the emancipation of the Jew is a general human interest, a theoretical interest. Judaism is a fact that offends the religious eye of the Christian. As soon as his eye ceases to be religious, this fact ceases to be offensive. The emancipation of the Jew is, in itself, not a task for the Christian.

The Jew, on the other hand, in order to emancipate himself, has to carry out not only his own work, but also that of the Christian – i.e. , the Critique of the Evangelical History of the Synoptics and the Life of Jesus , etc.

“It is up to them to deal with it: they themselves will decide their fate; but history is not to be trifled with.” (p. 71)

We are trying to break with the theological formulation of the question. For us, the question of the Jew’s capacity for emancipation becomes the question: What particular social element has to be overcome in order to abolish Judaism? For the present-day Jew’s capacity for emancipation is the relation of Judaism to the emancipation of the modern world. This relation necessarily results from the special position of Judaism in the contemporary enslaved world.

Let us consider the actual, worldly Jew – not the Sabbath Jew , as Bauer does, but the everyday Jew .

Let us not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let us look for the secret of his religion in the real Jew.

What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest . What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering . What is his worldly God? Money .

Very well then! Emancipation from huckstering and money , consequently from practical, real Judaism, would be the self-emancipation of our time.

An organization of society which would abolish the preconditions for huckstering, and therefore the possibility of huckstering, would make the Jew impossible. His religious consciousness would be dissipated like a thin haze in the real, vital air of society. On the other hand, if the Jew recognizes that this practical nature of his is futile and works to abolish it, he extricates himself from his previous development and works for human emancipation as such and turns against the supreme practical expression of human self-estrangement.

We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time , an element which through historical development – to which in this harmful respect the Jews have zealously contributed – has been brought to its present high level, at which it must necessarily begin to disintegrate.

In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism .

The Jew has already emancipated himself in a Jewish way.

“The Jew, who in Vienna, for example, is only tolerated, determines the fate of the whole Empire by his financial power. The Jew, who may have no rights in the smallest German state, decides the fate of Europe. While corporations and guilds refuse to admit Jews, or have not yet adopted a favorable attitude towards them, the audacity of industry mocks at the obstinacy of the material institutions.” (Bruno Bauer, The Jewish Question , p. 114)

This is no isolated fact. The Jew has emancipated himself in a Jewish manner, not only because he has acquired financial power, but also because, through him and also apart from him, money has become a world power and the practical Jewish spirit has become the practical spirit of the Christian nations. The Jews have emancipated themselves insofar as the Christians have become Jews.

Captain Hamilton, for example, reports:

“The devout and politically free inhabitant of New England is a kind of Laocoön who makes not the least effort to escape from the serpents which are crushing him. Mammon is his idol which he adores not only with his lips but with the whole force of his body and mind. In his view the world is no more than a Stock Exchange, and he is convinced that he has no other destiny here below than to become richer than his neighbor. Trade has seized upon all his thoughts, and he has no other recreation than to exchange objects. When he travels he carries, so to speak, his goods and his counter on his back and talks only of interest and profit. If he loses sight of his own business for an instant it is only in order to pry into the business of his competitors.”

Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade, and the bankrupt trader deals in the Gospel just as the Gospel preacher who has become rich goes in for business deals.

“The man who you see at the head of a respectable congregation began as a trader; his business having failed, he became a minister. The other began as a priest but as soon as he had some money at his disposal he left the pulpit to become a trader. In the eyes of very many people, the religious ministry is a veritable business career.” (Beaumont, op. cit., pp. 185,186)

According to Bauer, it is

“a fictitious state of affairs when in theory the Jew is deprived of political rights, whereas in practice he has immense power and exerts his political influence en gros , although it is curtailed en détail .” ( Die Judenfrage , p. 114)

The contradiction that exists between the practical political power of the Jew and his political rights is the contradiction between politics and the power of money in general. Although theoretically the former is superior to the latter, in actual fact politics has become the serf of financial power.

Judaism has held its own alongside Christianity, not only as religious criticism of Christianity, not only as the embodiment of doubt in the religious derivation of Christianity, but equally because the practical Jewish spirit, Judaism, has maintained itself and even attained its highest development in Christian society. The Jew, who exists as a distinct member of civil society, is only a particular manifestation of the Judaism of civil society.

Judaism continues to exist not in spite of history, but owing to history.

The Jew is perpetually created by civil society from its own entrails.

What, in itself, was the basis of the Jewish religion? Practical need, egoism.

The monotheism of the Jew, therefore, is in reality the polytheism of the many needs, a polytheism which makes even the lavatory an object of divine law. Practical need, egoism , is the principle of civil society , and as such appears in pure form as soon as civil society has fully given birth to the political state. The god of practical need and self-interest is money .

Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man – and turns them into commodities. Money is the universal self-established value of all things. It has, therefore, robbed the whole world – both the world of men and nature – of its specific value. Money is the estranged essence of man’s work and man’s existence, and this alien essence dominates him, and he worships it.

The god of the Jews has become secularized and has become the god of the world. The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange.

The view of nature attained under the domination of private property and money is a real contempt for, and practical debasement of, nature; in the Jewish religion, nature exists, it is true, but it exists only in imagination.

It is in this sense that [in a 1524 pamphlet] Thomas Münzer declares it intolerable

“that all creatures have been turned into property, the fishes in the water, the birds in the air, the plants on the earth; the creatures, too, must become free.”

Contempt for theory, art, history, and for man as an end in himself, which is contained in an abstract form in the Jewish religion, is the real, conscious standpoint, the virtue of the man of money. The species-relation itself, the relation between man and woman, etc., becomes an object of trade! The woman is bought and sold.

The chimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of the merchant, of the man of money in general.

The groundless law of the Jew is only a religious caricature of groundless morality and right in general, of the purely formal rites with which the world of self-interest surrounds itself.

Here, too, man’s supreme relation is the legal one, his relation to laws that are valid for him not because they are laws of his own will and nature, but because they are the dominant laws and because departure from them is avenged .

Jewish Jesuitism, the same practical Jesuitism which Bauer discovers in the Talmud, is the relation of the world of self-interest to the laws governing that world, the chief art of which consists in the cunning circumvention of these laws.

Indeed, the movement of this world within its framework of laws is bound to be a continual suspension of law.

Judaism could not develop further as a religion , could not develop further theoretically, because the world outlook of practical need is essentially limited and is completed in a few strokes.

By its very nature, the religion of practical need could find its consummation not in theory, but only in practice , precisely because its truth is practice.

Judaism could not create a new world; it could only draw the new creations and conditions of the world into the sphere of its activity, because practical need, the rationale of which is self-interest, is passive and does not expand at will, but finds itself enlarged as a result of the continuous development of social conditions.

Judaism reaches its highest point with the perfection of civil society, but it is only in the Christian world that civil society attains perfection. Only under the dominance of Christianity, which makes all national, natural, moral, and theoretical conditions extrinsic to man, could civil society separate itself completely from the life of the state, sever all the species-ties of man, put egoism and selfish need in the place of these species-ties, and dissolve the human world into a world of atomistic individuals who are inimically opposed to one another.

Christianity sprang from Judaism. It has merged again in Judaism.

From the outset, the Christian was the theorizing Jew, the Jew is, therefore, the practical Christian, and the practical Christian has become a Jew again.

Christianity had only in semblance overcome real Judaism. It was too noble-minded , too spiritualistic to eliminate the crudity of practical need in any other way than by elevation to the skies.

Christianity is the sublime thought of Judaism, Judaism is the common practical application of Christianity, but this application could only become general after Christianity as a developed religion had completed theoretically the estrangement of man from himself and from nature.

Only then could Judaism achieve universal dominance and make alienated man and alienated nature into alienable , vendible objects subjected to the slavery of egoistic need and to trading.

Selling [ verausserung ] is the practical aspect of alienation [ Entausserung ]. Just as man, as long as he is in the grip of religion, is able to objectify his essential nature only by turning it into something alien , something fantastic, so under the domination of egoistic need he can be active practically, and produce objects in practice, only by putting his products, and his activity, under the domination of an alien being, and bestowing the significance of an alien entity – money – on them.

In its perfected practice, Christian egoism of heavenly bliss is necessarily transformed into the corporal egoism of the Jew, heavenly need is turned into world need, subjectivism into self-interest. We explain the tenacity of the Jew not by his religion, but, on the contrary, by the human basis of his religion – practical need, egoism.

Since in civil society the real nature of the Jew has been universally realized and secularized, civil society could not convince the Jew of the unreality of his religious nature, which is indeed only the ideal aspect of practical need. Consequently, not only in the Pentateuch and the Talmud, but in present-day society we find the nature of the modern Jew, and not as an abstract nature but as one that is in the highest degree empirical, not merely as a narrowness of the Jew, but as the Jewish narrowness of society.

Once society has succeeded in abolishing the empirical essence of Judaism – huckstering and its preconditions – the Jew will have become impossible , because his consciousness no longer has an object, because the subjective basis of Judaism, practical need, has been humanized, and because the conflict between man’s individual-sensuous existence and his species-existence has been abolished.

The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism .

1844 Index | Deutscher-Fransösischer Jahrbücher Index | Marx/Engels Archive Hegel’s Philosophy of Right

Marxism - Essay Samples And Topic Ideas For Free

Marxism is a social, political, and economic theory originated by Karl Marx, which focuses on the struggle between capitalists and the working class. Essays might explore the principles of Marxism, its historical influence on political and economic systems, and its relevancy in contemporary political discourse. Discussions could also cover criticisms of Marxism and its various interpretations and adaptations. We have collected a large number of free essay examples about Marxism you can find in Papersowl database. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

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•  Marx's treatment of John Stuart Mill is one of the great puzzles of history of economic thought. Reading Marx (and his followers) one gets the impression that Mill was an insignificant figure whose writings exemplify the "decline" of Ricardian economics. Whenever Marx mentions Mill's name (which does not happen very frequently) he v\never forgets to add some derogatory comment. (p.147)
• For present-day economists [Mill] represents a "half-way house" between Ricardo and Marshall; for Marxists he is the apologist personified, sharing the responsibility with many others for the "decline" of Ricardian economics.(p.263)
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Lesson on Marxism: The Revolutionary Idea of Karl Marx

Lesson overview, learning objectives, introduction to marxism lesson, what is marxism, who was karl marx, what are the core principles of marxism, what are marx's stages of societal development, comparing ideologies: marxism vs. capitalism vs. socialism, what are the criticisms of marxism, case studies: how is marxism applied in various countries today.

• By the end of this lesson, students will be able to explain the basic principles of Marxism and how they critique capitalist systems.
• They will understand the historical development of Marxist theory and its application in various global contexts.
• Students will identify the economic, social, and political impacts of Marxism in different countries.
• They will analyze the criticisms and challenges associated with Marxist theory and its practical implementations.
• Finally, students will compare Marxism with other political and economic ideologies to appreciate its unique perspective on class struggle and societal change.

Have you ever wondered why some people advocate for radical changes in how wealth and power are distributed? Or why do certain movements strive for a society where everyone's needs are met equally? These questions are rooted in Marxist theory, developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

In this Marxism Lesson, we'll dive deep into what Marxism is all about, examining its key principles and how they propose to transform society. We'll also look at real-world examples to see how different countries have interpreted and applied these ideas. Join us as we explore the enduring impact of Marxism on global politics and economics, and understand why it continues to inspire those who dream of a fairer world. This journey will not only broaden our understanding of a major political theory but also connect us with the ongoing struggles for social justice and equality across the globe.

Marxism is a socio-political and economic ideology developed from the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It focuses on the conflict between social classes within the capitalist system , emphasizing that political and historical events result from the operation of historical materialism or the mode of production. Marx posited that capitalism , like previous socioeconomic systems, would produce internal tensions leading to its self-destruction and replacement by a new system : socialism and eventually communism , a classless, stateless society. Marxism analyzes class relations and societal conflict using a materialist approach to historical development.

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Karl Marx (1818–1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. Born in Trier, in the Kingdom of Prussia, Marx studied law and philosophy at the universities of Bonn and Berlin. His encounter with the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel would profoundly influence his thought, as he later integrated Hegelian dialectics into his own theories.

Early Life and Education Marx was born to a middle-class Jewish family that converted to Christianity to navigate the socio-political hurdles of the time. His father, Heinrich Marx, was a man of the Enlightenment and imparted to young Marx a passion for the works of Voltaire and Rousseau. Marx started his academic journey studying law, as his father wished, but soon switched to philosophy, drawn by its potential for social change.

Intellectual Development and Influences Marx's early writings were greatly influenced by his engagement with the Young Hegelians, a group of radical thinkers who sought to apply Hegel's dialectical methods to critique established society and religion. Marx's move towards radicalism can also be seen in his doctoral thesis on the philosophy of nature in the works of Epicurus.

After university, Marx pursued a career in journalism and became involved in political activism, which quickly made him a target for government censorship. His early work as a journalist led to his lifelong partnership with Friedrich Engels, whom he met in Paris. Engels would become his collaborator and financial supporter, co-authoring several works, including the seminal The Communist Manifesto in 1848.

Major Works and Theories Marx's extensive body of work addresses a wide range of topics, including politics, economics, sociology, and history.

Some of his notable works include

• The Communist Manifesto This political pamphlet, co-authored with Engels, outlines Marx's theories about the nature of society and politics. It argues that all history is the history of class struggles and predicts the overthrow of capitalist systems by the proletariat.
• Das Kapital Marx's magnum opus, this critical analysis of political economy seeks to uncover the inner workings of the capitalist mode of production and its modes of exploitation of labor. This work elaborates on theories such as surplus value and the labor theory of value. 

Impact and Legacy Marx's ideas on class struggle, economic theory, and the critique of capitalism have had a profound impact on various fields, including philosophy, sociology, economics, and political science. His theories laid the groundwork for many aspects of socialist and communist ideology.

Marx spent his later years in London, where he continued his research and writing, supported by Engels. He died in 1883 and was buried in Highgate Cemetery in London. His legacy remains controversial; revered by some for his insights into the power dynamics of capitalism and critiqued by others for the authoritarian nature of many Marxist regimes. 

The core principles of Marxism form a framework for analyzing history, society, and economic relations, emphasizing the role of class struggle and the impact of economic factors on societal structures.

Here are the fundamental principles that define Marxist theory

• Historical Materialism Marx believed that the economic structure of society (the "base") fundamentally shapes all other aspects of society (the "superstructure"), which includes culture, religion, government, and politics. This materialist view of history argues that society progresses through stages driven by conflicts between different social classes over control of the means of production.
• Class Struggle According to Marx, history is primarily the history of class struggles. He identified that in capitalist societies, there are two main classes: the bourgeoisie (capitalists who own the means of production) and the proletariat (workers who sell their labor). The inherent conflict between these classes over the distribution of wealth and power is seen as the driving force of social change and historical development.
• Dialectical Materialism Marx adopted the Hegelian dialectic but applied it to material conditions. This principle suggests that all development arises from the conflict between opposites, driven by contradictions inherent in material conditions. Through this process, quantitative changes accumulate to cause qualitative leaps, leading to the transformation of society.
• Labor Theory of Value Marx posited that the value of a commodity is determined by the amount of socially necessary labor time required to produce it. Under capitalism, workers are paid less than the value they produce, leading to surplus value, which capitalists extract as profit. This exploitation forms the economic basis of class struggle.
• Surplus Value and Exploitation The concept of surplus value is critical in Marxism. It describes the value produced by labor over and above the cost of labor itself (wages). Marx argued that this surplus value is expropriated by capitalists, which constitutes exploitation and is the source of capitalist profit.
• Revolution and Dictatorship of the Proletariat Marx believed that the proletariat would eventually become aware of their exploitation and overthrow the bourgeoisie in a social revolution. This would lead to a "dictatorship of the proletariat," a state where the working class holds power and suppresses the former ruling capitalists, serving as a transitional phase towards a classless, communist society.
• Communism The ultimate goal of Marxism is the establishment of a classless, stateless society known as communism. In this stage, the means of production are communally owned, and goods are distributed according to need. Marx envisioned this as the end of political power and class divisions.

Karl Marx outlined a theory of historical development that proposed societies progress through specific stages based on their modes of production and economic structures. These stages are sequential and driven by internal contradictions and class struggles that lead to the transformation of one stage into another.

Here are Marx's stages of societal development

• Primitive Communism This is the first stage, characterized by tribal societies where there is no private property or class division. Production is at a subsistence level, and goods are shared among members of the community according to need.
• Slave Society As societies grow and agriculture develops, there emerges a division between classes based on the ownership of production resources and the control of labor. Slave societies are marked by the ownership of slaves who are forced to work for their owners, with the economy largely based on agriculture and mining.
• Feudalism This stage is defined by a rigid hierarchical system where lands owned by the nobility are worked by serfs. The serfs are bound to the land and owe labor and a portion of their produce to their lords. Feudalism is characterized by a self-sufficient, agrarian economy with limited commerce and industry.
• Capitalism The development of trade, marketplaces, and technological advancements leads to the capitalist stage. In capitalism, the means of production (like factories and machinery) are owned by a small group of capitalists. The majority, the proletariat, owns only their labor, which they must sell to the capitalists. This stage is marked by industrial production, a market economy, and the pursuit of profit, leading to significant class disparities and economic crises.
• Socialism According to Marx, socialism emerges from the contradictions and crises of capitalism, through a proletarian revolution. In this stage, the state controls the means of production on behalf of the workers, aiming to distribute resources more equitably. This is a transitional phase wherein the remnants of old class structures are supposed to fade away, preparing the groundwork for the final stage.
• Communism The ultimate goal of Marx's stages of development, communism is a classless, stateless society characterized by common ownership of the means of production. In a communist society, production and resources are distributed "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." This stage represents the end of economic and class-based conflicts.

When comparing the ideologies of Marxism, Capitalism, and Socialism, it's essential to understand the distinct principles and goals each represents. These ideologies provide different frameworks for organizing society, economic structures, and governance.

Foundational Theory Developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Marxism is both a political and economic theory that critiques the capitalist system and aims for a classless society. It is predicated on the idea of historical materialism, which argues that material conditions and economic practices shape societal structures and development.

Economic Structure Marxism advocates for the elimination of private property in favor of communal ownership of the means of production. The ultimate goal is to establish a communist society where resources are distributed based on need.

Social Organization Marxism foresees a temporary dictatorship of the proletariat as a necessary phase following a revolution, where the working class has control over the state apparatus to dismantle capitalist structures.

Foundational Theory Capitalism is based on private ownership and the free market. Economic freedom under capitalism allows individuals and businesses to own and operate private enterprises, trade freely, and compete in markets.

Economic Structure The cornerstone of capitalism is the accumulation of capital and production for profit. Prices, production, and the distribution of goods are primarily determined by competition in a free market.

Social Organization Capitalism emphasizes individual rights and freedoms, with a limited role for the state in economic activities. The government's role is typically confined to protecting property rights, enforcing contracts, and regulating where necessary to preserve market competition.

Foundational Theory Socialism encompasses a range of economic and social systems characterized by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production. Unlike Marxism, which is more prescriptive about the path to a classless society, socialism includes a broader spectrum of approaches and may coexist with democratic governance structures.

Economic Structure Socialism advocates for production to meet human needs rather than for profit. The means of production are owned or regulated by the community as a whole, and there is an emphasis on reducing inequalities through redistributive policies.

Social Organization Democratic socialism, a major branch within socialism, combines political democracy with social ownership of significant sectors of the economy. This ideology supports political freedoms while pursuing economic equality.

Key Differences and Similarities

• Ownership of Production Marxism and socialism both advocate for social ownership of the means of production, but Marxism specifically aims for a stateless, classless society as an end goal. Capitalism promotes private ownership and control.
• Economic Priorities Capitalism prioritizes profit and market-driven growth. Socialism focuses on meeting human needs and the egalitarian distribution of wealth. Marxism views economic activity as a way to eventually achieve a classless society.
• Role of the State In capitalism, the state is to interfere minimally in economic affairs. In socialism, the state often has a significant role in planning and directing economic activity. Marxism envisions a temporary proletarian state that would wither away in the final stage of communism.
• Ideological Goals The ultimate goal of Marxism is to reach a communist society. Socialism seeks to establish a fair and egalitarian society that can coexist with democratic institutions. Capitalism focuses on maximizing individual freedoms and economic growth.

Marxism, while influential, has faced numerous criticisms over the years from various ideological, economic, and practical perspectives.

Here are some of the primary critiques

1. Economic Feasibility Critics argue that Marxism underestimates the complexity of economic systems. Its emphasis on central planning and abolishing private property is said to stifle innovation and efficiency. The economic failures of some socialist states, particularly in managing scarcity and innovation, are often cited as evidence that Marxist economics may not be as feasible or efficient as market-driven capitalist economies.

2. Human Nature and Incentives Critics contend that Marxism's vision of human behavior is overly optimistic. By assuming that people will work according to their abilities without the incentive of personal gain, Marxism is said to misjudge human nature. Critics argue that without the incentives provided by market competition and private ownership, productivity and motivation might decline, leading to economic stagnation.

3. Authoritarianism One of the most significant criticisms of Marxism comes from its association with authoritarian regimes. Although Marx envisioned a classless and stateless society, many Marxist-inspired movements have led to authoritarian or totalitarian states, where a small group controls the state apparatus, often leading to repression and a lack of political freedoms. Critics argue that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" concept can easily give rise to dictatorship in practice.

4. Historical Determinism Marxist theory is often critiqued for its deterministic view of history, which suggests that societies inevitably progress through specific stages leading to communism. Critics argue that this overlooks the complex, multifaceted, and unpredictable nature of historical development, where economic factors are important but not solely determinative in societal changes.

5. Ignoring Cultural and Social Factors While Marxism places a strong emphasis on economic structures, critics argue that it pays insufficient attention to cultural, religious, and other social dynamics that also significantly influence human societies. This reductionist view is seen as overly simplistic, as it does not account for the diversity of human experiences and the complexities of societal development.

6. Practical Outcomes The practical implementation of Marxist ideas in countries like the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia has been critiqued for leading to economic inefficiencies, widespread human rights abuses, and millions of deaths due to famine, purges, and state violence. Critics of Marxism use these examples to argue that Marxist theory may be inherently flawed, leading inevitably to negative outcomes when attempted in practice.

7. Class Reductionism Marxism's focus on class struggle as the primary driver of historical and political change is seen by some as too narrow. This perspective is often criticized for ignoring other forms of identity and struggle, such as race, gender, and ethnicity, which can also be fundamental to understanding societal structures and inequalities.

The application of Marxism varies widely across different countries, influenced by local conditions, cultural factors, and historical contexts. While pure Marxism, as envisioned by Karl Marx, has rarely been implemented, several countries have adapted Marxist principles to form unique political and economic systems.

Below are some case studies illustrating how Marxist ideas have been applied in various countries today

1. China China's relationship with Marxism has evolved significantly since the Communist Party of China (CPC) came to power in 1949 under Mao Zedong. Initially, Mao's approach was heavily influenced by Marxist-Leninist principles, focusing on agrarian reform and the elimination of class distinctions. After Mao's death, China under Deng Xiaoping shifted towards "Socialism with Chinese characteristics," which incorporated market economy practices within a state-controlled framework. Today, China still officially adheres to Marxist principles but practices a unique blend of state-controlled capitalism and socialism, which has led to significant economic growth and raised questions about the purity of its Marxist commitment.

2. Cuba Since the Cuban Revolution in 1959, Cuba has been a state guided by Marxist-Leninist principles. Under Fidel Castro, Cuba nationalized industries and implemented a planned economy, healthcare, and education, aiming for an equitable distribution of resources. Despite economic struggles exacerbated by the U.S. embargo, Cuba maintains a commitment to Marxist principles, particularly in its state-run economic model and its attempts to create a society with minimal class distinctions. Recent reforms have slightly opened the economy to private businesses, reflecting challenges in maintaining a strict Marxist economy.

3. Vietnam Similar to China, Vietnam has adopted a form of Marxism that includes significant economic reforms. After reunification in 1975, Vietnam experienced severe economic hardships under its Marxist-Leninist government. However, with the introduction of Đổi Mới (economic renovation) in 1986, Vietnam transitioned towards a mixed economy with both socialist and capitalist elements. While the Communist Party of Vietnam still upholds Marxism-Leninism as a guiding principle, the practical application involves considerable market-driven practices.

4. North Korea North Korea presents a unique case where Marxist principles were initially foundational but later gave way to a highly centralized, authoritarian regime under the ideology of Juche, or self-reliance, which incorporates Marxist-Leninist principles with a strong emphasis on the leader's role. While it maintains some Marxist characteristics in its economic policies and state ownership of production, the political system has moved towards a hereditary dictatorship, diverging significantly from classical Marxist doctrine.

5. Venezuela In recent years, Venezuela under Hugo Chávez and subsequently Nicolás Maduro has attempted to implement what they termed "Socialism of the 21st Century," which draws from Marxist principles. Policies have included nationalizations and social welfare programs aimed at redistributing wealth to the poor. However, the country has faced significant economic challenges, including hyperinflation, shortages, and a decline in production, highlighting the difficulties of implementing these policies in a globalized economy.

In concluding our exploration of Marxism, it is evident that this ideology continues to influence contemporary political, economic, and social landscapes around the world. Despite its origins in the 19th century, the principles of Marxism still resonate, driving various forms of governance and policy-making. The adaptations of Marxism in countries like China, Cuba, and Vietnam highlight the flexibility and enduring relevance of Marxist theory when confronted with practical and local challenges. 

As we have seen, the implementation and results of Marxist principles vary significantly, influenced by historical contexts and cultural dynamics. This diversity in application underlines Marxism's capacity to evolve and adapt, making it a dynamic and living theory that still sparks debate and reflection on the nature and future of societal development.

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Blake essay recognized by Lasker Foundation

Kevin Blake, scientific editor in the  Department of Pathology & Immunology ’s Division of Laboratory and Genomic Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been honored for an essay he wrote titled “ Missing Microbiomes: Global Underrepresentation Restricts Who Research Will Benefit .” The piece calls for scientists to increase representation of understudied populations in microbiome research.

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14 Questions About Our Leaders’ Health

By Robert Klitzman

Dr. Klitzman is a physician and a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University.

There’s been enormous debate about the health of America’s president and that of the candidates for that job. Many questions remain unanswered.

Donald Trump recently survived an assassination attempt, and there’s been little information offered about his condition in its aftermath. President Biden’s age and cognitive health have been the subject of much discussion, and he just had Covid-19. And little is known about the overall health of the new presumptive Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris.

Like all of us, these individuals have rights to medical privacy. But, given that the president is the most powerful person in the world and can alter our lives, voters want to know whether their leaders can perform the job, and do so effectively. Ideally, officials and candidates voluntarily provide this information. But some past presidents’ physicians have released only incomplete reports, or have obfuscated the truth .

Below is a partial list of questions that I and many other medical professionals (and Americans) have about Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris right now.

For Donald Trump:

1) Has Mr. Trump taken any cognitive tests in the last six years. If so, which ones? And what were the results?

Mr. Trump has been making cognitive errors, mixing up the names of Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi , as well as of Kim Jong-un and Xi Jinping . He said he “aced” a cognitive test four years ago. Doctors have said that the test Mr. Trump is likely referring to was not definitive, nor diagnostic.

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