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Marx and Utopia: A Critique of the “Orthodox” View*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Richard Nordahl
Richard Nordahl
Affiliation:
University of Saskatchewan
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Abstract

The predominant view of Marx's communist society is that it is a form of Utopia in which there is complete social harmony, with no private space for individuals, no conflicts, and no politics. The author argues that this “orthodox” view is a misreading of Marx's works, especially of certain key early works. According to his interpretation, in Marx's communist society there is private space, private/particular interests, controversy, politics, and rights. The author discusses the major theoretical/ methodological errors of the “orthodox” interpretation, such as interpreting key statements by Marx at the wrong level of generality.

Résumé

La perspective prédominante envers la société communiste de Marx est de considérer cette dernière comme une sorte d'utopie au sein de laquelle il y a une harmonie sociale complète, sans espace privé pour les individus, sans conflits, et sans politiques. L'auteur soutient que cette conception « orthodoxe » est une lecture fallacieuse des oeuvres de Marx, surtout de certaines oeuvres importantes de jeunesse. D'après son interprétation, il y a dans la société communiste de Marx un espace privé, des intérêts privés/particuliers, de la controverse, des politiques et des droits. L'auteur discute des erreurs théoriques/méthodiques majeures de l/interprétation « orthodoxe », et en particulier de la manie de porter à un niveau général des énoncés particuliers.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , December 1987 , pp. 755 - 783
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1987

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References

1 These include: Kolakowski, Leszek, Main Currents of Marxism, vol. 1: The Founders (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978Google Scholar); “The Myth of Human Self-Identity,” in Hampshire, Stuart and Kolakowski, Leszek (eds.), The Socialist Idea (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1974), 18–35Google Scholar; “Marxism and Human Rights,” Daedalus 112 (1983), 81–92Google Scholar; Buchanan, Robert, Marx and Justice (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1982)Google Scholar; Selucky, Radoslav, Marxism, Socialism, and Freedom (London: Macmillan, 1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Teeple, Gary, Marx's Critique of Politics, 1842–1847 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Walicki, Andrzej, “Marx and Freedom,” New York Review of Books, Nov. 24, 1983, 50–55Google Scholar; Taylor, Charles, Hegel (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1975), chap. 20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Forster, Michael, “Marx on the Communist State: A Partial Eclipse of Political Reality,” Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 14 (1980), 103–18Google Scholar; Löwith, Karl, Meaning in History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949), intro. and chap. 2Google Scholar; Acton, Harry, The Illusion of the Epoch (London: Cohen and West, 1955)Google Scholar; Voegelin, Eric, From Enlightenment to Revolution (Durham: Duke University Press, 1975), chaps. 10 and 11Google Scholar; Voegelin, , “The Formation of the Marxist Revolutionary Idea,” The Review of Politics 12 (1950), 275–302CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rotenstreich, Nathan, Basic Problems of Marx's Philosophy (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965)Google Scholar; Ollman, Bertell, “Marx's Vision of Communism,” Critique 8 (1977), 5–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar. These writers vary regarding how close they fit the “orthodox” model presented in this study, but all fit it well enough to justify the label “orthodox.” Despite general agreement on the key points of the “orthodox” account, these writers differ on many other matters concerning Marx. The political views of these writers range from the Marxism of Ollman to the mystical right-wing ideology of Voegelin. Ollman likes Marx's communist vision (as given in the “orthodox” account); Voegelin abhors it.

2 There are many dissenting voices to the “orthodox” view (and from time to time I make reference to these “dissident” scholars). But there has not been a general critique of the “orthodox” position, and one that is explicitly concerned with problems of interpretation.

3 Kolakowski, Main Currents, 144. Kolakowski also says: Communism “is the realization of freedom, not only from exploitation and political power but from immediate bodily needs. It is the solution to the problem of history and is also the end of history as we have known it, in which individual and collective life are subject to contingency” (180). And see Taylor's discussion on Marx's concept of “complete freedom” (Hegel, chap. 20).

4 Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law (hereafter Critique), in Marx/Engels, , Collected Works, vol. 3 (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1975)Google Scholar, hereafter, CW. In this article I am not concerned with the question of the accuracy of Marx's depiction of Hegel's views. For one of the best of the many recent works which call into question the accuracy of Marx's portrayal, see Ilting, K.-H., “Hegel's Concept of the State and Marx's Early Critique,” in Pelczynski, Z. A. (ed.), The State and Civil Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 93–113.Google Scholar

5 “On the Jewish Question,” CW, 3, 168, emphasis in original. And see Critique, 77–78 and 118–21.

6 See, for example, Kolakowski, Main Currents, 125–27.

7 Marx “saw no positive value in privacy; his ideal…[was] the total subordination of the private sphere to the public sphere…” (Walicki, “Marx and Freedom,” 50).

8 See, for example, Kolakowski, Main Currents, 162. This interpretation is an effort to make the “orthodox” thesis about the absorption of the individual into the society consistent with Marx's comments about individual creativity in communist society.

9 Marx, “Critical Noteson the Article by a Prussian,” CW, 3, 198, cited in Berki, R. N., Insight and Vision (London: Dent and Sons, 1983), 40Google Scholar. Berki gives an “orthodox” reading of Marx's early philosophical writings, but says that in Capital and other works, Marx's discussion is much more “realistic.”

10 For Marx's discussion, see Critique, 54–129.

11 For Marx's rejection of mere “political emancipation” (that is, the establishment of a liberal democratic state), see also “On the Jewish Question,” Part 1.

12 “Marx's basic principle is that all mediation between the individual and mankind will cease to exist” (Kolakowski, Main Currents, 410). The most detailed discussion is in Teeple, Marx's Critique of Politics, 67–83.

13 Critique, 119 and 117, emphasis in original (the latter quoted in Teeple, Marx's Critique of Politics, 80).

14 “On the Jewish Question,” 154 and 164; and The Holy Family in CW, 4, 116, emphasis in original. See also “Comments on Mill, James, Élémens d'economie politique,” CW, 3, 217Google Scholar; and the influential article by Engels, “Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy,” CW, 3, 418–43. For other examples of Marx's negative references to “private interests,” see “Critical Notes on the Article by a Prussian,” CW, 3, 198; and “Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood,” CW, 1, 224–63.

15 “Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood,” 224–63.

16 “On the Jewish Question,” 172–74; Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (hereafter EPM) in CW, 3, 306–07; and The Holy Family, 113–16.

17 For comments on Hegel's anti-democratic views, see especially Critique, 62–63, 67–68, and 122–27.

18 Ibid., 62.

19 See for example, “Comments on Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction,” CW, 1, 109–31.

20 See for example, “Justification of the Correspondent from the Mosel,” CW, 1, 332–58.

21 See for example, “Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood,” 224–63.

22 See Marx's description of the community of French communist artisans in EPM, 313.

23 In a much later work Marx has this to say about the lack of community within the capitalist production process: “…production is not directly social, is not ‘the offspring of association’, which distributes labour internally. Individuals are subsumed under social production; social production exists outside them as their fate; but social production is not subsumed under individuals, manageable by them as their common wealth” (Grundrisse [Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973], 158, emphasis in original). But under communism “the process of material production… becomes production by freely associated men, and stands under their conscious and planned control” (Capital, vol. I [Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976], 173).

24 See for example, Critique, 117; “Letters from Deutsch-Franzoösische Jahrbücher,” CW, 3, 137; and “Comments on James Mill,” 220 and 224–25.

25 Marx's concept of the human species-being is most developed in his EPM, but also informs the whole of the earlier Critique and “On the Jewish Question.”

26 See for example, “Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood,” esp. 229, 236, 247–49, and 259–65.

27 See for example, “Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood,” and “On the Jewish Question,” 153 and 171.

28 For an example where Marx calls the state man's alienated species-being or species-life, see “On the Jewish Question,” 153–54.

29 Critique, 30, emphasis in original; see also 31 and 118. For an example of how the statement referring to the French is misinterpreted to mean that Marx does want to abolish the political state, see O'Malley, Joseph, “Introduction” to Marx, Critique of Hegel's 'Philosophy of Right; (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970)Google Scholar, lxii. Shlomo Avineri (who was one of the first to argue that by abolition [Aufhebung] of the state Marx meant the realization of the communal society) also apparently believes that in this new society there were to be no political institutions. See his The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969)Google Scholar, esp. chap. 2. On the other hand, though Richard Hunt correctly notes that there would be political institutions in the “true democracy,” he mistakenly interprets certain remarks by Marx (for example, about unlimited voting and about all becoming a member of the universal class) as referring specifically to the political institutions rather than (as is the case) to the state as a whole (that is, the communal society). See his The Political Ideas of Marx and Engels, vol. 1: Marxism and Totalitarian Democracy, 1818–1850 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1974), 74–84Google Scholar. For Marx, the communal society is the complete realization of the abstract principle contained in the concept of voting (and thus in this sense there is unlimited voting). See Critique, 120–21.

30 See for example, EPM, 295–96 and 326.

31 See Manifesto of the Communist Party in CW, vol. 6 (Moscow: Progress, 1976), 501–02.Google Scholar

32 See below for the discussion on political decision-making.

33 EPM, 298.

34 On how the concept of freedom implies a concept of individual autonomy, see Lukes, Stephen, Individualism (Oxford: Black well, 1973)Google Scholar, chap. 18. Marx implies recognition of this point in his early writings on censorship (previously cited). For a useful discussion on this question of the public/private in Marx, see Schwartz, Nancy, “Distinction between Public and Private Life: Marx on the zoon politikon,” Political Theory 7 (1979), 245–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35 See EPM, 297–99; and Grundrisse, 83–84.

36 EPM, 299Google Scholar emphasis in original. For a useful discussion on the individuality of the communist man, see Thomas, Paul, Karl Marx and the Anarchists (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980), chap. 3.Google Scholar

37 See for example, Taylor, Hegel, 419 and 557–58.

38 “Critique of the Gotha Program,” in The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. by Tucker, Robert (2nd ed.; New York: Norton, 1978), 531Google Scholar. Marx does not want to abolish specialization in work; he knows that modern industry necessitates it. But each individual would develop several skills so as to give variety to his work (as well as be able to give fuller expression to his creative talents). This question on Marx's position on the division of tasks in communist society is too complex to discuss here. See Hunt, Richard, The Political Ideas of Marx and Engels, vol. 2: Classical Marxism, 1850–1895 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1984), 213–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ware, Robert, “Marx, the Division of Labor, Human Nature,” Social Theory and Practice 8 (1982), esp. 57–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 The German Ideology, in CW, vol. 5 (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1976), 80–81;Google Scholar and EPM, 266. In another passage of The German Ideology Marx makes the distinction between the “naturally divided” activity of a class society and the “voluntarily divided” activity of communist society (47). And in an early newspaper article he writes: “Feudalism in the broadest sense is the spiritual animal kingdom, the world of divided mankind, in contrast to the human world [which he later comes to call communism] that creates its own distinctions…” (“Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood,” 230, emphasis in original).

40 The German Ideology, 47.

41 See “Comments on James Mill,” 209–28; and EPM, especially 295–96 and 322–26.

42 See, for example, Berki, Insight and Vision, 52; and Selucky, Marxism, Socialism and Freedom, 173. Also see Kain, Philip, Schiller Hegel, and Marx (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1983), 89.Google Scholar

43 See especially “Comments on James Mill,” 227–28.

44 Capital, vol. 3 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981), 959Google Scholar. “Work is the eternal natural condition of human existence” (Results of the Immediate Process of Production, appendix to Capital, 1,998). Marx presented the philosophical basis for this view in EPM with his comments about man as a “natural being” who has to appropriate objects outside of himself to satisfy his needs (336–37). See also The German Ideology, 30–31 and 41–42.

45 Selected Correspondence (2nd ed.; Moscow: Progress, 1968), 209, emphasis in original.Google Scholar

46 Capital, 3, 507 and 511.

47 To my knowledge, Marx does not discuss these natural limitations, but he does give explicit recognition to them. See, for example, EPM, 336; and German Ideology, 31. In contrast, Kolakowski claims that Marx defines man solely in social terms: “Everything in man's being is social: all his natural qualities, functions, and behaviour have become virtually divorced from their animal origins” (Main Currents, 413). The conclusion that Kolakowski draws is that for Marx there are very few natural limitations to what communist man can do. And see Oilman's discussion in “Marx's Vision of Communism,” 28–29.

48 EPM, 336, emphasis in original.

49 Ibid., 326.

50 Buchanan, the least “orthodox” of those I have identified as essentially “orthodox,” only says that there will be near harmony in Marx's communist society, a minimization of differences, separation, and interpersonal conflict.

51 Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1971), 21Google Scholar, cited in Brenkert, George, Marx's Ethics of Freedom (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983), 187.Google Scholar

52 CW, 3, 152. For an example of how this passage is used by some “orthodox” interpreters as evidence that Marx is against political mediation and instead wants spontaneous unity, see Forster, “Marx on the Communist State,” 109.

53 Critique, 83, and see the entire discussion, 82–93. For an example of how Marx's comments on mediation in this work are misinterpreted to mean that he dismisses the very idea of mediation, see Berki, R. N., “Perspectives in the Marxian Critique of Hegel's Political Philosophy,” in Pelczynski, Z. (ed.), Hegel's Political Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 207.Google Scholar

54 The First Draft of The Civil War in France in Writings on the Paris Commune, ed. by Draper, Hal (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), 152, emphasis in original.Google Scholar

55 The Civil War in France, Part 3, in Writings on the Paris Commune. See also the first and second drafts. “Orthodox” commentators have contended that these institutions were meant only for the first stage of communism (for example, Buchanan, Marx and Justice, 171–73). Marx does say that these institutions will serve the working class as a means for its social and economic emancipation (and thus would exist during the first stage after the seizure of power). But his discussion makes clear that they would continue on into the phase of full communism. For useful discussions on Marx's views on the political institutions and practices of communist society, see Hunt, , The Political Ideas of Marx and Engels, vol. 2, chaps. 5–7Google Scholar; Evans, Michael, “Karl Marx and the Concept of Participation,” in Parry, G. (ed.), Participation in Politics (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1972)Google Scholar; Easton, Loyd, “Marx and Individual Freedom,” The Philosophical Forum 12 (1981), 193–213Google Scholar; and Springborg, Patricia, “Karl Marx on Democracy, Participation, Voting, and Equality,” Political Theory 12 (1984), 537–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar

56 In his early newspaper articles on freedom of the press Marx suggests that free discussion (and thus a free press) is necessary in order for a general good to emerge. “The 'free press,' being the product of public opinion, is also the creator of public opinion. It alone can make a particular interest a general one” The free press appeals to, and develops, the people's “spiritual forces,” that is, a concern for the public good. See “Justification of the Correspondent from the Mosel,” CW, 1, 349. See also “Debates on Freedom of the Press,” “Leading Article in No. 179 of Külnische Zeitung,” and “On the Commissions of the Estates in Prussia,” all in CW, 1.

57 See the interesting discussion in his early article, “Divorce Bill,” for a distinction between the “arbitrary” will of the selfish individual and reflective decisions of moral citizens who take into account the general good of society (CW, 1, 307–10).

58 This conclusion is implied, for example, in his critical remarks on the self-centred activity of the members of the Rhineland provincial assembly. See “Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood”; and “On the Commissions of the Estates in Prussia,” CW, 1, 299–300.

59 Critique, 30. Rousseauian elements are obviously present in this account. Before writing the Critique Marx had studied and excerpted Rousseau's The Social Contract (Rubel, Maximilian, Rubel on Karl Marx: Five Essays [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981], 97).Google Scholar

60 A key question to be examined, of course, would be whether there is a “tension” between two key elements in Marx's model, the existence in the society of differing interests (and conflicts) and public policies which reflect the common good (and which emerge from the diverse persons). Why would not the differences make it impossible for a common good to emerge, as is the case, or so Marx believed, in a “bourgeois” egoistic society? The answer, Marx would say, would lie in the dissimilarity between the type of differences in a communist society and the type in a “bourgeois” society and in the very different societal structures (co-operative in the first case and competitive in the second).

61 Manifesto of the Communist Party, 505. See also “Conspectus of Bakunin's Statism and Anarchy,” in Fernbach, D. (ed.), The First International and After (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974), 336.Google Scholar

62 “Conspectus of Bakunin's Statism and Anarchy,” 336. For the “orthodox” view regarding what Marx means by non-“political” and “business matter,” see Ollman, , “Marx's Vision of Communism,” 33–34, and Kolakowski, Main Currents, 254–55.Google Scholar

63 Writings on the Paris Commune, 200, emphasis in original. See the useful discussion in Draper, Hal, “The Death of the State in Marx and Engels,” The Socialist Register, (London: Merlin Press, 1970), 281–307.Google Scholar

64 Capital, 3, 507 and 511.

65 For a typical account see Selucky, , Marxism, Socialism and Freedom, 72–73.Google Scholar

66 See for example Kolakowski, “Marxism and Human Rights”; and Buchanan, , Marx and Justice, 60–69Google Scholar.

67 “On the Jewish Question,” 162, 163, and 164, emphasis in original.

68 Ibid., 163.

69 Ibid. See also Marx's discussion in The Holy Family, 113–18. A useful commentary is Bloch, E., “Man and Citizen According to Marx,” in Fromm, Erich (ed.), Socialist Humanism (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1965).Google Scholar

70 The German Ideology, 78.

71 See “Comments on James Mill,” 224–28; and EPM, 300–04. For an excellent discussion, see Parekh, Bhikhu, “Marx's Theory of Man,” in Parekh, Bhikhu (ed.), The Concept of Socialism (London: Croom Helm, 1975)Google Scholar. A useful discussion of Marx's conception of freedom is contained in Brenkert, Marx's Ethics of Freedom, chap. 4.

72 EPM, 298, emphasis in original.

73 The tendency to view rights in universal terms was probably one reason why Marx did not use the term “rights” when discussing communist society. The word carries with it too much bourgeois ideological baggage, he wduld say. The universal form of expression has in fact become a cover for bourgeois content (such as the assumption of the egoistic man). For the same reason Marx spurned the use of terms like “justice” and “fairness” in socialist discourse. See Nordahl, Richard, “Marx on Moral Commentary: Ideology and Science,” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 15 (1985), 237–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

74 See for example, Buchanan, Marx and Justice, chap. 4, sec. 7.

75 EPM, 296–97, emphasis in original. For examples of how “orthodox” commentators use this passage, see Walicki, “Marx and Freedom,” 52; and Taylor, Hegel, 549–51.

76 In aletter to Feuerbach from the same period Marx writes that this “unity of man with man” which is “the concept of the human species brought down from the heaven of abstraction to the real earth” is “based on the real differences between men…” (CW, 3, 354, emphasis added).

77 He explicitly makes this point much later (Capital, 3, 959).

78 For an excellent example of an interpretation of Marx's political ideas that does pay close attention to the historical context, and an interpretation that is very much at variance with the “orthodox” account, see Hunt, The Political Ideas of Marx and Engels.

79 See Lukes, , Individualism, esp. chap. 11.Google Scholar

80 Of the “orthodox” writers referred to in this article, this theme is most strong and explicit in Voegelin, Lüwith, Forster, and Kolakowski.

81 When Marx did get down to providing some specifics on the matter of work in a communist society, he did opt for “practical” answers. In his early writings on alienation Marx writes at a very abstract level (and with Hegelian language) about overcoming alienating work. The very general level of this discussion has led many to believe that Marx was saying that in communist society all work would be creative and “free” and thus that there would be no compulsory (and sometimes boring and routine) work. (See for example, Kain, Schiller, Hegel, and Marx, chap. 3.) But in his later writings Marx approaches the question of work in a capitalist and communist society at a much more concrete level. In these writings he states that necessary (and thus, by implication, compulsory and sometimes routine) work cannot be abolished and also that this work requires there be managers. Truly free creative activity can only take place outside of the workplace. (Of course, much of the work in production would be creative; and the workplace would be democratically structured.) See Capital, 3, 507,511, and 959. My thesis is that Marx has not changed his position from that of the early writings. He is writing at a more concrete level. For the view that he has changed his position, see Kain, Schiller, Hegel and Marx, chap. 4.