|
 Philosopher
of the Month
November
2001 - Karl Marx
Sanghamitra
Bandyopadhyay
In
Highgate Cemetery, London, the epitaph of Karl Marx (1818-1883)
is inscribed with a quote from one of his famous theses: 'the
philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point, however,
is to change it.' While others shaped the course of philosophy,
he shaped the history of the world. His rhetoric is powerful, his
message is compelling, his following attracts both wholehearted
approval and widespread scorn.
So,
how is Marx a philosopher? Of the numerous treatises in subjects
ranging from anthropology to medicine, his main contribution as
a philosopher, economic theorist and political scientist is a theory
of the development of society. Marx belongs to a league of anti-philosophers,
with Nietzsche, Heidegger and Wittgenstein, who were out to deflate
the metaphysical pretensions of philosophy and discuss something
more fundamental, such as power, being or, in Marx's case, the 'historical
conditions of man'. He intended to fashion a practical philosophy
with the means to transform the world.
For
Marx, what was wrong with the German philosophy of his day was its
assumption that nature and society were immutable. Marx opined that
to believe in an unchanging world is to be on an ineluctable march
to obsolescence. This was his starting point.
German
philosophy had, however, made a great leap forward under Schelling,
Fichte and Hegel in recovering the best of Greek philosophy - the
dialectic or the art of argument. Marx fell under their influence,
particularly that of Hegel (1770-1831) during his years at Berlin
University. Marx's fundamental philosophical contribution, historical
materialism, is the belief that economic, social and political life
is in a process of transformation. As one social structure or institution
assumes authority or eminence, another rises to challenge it. And
with this challenge and conflict comes a new synthesis and a new
power, these to be challenged in turn. An illustration of this abstraction
is the way the new industrialists, in his day, were challenging
the ruling landed classes. What Marx envisaged in the future was
the new bourgeoisie (i.e. the industrialists) having reduced the
power of the old landed aristocracy and having achieved a new synthesis
(i.e. capitalism), which would in turn be challenged by the workers
they had amassed in their service. This idea of class struggle
takes centre stage in his work - that different social classes exist
in a state of mutual antagonism because of their conflicting material
interests. And if we ask why it is that social classes live in this
state of permanent warfare, the answer for Marx has to do with the
history of material production.
Marx's
numerous theses, in particular the three volumes of Capital,
theorise why and how the demise of capitalism was inevitable. Marx
did not at all question the productive achievements of the system
of capitalism - to these he gave his strongest praise. What he claimed
as the vulnerability of capitalism was the unequal distribution
of power and of income, and foremost, its disposition to depression
and unemployment - a flaw of the capitalist system picked up again
almost a century later by the most influential economist of our
times, John Maynard Keynes(1883-1946).
Marxism
is, hence, just a method of analysis - it provides us with a means
of criticism. But the Marxian system itself had obvious points of
vulnerability which he was aware of. One of these was the threat
of reform, the possibility that the hardships of capitalism would
be so mitigated such that they would no longer arouse the revolutionary
anger of workers. Yet, he could not resist specific reforms in the
interest of the working man.
The
closest to a programme proposed by Marx (in collaboration with friend,
Frederich Engels, (1820-1895)) is found in the famous ten points
of The Communist Manifesto (1848), the most celebrated -
and most energetically denounced - political pamphlet of all time.
It urged along with much else a progressive income tax, public ownership
of railroads and communications, free education, abolition of child
labour and jobs for all. Curiously, much of the industrial world
in the twentieth century is in step with much of The Communist
Manifesto, not through revolutionary action but by parliamentary
reform.
In
essence, Marx's philosophy seeks to dismantle the major social contradictions
which prevent us from living what he would see a truly human life.
In Marx's world, we are only free as individuals, like artists,
when we can produce gratuitously, independent of material need.
Freedom for Marx entails release from commercial labour - when society
has achieved a certain economic surplus over material necessity.
For, in Marx's 'utopia', enjoying Bach or writing poetry are elements
of our self-realisation as much as building dams or manufacturing
cars. Till then, to quote the French philosopher J P Sartre, one
cannot go beyond Marxism, 'because we have not gone beyond the circumstances
which engendered it'.
Suggested
Reading
The
Communist Manifesto (with Frederick Engels)
Capital
Marx: A Modern Master, David McLellan (Fontana)
A
new philosopher of the month will be featured towards the end of
December 2001
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