Marxism: theory, history, and critique

Karl Marx was one of those who finished classic political economy theory and who left his influence in the development of economical thought. But his ideas were not limited by the margins of economical problems; they correlated with philosophical, sociological and political questions of that time.

The sociology of Marxism is the theory of social development of society, viewed through the prism of material conditions and through the contradictions that appear because of the existing mode of production. This theory was developed by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in the second half of the nineteenth century. Its place and its role in the history of sociological thought is determined by the concept that functioning of the society, consciousness and behavior of people who live in it.

It's very important to differentiate two important facts about works of Marx and Engels. Their ideas were viewed in the context of socio-cultural values of their time and place, where they lived. That's why it's pointless to make a parallel between Marxism and the views of Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, and Maoism, where the concept of authority and some of Marx's ideas are used as the means to the realization of political ideas of different nature. In a word, there is sociology of Marxism and sociology of post Marxist trends. The second fact is that Marx and Engels were one of those pioneers in sociology who introduced empiric sociological research methodology in their theoretical works "Survey for workers," "The position of labor classes in England."

Before making a closer look on Marxism it's important to determine its roots and relations with previous achievements of sociology and philosophy. There exists a well-known idea that originates in the works of Engels and which is concluded in the works of Lenin (the head of Bolshevik revolution in Russia). "Three sources of Marxism and three fundamentals of Marxism" are German classical philosophy, English political economy and French utopian socialism. Moreover Marx and Engels accepted the influence of English and French materialists of 17-18th century on their ideas and considered them to be their predecessors.

This genealogy is indisputable. We can also add to it the sources that were related to other spheres of knowledge and those that were not accepted by Marx. Besides this genealogy needs to be specified. In particular when talking about German classical philosophy it's important to outline the influence of two of its representatives: Hegel and Feuerbach. Hegel had contributed more than other thinkers into the method and style of scientific thinking, which included sociological thinking as well and had a direct influence on Marx's ideas. It influenced Marx's ideas about objective social laws, that make their road through the ambitions and desires of concrete people, it influenced his ideas of progressive development as of contradictory process, where the contradictions are solved in the dialectic synthesis (according to Hegel's thriade "thesis-antithesis"). Hegel influenced as well on the series of ideas of particular character and on his theory of alienation.

The theory of alienation was developed under the influence of Ludwig Feuerbach, as Marx accepted Feuerbach's materialism and atheism. But devoted to his polemic method, Marx always held polemics with those authors. As for Kant, his influence on Marx philosophy was obvious as well. The fundamental problems of cognition theory, that were proposed by Kant were not solved, but they were avoided by Marx who applied the means of materialist postulate according to which consciousness is just being, "transported" to the human's head and transformed there.

From the socialist trend the most obvious influence as on sociological so on political-utopian ideas of Marx was made by Saint Simon. Saint Simon made an important influence on sociological method of evaluation practiced by Marx:

1) the role of "industry" (or according to Saint Simon the role of production"

2) the role of property forms and classes, especially of proletariat class;

3) the importance of revolutionary shifts ("critical epoch" according to saint Simon")

Saint Simon had explained before Marx, that "modern state is an obstacle for the development of industrial society." The ideas of Saint Simon reflected in the forming of Marx's concepts of socialistic and communist ideal of society. They refer in particularly to such ideas of Saint Simon as mandatory productive labor, state planning of industrial and agricultural production, transformation of state into the tool of organization of production, vanishing of borders between nations and global association of nations in future, etc. There is enough background to think that the influence of Saint Simon on the ideas of Marx was even earlier than his acquaintance with Hegel. The influence of Saint Simonists in Germany was great and by the way the supporter of Saint Simon was Moses Hess, the friend of Marx and the "father of German socialism."

It's important to outline that ideals of Marx were formed before his concentration on scientific research. That wasn't science that led him to the ideal of communism, but vice versa he wanted to find a reasonable and objective explanation to his ideal of communism in science and objective knowledge. His "manifesto" was written before he even started to research the processes and laws of that society to which he prophesied death. it's interesting that contrary to Marx whose ideas and views about society were formed when he was relatively young, Saint Simon and Comte came to their ideal society at the end of their life as a conclusion of their philosophical pursuits and researches in the works "Catechesis of manufacturers" and "Positive Catechesis."

The influence of Moses Hess, who was already mentioned, was more than great and it has multisided character. Hess was the first who united socialism with Hegel's philosophy. By Hess, the ideal of socialism is the realization of social nature of a human. He widened the theory of alienation developed by Feuerbach, and used it for the interpretation of different social phenomena. He proved that man's own powers dominate over him in the aliened forms: it's God in religion, money in economics, state power in politics. Future socialist society will liberate a man from domination of created by him, but aliened from his mind essences. These ideas are more than similar to those accepted and developed later by Karl Marx.

Probably it was Hess, who introduced the work of famous German historian and lawyer Lorenz fon Stein "Socialism and communism in modern France" to Marx and Engels. Stein was the opponent of communism, but he was one of the first who witnessed "the ghost of communism is already in Europe." He foretold the confluence of communism with labor movement, future spread and failure. He also pointed that French socialists and utopian communists, as Saint Simon had to scientifically prove and explain their ideas. This work was negatively reviewed by Marx and Engels and by their words that was a "miserable work."

In general, in the history of sociology there are two types of influence of particular thinkers on the views of the other. There first type may be called "positive" and the second one may be called "negative." The first one is characterized by the fact that ideas of one thinker are reproduced, continued, developed and applied in the research of another one, and that influence may not be acknowledged by the "follower." Such influences are quite obvious. Another sort of influence, which is "negative," is more difficult to determine, even though they are met not rarely. Under the negative influence the thesises used by the "predecessor" cause "anti" thesises of the "follower," in the way that those anti-thesises appear to be very specific and often very exact reflection of primary ideas. The polemics that is held by the "follower" already is good argument to witness that the follower is not indifferent to the ideas of "predecessor." And what is the most interesting is that the "follower" borrows a lot of ideas from the "predecessor" and that's why the "negative" influence in the history of sociology may be even stronger than "positive' and more effective and productive on the development of new concepts and ideas.

Taking into consideration the polemic character of Marx's method on the hand with "positive" influence he experienced a series of "negative" influence. He even held the polemics with the most respected and accepted authors, in particular case with Hegel, Feuerbach, Ricardo. As for mentioned above Hess and fon Stein, they have made double influence on his work: both "negative" and "positive." It also refers to such thinkers and political figures as Proudhon, Bakunin, Lasalle.

Marx was acquainted with the ideas of Comte but gave them generally negative evaluation. In political views Marx didn't share Comte's social pacifism, and in scientific views he rejected Comte's theory of continual, successional evolution, which was weaker than Hegel's theory of historical development. But in general the influence of Saint Simon ideas on the sociological views of both Marx and Comte was essential.

It's important to outline the influence of natural sciences on the development of Marx's sociology. It mostly refers to such sciences as biology and geology. Geology was one of the sources of Marx's views about social system and it's structure (the idea of formation). Among the biological discoveries that influenced on Marx's sociological views were the discovery of cell, cell theory of the organism's structure and the most important was evolutionary teaching of Darwin that was stated in work "The origins of species." Marx saw biological analogue of his theories in Darwin's work and it was a stimulus for further work as well.

The basic question of sociology is a question about interaction of material and spiritual values in the life of society.

Marx introduced a new and independent variable in this process, which plays a key role in the relations that exist in society and it was a mode of material production. Besides he supported the views about the initial role of being in relation to society's consciousness, but not in the sense of the appearance of being and then consciousness but in the matter of accepting the key role of the being in the process of interaction. Marx made an analysis of the conditions of productive powers, scientific and technological knowledge, material relations between people.

Marx marked in his work to the critics of political economy:

The mode of production of material life directs social, political and spiritual processes of life in general. it's not consciousness that defines the being, but visa versa, their social being defines their consciousness." (Marx, Karl Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy p.14)

The statement that Marx developed his theory from the perspective of economical determinism, in other words explains the foundation of definite social structures and relations, political and cultural institutes from the tendency of economical development, even though that in real life the reverse and opposite relations are observed, because there are a lot of factors that have an impact of economics and the mode of production.

But if to look from the critical point-of-view on Marx's theory we would notice that making an accent on mode of production, he didn't take into consideration the role of cultural, spiritual and religious values in the development of society. But Marx during his life mentioned that economical determinism was not the major concept of his theory, but he looked on the interaction of all the factors that caused the development of society.

Marx was the first sociologist that considered society to be objective, self-developing reality. The oringins for this kind of self-development lied in contradictions and conflicts mainly of material life:

On the certain stage of the development material powers of society's production come to the contradictions with existing productive relations... From the forms of production development these relations become its fetters. At this moment the epoch of social revolution comes... Consciousness has to be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between society's productive forces and productive relations."

Marx, Karl Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy p.28)

It's important to pay attention to the principles. The moving forces of society's development are the contradictions between productive forces and productive relations. Social revolution is not a political chance, but a natural manifestation of a historical need. The consciousness of people reflects real life contradictions. In other words, independent from subjective ambitions of individuals, ruling classes, masses think and act according to the character of contradictions, imainly in material life. The nature of conflicts and contradictions change- so the forms of people's thinking change and the reevaluation of common values takes place. If the material interests of masses are not taken into consideration, if the contradictions grow and become sharp, then the revolutionary consciousness appears, that motivates masses into motion, and by the means of social revolution radical changes take place as well qualitative renovation of social relations takes place as well.

Such views on society came to history of public thought as dialectic materialism. Karl Marx applied it to the concrete analysis of capitalism of his time. By the words of Marx:

Bourgeois productive relations are the last antagonistic form of social process of production, which is antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism, but in the sense of antagonism that grows from social conditions of individuals' life; but developing productive forces in the entrails of bourgeois society create material conditions for the solution of this antagonism. That's why bourgeois social formation ends the prehistory of human society."(Marx, Karl Capital: A Critique of Political Economy p.21)

The main task of sociologist by Marx is the examination of existing modes of production and the search of contradictions of material and class distinctions of individual's existence, which could cause revolution -- the main moving force of the progress " in reality for practical materialist, that is for communist, the main task is to revolutionarize existing world, in order to practically come out against existing matter of things and change it."(Marx, Karl Capital: A Critique of Political Economy p.23)

In defining the individual Marx made three premises. The first one, according to Marx is that a man has to exist, because he has to perform history. This thesis has two possible interpretations: "a man has to exist because he has to." it's an implicit definition which looks like religious dogma: "God exists because he has to." Both of statements has no material or theoretical proof. Karl Marx didn't make any persuasive attempt to apply to his theory of mans' existence, some anthropological and evolutionary teachings, which is surprising for an educated man of the 19th century.

The second premise tells that according to modern philosophical and anthropological theories we can answer on the question about the existence of a man but from a different perspective. A man appeared not to make history. The history of existence of other species is more ancient than one of a man, but we speak about man as about one of the forms of animal world. That's why from the philosophical position we can allow to state, that man exists because he exists, not because he has to. The second premise was taken correctly. The labor created a man. Only the growth of man's needs caused a progress. Marx observed this premise carefully and made a correct conclusion about the reasons of man's progress during the transition to pristine social formation.

In the third premise Marx contradicts himself. Coming out from his classification of societies: that primitive people were united into tribes, but Marx didn't take into consideration one particularity of tribe relations: that there was no social unit as a family in those tribes, such social unit that carries the definition of a family according to him.

Those relations were close to the relations that existed in the animal world. But according to Marx the family was initial, and it later transformed into something.

In the definition of the individual by Marx the material basis is clearly observed: "The primary activity of these individuals (humans) that differentiates them from animals, consists not in the fact that they are able to reason, but in the fact that they start to produce necessary means for their life." (Marx, Karl Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy p.19)