Groucho Marxism

Marx is usually thought of as an economist or political theorist, but he started out as a philosopher. His interest in philosophy began when he was a student at the University of Berlin. The main debate among philosophers at that time centred on the difference between idealism and materialism (see my previous blog post on idealism and materialism for an explanation of these). At the time Marx was a student the debate between idealists and materialists had been renewed by the German idealist philosopher Georg Hegel, but it had been rumbling on from at least from the time of the ancient Greeks and probably since long before then. As the aim of philosophy is to explain the truth behind life itself it must have been around for as long as mankind has existed.

In the Western world, the first philosophers as we understand the term today were the ancient Greeks, who focussed on criticizing religious beliefs. This sparked off a conflict between organized religion and free-thinking philosophers that would run for centuries and is still going on today. However it was not until around the 15th century that a truly free debate was allowed to happen, and it was only with the French and American revolutions in the 18th century that the Church began to lose its dominance over the masses in the Western world. Even then, religion still played a major role in philosophical thought. One of the main preoccupations of materialist philosophers in the 18th and 19th centuries was whether God’s existence could be proved by scientific means.

There are three ancient Greek philosophers who strongly influenced Marx. The first was Democritus, who believed that the world could be explained by scientific laws; the second was Epicurus, who believed that the world operates on mechanical principles; and the third was Aristotle, who aimed to integrate all knowledge into a unified philosophical theory. There are also three (relatively) modern philosophers who appear to have directly influenced what Marx wrote. The first was French philosopher René Descartes, who believed that knowledge could be unified by mathematical means; the second was English philosopher John Locke, who believed strongly in social equality; and the third was English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who was one of the first to study society scientifically.

Another group of thinkers who influenced Marx were the so-called Utopian Socialists, who lived and wrote at the beginning of he 19th century. Although there was no specific movement that called itself Utopian Socialism (Marx and Engels invented the term later), it makes sense to consider these thinkers as a coherent group. The three Utopian Socialists who most influenced Marx were the British social reformer Robert Owen, who believed character was formed by social conditions; the French social theorist Charles Fourier, who believed society should be reorganized into self-sufficient units or communes; and the French aristocrat Claude Henri de Saint-Simon, who believed the upper class had served a function in the past that was no longer necessary.

Marx was also strongly influenced by revolutionaries and anarchists. Four particularly strong influences were the French revolutionary Louis August Blanqui, who believed in violent  revolution and was the first to speak of the power of the proletariat; the French philosopher and anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who rejected both capitalism and communism and invented a new form of anarchism he called mutualism; the French socialist Louis Blanc, who believed social equality should come about by democratic and peaceful means; and the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, a contemporary of Marx who believed that communism was not an end in itself but instead should be seen as the first step towards anarchism.

Marx was heavily influenced by the philosophers of his homeland, Germany. The strongest such influence was undoubtedly Hegel, whose philosophical arguments are based on two key propositions. The first is that human civilization comes about through intellectual and moral progress rather than divine intervention; and the second is that the development of civilization is best viewed as a series of conflicts or ‘dialectics’. According to Hegel, this development happens in three stages: 1) thesis: an original idea is set up; 2) antithesis: a second idea is set up which contradicts the first; 3) synthesis: an amalgamation of the two opposing views occurs. Another German philosopher who influenced Marx was Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach, who proposed that man creates an illusory god based on human ideals.

Although Hegel’s ideas were important in the development of his philosophy, Marx did not ascribe to them exactly. Hegel said that people felt alienated from the world around them because of religious views that mean they are striving to live in an ideal world that does not exist. Marx, on the other hand, realized that it is not religious views that alienate people, but money. On realizing this Marx decided to devote his life to studying economics and the way it affects social development, and began to read works of political economists – in particular Adam Smith, who believed the capitalist system was an extension of peoples’ natural propensity to trade; and David Ricardo, who also saw capitalism as natural but thought there would be a class struggle over the division of profits.

Finally, it should be noted that Marx’s long-time collaborator Friedrich Engels also had a significant impact on Marx’s philosophical outlook. As the son of a wealthy manufacturer, Engels was able to support Marx’s family financially, allowing Marx to carry out his research. Although we know from documentary evidence that Marx contributed the most of the writing on their collaborations, it is alleged that Engels sometimes wrote newspaper articles on Marx’s behalf. It is also well-known that Engels completed the second third volumes of Das Kapital, Marx’s magnum opus, from unfinished notes Marx left behind after his death. When Marx died in 1883 Engels became the authority on Marx’s theories until his own death in 1895.