Marx is considered to be one of the most prolific thinkers and writers of the last 200 years. Is the intellectual figure that influenced western political thinking the most and his writings are essential to understand political ideas of the modern left. This paper will review some of his most original and revolutionary ideas.
The first discussion that comes to mind when discussing Marx´s ideas is his views on alienation and social classes. The heavy influence of positivism can be perceived behind his theories about social classes when he describes how men lose their ability to determine their lives and destinies because of their relative relation to the means of production. This way, the bourgeoisie, or people who own the means of production, are the ones who set goals to the majority of workers. According to what Marx expressed on his writing The Holy Family, there are four kinds of alienation: from the product of his work or reification of labor and assigning it a value; from the act of producing by taking away from the worker the decision of what is to be done with the product of his work; from himself, and from other workers. In each of them an external factor is responsible for what men produce and what this production means to them.
This brings us to one of his most important tenets. As classes have different interests, they are all in constant struggle with each other. This comes from Hegelian dialectical theory and his idealistic dichotomist approach to epistemology. However, Marx and Engel thought they had discovered a flaw in Hegel´s dialectics: the world of ideas was not the only one divided in contraries. The nature of the material world was also founded on the eternal conflict between the things that are and their contraries, which are contained within each existent entity. Thus, every single contains the seed of its contrary or negative. This becomes the motor of nature, and what makes the universe evolve and change. Marx proposed that history is part of nature as well, and so dialectic forces in conflict were the motors of advancement. Social classes are always struggling and fighting each other. Additionally, they contain the seeds of their own demise. History moves forward as classes try to destroy each other.
The problem with Marx´s views is that they are all deterministic. Can people be departmentalized in classes? Do people have an unavoidable behavior once they belong to certain social class? When do people start belonging to a class or another? Marx does not explain any of these questions, and history has proven that all predictions based on them were wrong.
References
Tucker, Robert, ed. The Marx-Engels Reader. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1978.
