Page 204 - DPOL201_WESTERN_POLITICAL_THOUGHT_ENGLISH

Western Political Thought

Notes some of his works as Marx’s disciple, raising questions about how much was Marx’s original, and
what were Engels’ interpretations. It is generally believed that Marx generalized on the basis of
particular events, i.e. from the particular to the general. Engels on the other hand was more
deterministic, analyzing from the general to the particular (Carver 1981). Engels acknowledged
Marx as a genius, while, at best, he was talented. Marx was an innovator, and Engels the popularizer.

Marx was the first thinker to bring together the various strands of socialist thought
into both a coherent world view and an impassioned doctrine of struggle”.

To comprehend the major thrust of Marx’s political philosophy that aimed at human liberation, it
is noteworthy to take into account the significant shift that occurred in the late seventeenth century
when traditional analysis of the political order based on scarcity was replaced by a philosophy of
abundance. This meant that poverty and disparities once seen as natural, inherent and inevitable
were now considered man made and hence solvable. The liberal writings of Locke and Jefferson
reflected this libertarian dimension. However, the failure of early liberalism to fulfill its own
promise led to the crystallization of socialist ideas.
The liberal theory hinged on two principles, namely politics as involving non-coercive solutions to
antagonistic interests, and the importance of democratic methods as being effective in making
these adjustments. Though it took cognizance of the Hegelian critique of individualism, it did not
accept two of its major assumptions. The first was that society moved, balancing the antithetical
forces which generated social change by their schisms and strifes, and second, that social history
was inherent in the very forces that generated them. These aspects of Hegelian philosophy played
a pivotal role in the political theory of the nineteenth century, and later primarily due to the
transformation brought about by Marx. Conflict played a crucial role in both Hegelian and Marxist
political theory, thereby ruling out peaceful adjustment for the mutual advantage of the contending
parties.
Marx interpreted liberalism and classical economics as articulating and defending the interests of
the middle class. He proposed to create a social philosophy that was in tune with the aspirations
of the rising proletariat. Like Hegel, he looked upon the French Revolution as an indication of the
demise of feudalism, but while Hegel contended that the Revolution would culminate in the
emergence of nation states, Marx looked upon it as a prelude to a more fundamental and total
revolution beyond the nation states. The French Revolution, which brought the middle class to the
forefront with the destruction of the nobility, was essentially a political revolution. The next step to
be undertaken was a social revolution which would be brought about by the proletariat. It should
be pointed out that Francois Noel Gracchus Babeuf (1760-1797) was the first to point out the
contradictions within the revolutionary slogans of liberty and equality. He advocated socialization
of industry and land to complete the Revolution that began in France in 1789.
Socialism carried forward the Libertarian element of early Liberalism in its call for total human
emancipation. Marx disparagingly dubbed the Socialists who preceded him as “Utopians”, for
their emphasis on class harmony and non-revolutionary politics. The label “Utopian socialists”
was first used by Jerome Blanqui in the History of Political Economy (1839) Marx learnt a lot from
these Utopian socialists, and borrowed more of their ideas than he ever cared to admit. The
relationship between the early Socialists and Marx was similar to the one that Plato shared with
the Sophists. Like Marx, Plato disparaged Sophism, but was indebted to its ideas. Marx described
his socialism as “scientific”. Having studied the laws of social development and of capitalism, he
sought to prove that the destruction of capitalism was inevitable, for it had given rise to its own
“grave diggers”.

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