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Unit 11: Karl Marx: His Life and Works, Materialism and Dialectical Materialism

is his theory of the evolution and structure of capitalist Society, of which he nowhere gave a Notes
detailed exposition. This theory, by asserting that the important question to be asked with
regard to any phenomenon is concerned with the relation which bears to the economic
structure ... has created new tools of criticism and research whose use has altered the direction
and emphasis of the social sciences in our generation .
• Undoubtedly, Marx was a genius, but one should not overlook his shortcomings. Weber, in
his famous essay The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904-1905) points out that
capitalism was caused by the habits, beliefs and attitudes of Protestantism, and more
specifically, Calvinism and English Puritanism. For Weber, ideas and economic motives
were interests too, that “material without ideal interests are empty, but ideals without material
interests are impotent” . Weber gave importance to concepts and values, for they played a
pivotal role in social life.
• According to Weber, Marx remained vague about the economic base. He conceded that
within the parameters of non-economic factors, purely economic behaviour would occur. In
fact, Marx’s simplistic analysis precluded such considerations. Weber was not happy with
Marx’s clubbing of technology with the economic base, for he believed that with any state of
technology, many economic orders were possible and vice versa. He criticized Marx for
being imprecise about what really constituted economic categories.
• Weber criticized Socialism for its attempt to replace the anarchy of the market and achieve
greater equity through planning. This, he believed, would result in greater bureaucratization,
leading to a loss of freedom and entrepreneurship. Weber was clear that private property
and markets were necessary for guaranteeing plurality of social powers and individual
freedom.
• Marx did not foresee the rise of Fascism, totalitarianism and the welfare state. His analysis of
capitalism was, at best, applicable to early nineteenth-century capitalism, though his criticisms
of capitalism as being wasteful, unequal and exploitative were true. However, his alternative
of genuine democracy and full Communism seemed more difficult to realize in practice, for
they did not accommodate a world which was becoming increasingly differentiated, stratified
and functionally specialized.
• Popper’s (1945) critique of Marxism on the basis of falsification was equally true and difficult
to refute, for Marxism constantly adjusted theory in the light of reality. Popper was suspicious
of Marx’s scientific predictions, for a scientific theory was one that would not try to explain
everything. Along with Plato and Hegel, Marx was seen as an enemy of the open society.
Marxism claimed to have studied the laws of history, on the basis of which it advocated total,
sweeping and radical changes. Not only was it impossible to have first-hand knowledge
based on some set of laws that governed society and human individuals, but Popper also
rejected Marx’s social engineering as dangerous, for it treated individuals as subservient to
the interests of the whole. Popper rejected the historicism, holism and Utopian social
engineering of Marxism. In contrast, he advocated piecemeal social engineering, where change
would be gradual and modest, allowing rectification of lapses and errors, for it was not
possible to conceive of everything. This method also encouraged public discourse and
participation, making the process democratic and majoritarian.
• Popper claimed that Marx’s scientific socialism was wrong’’ not only about society, but also
about science. The capitalism that Marx described never existed. Marx made the economy
all-important, ignoring factors like religion, nationality, friendship. Society was far more
complex than what Marx described. In spite of exaggerating the influence of economics, it
was a fact that “Marx brought into the social sciences and historical science the very important
idea that economic conditions are of great importance in the life of society ... . There was
nothing like serious economic history before Marx”.

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