KARL MARXLIFE, WORKS, CONSTRIBUTIONS

Submitted by: Bantay, Czarina May E. Yeen, Katrina Anne L.

JD 1, LEGAL PHILOSOPHYAngeles University Foundation – School of Law

Submitted to: Atty. Charles B. Escolin

BIOGRAPHY

Karl Marx was born on the 5th of May, 1818 at a town in the Kingdom of Prussia's Province of the Lower Rhine. He was privately educated. In 1830, when he entered Trier High School, whose headmaster Hugo Wyttenbach was a friend of his father. Wyttenbach had employed many liberal humanists as teachers, angering the conservative government. The police raided the school in 1832, discovering that literature espousing political liberalism was being distributed among the students.

Karl Marx is also considered as a philosopher. Marx became interested in the recently deceased German philosopher G.W.F Hegel, whose ideas were then widely debated among European philosophical circles. He was also an economist. He engaged in an intensive study of "political economy" (Adam Smith, David Ricardo, James Mill etc.), the French socialists (especially Claude Henri St. Simon and Charles Fourier). The study of political economy is a study that Marx would pursue for the rest of his life and would result in his major economic work – the three volumes series called "Capital." He was also deemed as a sociologist – was inspired by French socialist and sociological thought. But Marx criticised utopian socialists, arguing that their favoured small-scale socialistic communities would be bound to marginalisation and poverty, and that only a large-scale change in the economic system can bring about real change. He was also a historian. Marx believed that he could study history and society scientifically and discern tendencies of history and the resulting outcome of social conflicts. He can also be considered as a journalist when wrote for the radical newspaper Rheinische Zeitung ("Rhineland News"), expressing his early views on socialism and his developing interest in economics.

Finally, he was a revolutionary socialist. He focused on socialist tendencies that subscribe to the doctrine that social revolution is necessary in order to effect structural changes to society. More specifically, it is the view that revolution is necessary to achieve a transition from capitalism to socialism. Revolution is not necessarily defined as a violent insurrection; it is defined as seizure of political power by mass movements of the working class so that the state is directly controlled by the working class as opposed to the capitalist class and its interests as a precondition for establishing socialism.

WORKS

The Communist Manifesto is a short publication written by the political theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The book contains Marx and Engels' theories about the nature of

society and politics. It also briefly features their ideas for how the capitalist society of the time would eventually be replaced by socialism, and then eventually communism.

The first chapter of the Manifesto, "Bourgeois and Proletarians", examines the Marxist conception of history. It goes on to say that in capitalism, the working class, proletariat, are fighting in the class struggle against the owners of the means of production, the bourgeois, and that past class struggle ended either with revolution that restructured society, or "common ruin of the contending classes". It continues by adding that the bourgeois exploits the proletariat through the "constant revolutionising of production and uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions". The Manifesto explains that the reason the bourgeois exist and exploit the proletariat with low wages is private property, "the accumulation of wealth in private hands, the formation and increase of capital", and that competition amongst the proletariat creates wage-labour, which rests entirely on the competition among the workers. The Communist Manifesto, thus, states that while there is still class struggle amongst society, capitalism will be overthrown by the proletariat only to start again in the near future; ultimately communism is the key to class equality amongst the citizens of Europe.

The second section, "Proletarians and Communists", starts by stating the relationship of conscious communists to the rest of the working class: they will not form a separate party that opposes other working-class parties, will express the interests and general will of the proletariat as a whole, and will distinguish themselves from other working-class parties by always expressing the common interest of the entire proletariat independently of all nationalities and representing the interests of the movement as a whole. The section ends by outlining a set of short-term demands: (1) abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes, (2) a heavy progressive or graduated income tax, (3) abolition of all right of inheritance, (4) confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels, (5) centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly, (6) centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State, (7) extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan, (8) qual liability of all to labour.

The third section, "Socialist and Communist Literature," distinguishes communism from other socialist doctrines prevalent at the time the Manifesto was written. While the degree of reproach of Marx and Engels toward rival perspectives varies, all are dismissed for advocating reformism and failing to recognise the preeminent role of the working class.

Das Kapital, on the other hand, is a critical analysis of political economy, meant to reveal the economic laws of the capitalist mode of production.

Capital, Volume I (1867) is a critical analysis of political economy, meant to reveal the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production, how it was the precursor of the socialist

mode of production, and of the class struggle rooted in the capitalist social relations of production.

In Volume II, the main ideas behind the marketplace are to be found: how value and surplus-value are realized. Its dramatis personae, not so much the worker and the industrialist (as in Volume I), but rather the money owner (and money lender), the wholesale merchant, the trader and the entrepreneur or 'functioning capitalist.'

Capital, Volume III, is in seven parts: (1) the conversion of Surplus Value into Profit and the rate of Surplus Value into the rate of Profit (2) conversion of Profit into Average Profit (3) the Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall (4) conversion of Commodity Capital and Money Capital into Commercial Capital and Money-Dealing Capital (Merchant's Capital) (5) division of Profit Into Interest and Profit of Enterprise, Interest Bearing Capital (6) transformation of Surplus-Profit into Ground Rent (7) revenues and Their Sources.

The work is best known today for part III, which in summary says that as the organic fixed capital requirements of production rise as a result of advancements in production generally, the rate of profit tends to fall.

HEGELIANISM AND DIALECTICS

The historical influence of the German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel upon the formation of Marx’s methodology cannot be denied. Hegel saw the world as an evolving living organism. As such, he argued that scientific and political progress was not smooth but rather moved dialectically and in accordance with a conflicting philosophical dialogue. According to this theory, person A states some partial truth, then person B advocates the very opposite (which is also partly true), and then the combining elements of both ideas finally comes about. In applying this dialectical premise to history, Hegel contended that truth is subjective and that it is impossible to judge cultural norms by any objective standard. Furthermore, Hegel’s theory also maintains that the historical process is affected by an on-going conflict and evolution of human ideas.

Believing that material or physical forces were the real forces behind human progress, Marx replaced Hegelian dialecticism with his own dialectical materialism, in which the forces in conflict are not ideas or principles but solely the interests of social classes in their struggle over the ownership and control of material resources.

When history is understood in accordance with that dialectical materialism, socio-political institutions appear to always correspond to the interests of the dominant class. The legal system is therefore interpreted as a superstructure that must suit the practical needs of this

dominant class. Accordingly, the rule of law is merely another ideological mechanism through which that class is able to eventually justify its grip on the means of production and the sources of wealth.

So basically, dialectical materialism is a strand of Marxism developed by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. It is based on Hegelian thesis-antithesis-synthesis dialectics but shifts dialectical activity away from the Hegelian mental world--the world of mind or ideas—to the physical world, the material world of economic change. This theory holds that economic history progresses through many economic systems through a repetitive process in which each system's economic base changes and then the economic superstructure slowly and belatedly changes. To illustrate:

Thesis: communal ownership + poverty

Antithesis: private ownership + wealth

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Synthesis: communal ownership + wealth.

KARL MARX AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Karl Marx defined human rights as the “rights of the egoistic man, separated from his fellow men and from the community”. They are the rights of man as an isolated, inward looking, and self-centered creature who:

Regards his free opinion as his intellectual private property instead of a part of communication;

Uses his right to private property not in order to create a beach-head for his public and cultural life but to accumulate unnecessary wealth and to protect unequal property relationships;

Uses the right to privacy as a wall keeping out the poor class watching the rich people; Considers fellow men as the only legitimate restraint on his own freedom, and therefore as a

limit instead of the source of his own thinking, identity and humanity (this is the way in which Marx read Article 6 of the French Constitution of 1793: “Liberty is the power which man has to do everything which does not harm the rights of others”);

Considers freedom to be no more than the ability to pursue selfish interests and to enjoy property, unhindered by the need to help other people, “without regard for other men and independently of society”; and

Considers equality to be the equal right to this kind of freedom (everybody can emancipate himself by becoming a bourgeois).

According to Marx, human rights serve only to protect egoism and the unequal distribution of property, and to oppress the poor who question this and who try to redistribute property. On top of that, human rights obscure this fact because they are formulated in such a way that it seems that everybody profits from them. Contrary to what is implicit in their name, “human” rights are not general or universal rights. They are the rights of those who have property and who want to keep it. A specific situation of a specific group of people is generalized in human rights.

One example of human rights is “freedom of expression”. However, Marx defined it in a deleterious way. For him, because the rich have more means to use, for example, their freedom of expression, this freedom can be an instrument of the rich to monopolize political propaganda and political power and to use this power to maintain their privileged situation. Economic relationships can be maintained by legal means.

However, in order to judge and possibly reject a phenomenon, one should also look at its intended and ideal functions, not only at the ways in which it can be abused. Human rights not only protect man against the attacks and claims of other people (for example the attacks and claims on his property); they also create the possibility of forcing people to help each other. They do not allow you to do something to other people (taking their property, determining their opinions, etc.), but at the same time they invite you to do something with other people. In other words, they are not only negative. They not only limit the way we relate to other people, they also stimulate and protect the way we relate to other people.

MARXIST LAW − INTRODUCTION

Karl Marx views the notion of Marxist Law from the following perspective,

“Law, morality, religion, are to [the proletariat] so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois

interests.”

With this, Marx believed that laws are the product of class oppression.

There are assumptions basic to Marxist legal theory—first, that God does not exist; second, that humans are evolving animals; third, the impossibility of an absolute moral code and; fourth, the inexistence of any law grounded in any authority other than human authority.

V. I. Lenin says, “In what sense do we repudiate ethics and morality? . . . In the sense in which it was preached by the bourgeoisie, who derived ethics from God’s commandments. We, of course, say that we do not believe in God.” 

Interactions of human beings within social structures that

contain economic class distinctions.

Class divisions within societies create

conflict and disorder.

Therefore, law (and the state) comes into existence to

deal with this conflict.

Furthermore, L.S. Jawitsch, a modern-day Marxist legal theorist, maintains Lenin’s denial of anything supernatural, saying, “There are no eternal, immutable principles of law.” Therefore, Marxist law cannot be based on anything other than human rationality. In Lenin’s words, “We repudiate all morality taken apart from human society and classes.”

HOW DO LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS ARISE AND WERE ABLE TO COME UP WITH A STATE?

Issues that arise on having the State:

State perpetuates the conflict as a dominant class wielding power over classes with less power;

The State is an organ of class domination, an organ of oppression of one class by another; and

Its aim is the creation of ‘order’ which legalizes and perpetuates this oppression between the classes.

TWO CLASSES IN THE MARXIST VIEW OF LAW

In the Marxist view of law, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are the two classes involved in the struggle for power.

Bourgeoisie is the ruling class of the two basic classes of capitalist society, consisting of capitalists, manufacturers, bankers, and other employers. The bourgeoisie owns the most important of the means of production, through which it exploits the working class.

On the other hand, proletariat is the class of industrial workers who lack their own means of production and hence sell their labor to live. It is the lowest social or economic class of a community.

In the Communist Manifesto, Marx denounces,

Overthrow the bourgeoisie

Thus, allowing the proletariat

to make the laws.

Proletariat Law

“[Y]our jurisprudence is but the will of your class made into a law for all, a will, whose essential character and direction are

determined by the economic conditions of existence of your class.”

It means bourgeois law as nothing more than a reflection of the desires of that class. Bourgeois law is oppressive because it is based on the concept of private property, and thus laws are created that promote unequal rights.

Thus, the Marxist solution to achieve unjust society and lawlessness is to:

The legal system that promotes the interests of the working class is called proletariat law.According to Marxist legal theory, the working class may break capitalistic law if such an

action is in pursuit of equality. Moreover, Lenin explained that “the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is won

and maintained by the use of violence by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, rule that is unrestricted by any laws.”

MARXIST LAW – LAW AND SOCIALIST ECONOMICS

Once the revolution of the proletariat has succeeded, the new Marxist law will reflect the desires of the working people rather than those of the bourgeoisie. Meaning, law based on the will of the proletariat will create a society that is less exploitative than that based on capitalist bourgeois law.

The will of the proletariat becomes the basis for all rights, laws, and judgment, thereby negating natural law, God, or any absolute moral code. Marxists see law based on the will of the proletariat as flexible rather than inconsistent.

MARXIST LAW – LAW WITHERS AWAY

Because Marxists believe law arises from class conflicts caused by property, the need for law itself will dissolve once a communist society is established. Marxists believe that when classes are abolished, all people will create and live in an environment that promotes harmony. Since only one class (the proletariat) will then exist, the need to promote order between classes will no longer remain—in effect law will have become unnecessary. 

MARXIST ETHICS – OLD MORALITY

Marxists wholeheartedly reject moral codes that are founded in religious beliefs, including traditional universal moral ideals. “Old morality”— the morality of the reigning capitalist class—exploits the working class. According to this view, old religious moral codes must be abandoned. Old morality, as products of the bourgeoisie invented and used by the propertied class, oppresses the property-less proletariat. The old morality is simply a tool used by the oppressing classes to maintain their position in society. Christian ethics is the means by which the rich control the working class.

MARXIST ETHICS – DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM

This approach is rooted in dialectical materialism. According to the Marxist dialectic,“Everything in the universe—including society—is in a state of constant change.

These changes are moving society upward toward the elimination of all social and economic class distinctions.”

The next social advance in history will be the move from capitalism to socialism, which will inevitably result in changes in society’s moral ideals. The dialectical view of history dictates the clash of thesis and antithesis — in this historical context, the relentless clash between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Marxist-Leninists believe that the morality of these two classes is totally different, and when the proletariat finally destroys the bourgeoisie, a new morality will reign —a new morality for the new social system. 

MARXIST ETHICS – THE EVOLUTION OF MORALITY

Our social and economic status is always changing, so our ideas about morality must also be in a state of continual change.  In the Marxist perspective, is there such a thing as communist morality?

Lenin answered, “Of course there is. It is often suggested that we have no ethics of our own; very often the bourgeoisie accuse us Communists of rejecting all morality. This is a method of confusing the issue, of throwing dust in the eyes of the workers and peasants. In what sense do we reject ethics, reject morality? In the sense given to it by the bourgeoisie, who based ethics on God’s commandments. On this point we, of course, say that we do not believe in God, and that we know perfectly well that the clergy, the landowners and the bourgeoisie invoked the name of God so as to further their own interests as exploiters.”

In Lenin’s view, Communist morality had to evolve beyond that morality of outdated Christian myth used by the exploiting class to suppress the exploited class. 

MARXIST ETHICS – CLASSLESS SOCIETY

Marxists believe that what is generally regarded by society as moral directly contradicts the Marxist goal of a classless society.

So long as classes exist on the earth, there will be no such thing in life as something good in the absolute sense. What is good for the bourgeoisie, for the imperialists, is disastrous for the working class, and, on the contrary, what is good for the working people is not admitted by the imperialists, by the bourgeoisie.

MARXIST ETHICS – MORAL REVOLUTION

Question:How can we achieve a ‘classless society’?

When pursuing Marxist ethics, revolution is the most efficient means for creating a society without class distinctions. According to Marxists, revolution is unavoidable and it is the only way to overthrow the bourgeoisie and lift up the proletariat. The obligation to work toward the overthrow of the bourgeoisie may very well include the duty to kill.

MORAL ETHICS – CLASS HATRED

According to Marxist ethics, hatred is moral as long as it is directed toward the proper institution, class, or enemy. It follows, then, that society’s generally accepted moral principles (which Marxists claim are bourgeois tools) are in direct opposition to the moral principles of the proletariat. If this is true, no one in the bourgeoisie can do right or act morally. Unless members of the propertied class became proletarian, anything they do, no matter how moral by their standards, will be contemptible to Marxists.

British journalist D.G. Stewart-Smith estimates that international communism is responsible for 83 million deaths between 1917 and 1964. From a Marxist- Leninist perspective, if 83 million people died to abolish social classes and private property, it was worth the price—even morally just. Marxists judge the results, not the methods. No matter how immoral it appears to a world that believes in an absolute or universal moral standard, it is morally good within the Marxist-Leninist worldview.

MARXISM AND RELIGION

Religion does not reflect man's true consciousness. Religion, as Marx sees it, is a false consciousness; religion is the product of men, the product of those in power—those who control the productive process. It had been used by the ruling classes to give the working classes false hope for times, while at the same time recognizing it as a form of protest by the working classes against their poor economic conditions.

For Marx, then, humanity is God. We created God in our own image. We created religion in order to worship ourselves. The notion that God is merely our projection is contained in Marx’s assertion that man “looked for a superhuman being in the fantastic reality of heaven and

found nothing there but the reflection of him.”

CONCLUSION

Marxist law is grounded in a denial of the existence of God and a belief that we and our social systems are evolving. These assumptions require Marxists to rely on legal positivism as the basis for law. The Marxist version of legal positivism adds the unique feature of class-consciousness to the state’s role as the will of the ruling proletarian class. Furthermore, the working class must rule under the guidance of the Marxist-Leninist political party, giving the party final authority on morality and law.

When those adhering to a specific ideology arbitrarily determine a system of law, laws will be created that are prejudiced against those with opposing views. In such a society, freedom disappears, as each citizen is held hostage by the arbitrary laws of the state.

Hence, Marx believed that laws are the product of class oppression, and that laws would have to disappear with the advent of Marxism.

Meanwhile, many uncertainties surround Marxist ethics. While virtually all Marxists agree on the dialectical materialist foundation for morality and the inevitability of the evolution of moral precepts, they cannot predict what the ethics of a classless society would look like. An ethical ideology that includes the inevitability of change and the evolution of morals leaves Marxists free to abandon generally accepted moral standards in pursuit of a greater good—the creation of a classless communist society. This pursuit requires Marxists to dedicate themselves to the cause and to use whatever action they believe will bring about a classless society. Any course of action then, no matter how immoral it appears to a world that believes in an absolute or universal moral standard, is morally good within the Marxist-Leninist worldview. At the same time, Marxist ideas continue to stimulate and engage thinkers in a variety of fields, including political theory, history, and literary criticism.

REFERENCES

Calhoun, Craig J. Classical Sociological Theory. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002.

Kelly, John Maurice. A Short History of Western Legal Theory. Oxford: Clarendon, 1993.

Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party. New York: Cosimo Classics, 2009.

Nicolaevsky, Boris I., and Otto Maenchen-Helfen. Karl Marx: Man and Fighter. Harmondsworth, etc.: Penguin, 1976.

Wheat, Leonard. Hegel's Undiscovered Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis Dialectics: What Only Marx and Tillich Understood. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2012.

Wheen, Francis. Marx's Das Kapital: A Biography. London: Atlantic, 2006.