Revisiting Marx and Liberalism (Counterpunch)
Thought that this group would appreciate this piece by Edward Martin and Mateo Pimentel. An excerpt:
For Marxist social philosophy, Jon Elster recognizes personal freedom and social solidarity as inseparable. Marxist tradition rejects, for the most part, liberal attempts to rationalize the division of justice and equality into two principles: one, in the area of political liberties; and two, in the area of economics. Social participation in liberal theory is primarily directed at the maximization of political freedoms while economic participation is limited to those with resources and capital. For Locke, the liberal democratic rights theory also prioritizes the individual’s negative immunity from political coercion or interference by any part including government itself. Yet, the implied notion of justice and rights in Marxism nonetheless stresses positive entitlements to participate fully in both political and economic spheres. Here, the rationale is the prevention of alienation and exploitation of the human person and thus forego, for the time being, revolutionary violence. Thus, as R.G. Peffer notes, what is developed in Marxist tradition is a support and defense of human rights and human dignity.
Both social and economic rights, such as the right to work, material security, healthcare, etc., are paramount in Marxist theory. In liberal theory, however, these rights can arbitrarily be sacrificed since liberalism, especially as it manifests itself in market policies, becomes, according to Marx, “an individual separated from community, withdrawn into himself, wholly preoccupied with his private interest and acting in accordance with his private caprice … The only bond between men is natural necessity, need and private interest, the preservation of their property, and their egoistic persons.” For Marx, liberal theory fails precisely because individual and social freedoms can only be realized if they are connected in a meaningful way by making political and economic justice and rights correlative. The result for Marx (and Engels) should thus be “an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”
Steven Lukes recognizes that Marx’s concept of the human person within the context of a common good is critical for understanding his notion of solidarity. In “The Jewish Question”, Marx supports human rights based on the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 1971.” The goal of this support for human rights and dignity sought to prevent exploitation and oppression in both political and economic terms. This theme also exists in the Communist Manifesto, in which Marx states, “Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labor of others by means of such appropriation.” Here, Marx distinguishes between socialism and communism, and socialism for Marx is the “first stage of communism,” which must deal with the reality of moderate scarcity within the context of the socialization of productive property, etc. The “higher stage of communism” for Marx presupposes material abundance in a coercion-less society. Thus Marxist praxis, in its antiauthoritarian and revolutionary dimensions, incorporates a notion of social solidarity which embraces concepts of human dignity and interdependence.
Full piece:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/08/revisiting-marx-and-liberalism/
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