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The Marxist Ethic of Self-realization: Individuality and Community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

David Archard
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Extract

If, for Marx and Marxists, communism would be the most ideal of human societies, this is because it would make possible the maximum use of human and natural resources to the equal benefit of all. This means that, under communism, human beings would ‘realize themselves’. In direct and pointed contrast to capitalism wherein all individuals lead alienated, stunted, and fragmented lives, communism for Marx would provide the preconditions for a flowering, a full and final development of all human potentialities.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 22: Moral Philosophy and Contemporary Problems , September 1987 , pp. 19 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1987

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References

1 He speaks of a ‘conflict’ between ‘creative self-realization’ and ‘the value of community’ in his (1985) p. 523 and, more bluntly in the shorter (1986) of ‘a head-on collision’ (p. 48). Similarly Steven Lukes in his (1985) speaks of ‘a contradiction, or at least tension, between the individualistic and communitarian impulses in Marx's thought’ (p. 96).

2 See for instance Nielsen (1973) and, of particular relevance to this paper, Plamenatz (1975) Ch. 12.

3 Aristotle, (1921) B2Google Scholar; see also Mulgan, (1977) 13–17Google Scholar and Newman, (1887) 41–4.Google Scholar

4 Elster, (1985) 89.Google Scholar

5 Elster, (1985) 524.Google Scholar

6 Rawls, (1972) 126–30.Google Scholar

7 Cohen, (1973/1974).Google Scholar

8 Marx, (1973) 163.Google Scholar

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14 Keat, (1981).Google Scholar

15 See for example p. 144.

16 Marx, and Engels, (1967) 79.Google Scholar

17 Marx, (1973) 163.Google Scholar

18 Marx, and Engels, (1967) 82.Google Scholar

19 Marx, (1973) 163.Google Scholar

20 Marx, (1973) 84.Google Scholar

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22 Marx, (1973) 652.Google Scholar

23 Marx, and Engels, (1965) 45Google Scholar; see also Cohen, (1973/1974) 258–9Google Scholar and Ch. V (7) of his (1978).

24 Marx, (1973) 162Google Scholar (my emphasis).

25 Marx, (1976) 280.Google Scholar

26 Brenkert, (1981) 198–9.Google Scholar

27 Marx, (1967) 281.Google Scholar

28 Elster, (1985/1986) 120.Google Scholar

29 Elster, (1985) 521.Google Scholar

30 Marx, (1967) 271.Google Scholar

31 I am extremely grateful to the following who commented on earlier drafts of this paper: H. Bunting, P. Carruthers, G. A. Cohen, S. Mills.