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A CRITIQUE OF MARXISM
Introduction
Introduction: Historical Background
Intellectual Liberalism
(Renaissance)
Moral Liberalism
Religious Liberalism
(Protestant Revolt)
Political Liberalism
(French Revolution)
Economical Liberalism
(Industrial Revolution)
Introduction: Historical Background
KARL MARX
Hegel
•Organic
conception of
society
•Evolutionary
view of history
•Progress by
means of
conflict between
opposing
elements
Ludwing
Feuerbach
•Materialism
Joseph
Proudhon
•Superimpose
Hegelian
dialectic into
matter
•Hegelian
dialectics in
social and
economic
problems: class
conflict
Friedrich
Engels
•Philosophical
basis for
communism
•Jointly
produced “The
Manifesto of the
Communist
Party
Introduction: Characteristics
 Philosophy applied to economics
 The core of Marxism is materialism; negation of God as the
starting point
 The actus essendi is replaced by material production operis
homo
 Any change is progress
 Reaction against Idealism…. But ended up far from realism
as well
Introduction: Dialectic Concept of Action
 The dash of contradictory opinions possesses a twofold
value:
 Places two contradictory views relative to a particular
topic
 Gives both disputants a fuller grasp of the truth
Introduction: Dialectic Concept of Action
 The final Idea, for Hegel, is arrived at through a
series of three stages:



Thesis: the enunciation of the positive truth contained in
the original idea.
Antithesis: the negation of the thesis of the first stage
(the thesis contains within itself its opposite)
Synthesis: the developed idea that unites the content of
truth which was contained in the thesis and antithesis
Introduction: Dialectic Concept of Action
Hegel
 As a basis of
dialectical idealism
 The idea is composed
of contradictory
elements
 Idea is self-sufficient
Marxs
 As a philosophical
system of dialectical
materialism
 Matter is composed
of contradictory
elements
 Matter is selfsufficient
Introduction: Alienations
 When man tries to go out of the material world, in
the process, he is enslaved and becomes alienated.
 Four main types of alienations:





Philosophical
Political
Economic
Religious
Social
Introduction: Strategy and Tactic of
Revolution
 The social organism also follows the law of
dialectics: two opposing elements an exploiting and
an exploited class
 All this transformations from one social order to
another were done by revolution
 Five phases of human society

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Society of common ownership of the land
Slave-holding society
Feudal society
Bourgeois or capitalistic society
Socialist and communist societies
Introduction: Strategy and Tactic of
Revolution
 In a communist society, the proletariat will be the
ruling class, there would be no more class struggles,
no oppression and no further revolutions
 Revolution does not simply happen, it must be
made and provoked
 Three characteristics of the revolution



It will cast out all the exploiting groups
It can be achieved only if violence is used to overthrow
the ruling and exploiting class
The proletarian revolution must be international in scope.
A CRITIQUE OF MARXISM
The Marxist alienations
The Marxist Alienations: Religious
 Religion was first invented by the primitive peoples to
explain those powerful forces of nature like the wind, fire,
rain and lightning.
 With the coming of private ownership, the communist think
that the exploitation entered society. Religion serves to
protect the ruling and possessing class.
 Religion the “opium of the people”; religion is justifying and
rendering permanent the present economic set-up which
necessarily brings the exploitation of the masses.
 Religion will vanish as soon as economic exploitation
vanishes, for it is the cause of religion
The Marxist Alienations: Religious
 Critique
 “To make one’s profit out of the need of another, is
condemned by all laws human and divine (Rerum
Novarum Leo XIII)
 The Church is realistic enough to understand human
nature and to know that even her tireless work for the
poor would never bring them an earthly paradise (hence
teaching patience and resignation)
 Communism is the real opium



Creates a public opinion as the only one possible
Allows the communist leaders the rights to adopt any means
Makes man passive, it strips his personality of all freedom of
thought
The Marxist Alienations: Philosophical
 Philosophers cover the real world with a coat of
metaphysical imagination.
 Materialism is the only real philosophy, considers
reality as it is
 Only through praxis can we understand more about
the relation between man and the world, and also to
transform it.
The Marxist Alienations: Philosophical
 Critique
 To affirm that matter is the only real thing is also an
erroneous supposition.
 Metaphysics helps us to understand reality as it is,
separating matter and form in our minds but always
together in reality
 Idealism separate us from the material world since it
denies the material reality; materialism separate us from
the spiritual world because it rejects anything that is not
material.
The Marxist Alienations: Political
 The mode of production current in society determines the
character of the entire social superstructure, hence each type
of economic production infallibly creates a distinctive type
of State.
 The exploiting class lead a life of ease, supported in luxury
by the masses; the exploited class is one of economic
servitude.
 When the exploitation has reached a very high degree, the
State becomes necessary, to maintain law and order, laws
which will maintain the exploiting class in a position of
subservience.
The Marxist Alienations: Political
 Characteristics of the State
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It is a class organization
An organized force, a unified public power of coercion
It has the right to levy heavy taxes
The officials hold a privileged place in society
 The repressive functions of the State will increase
in intensity in proportion to the development of
industry on capital basis
The Marxist Alienations: Political
 Critique
 The State arises from the social nature of man, not from a
fanatic desire to exploit.
 Marx has simply confused the abuse of State power with
the lawful use of power
 Communism is mistaken by identifying the grave abuses
of State power with the nature of the State.
 The solution is not to destroy the State but to educate the
rulers on the correct source and purposes of State power;
the common good
The Marxist Alienations: Social
 The cause of social alienation is the division of
society into classes.
 A class can be defined as a group of people who, in
a given society with a given regime of production,
are finding themselves in the same position:
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
Ownership or non-ownership of the property essential in
the labor process
The personal freedom enjoyed or deprived of
The Marxist Alienations: Social
 It is in the perennial clash of these two opposing
forces, the oppressors and the oppressed, that Karl
Max discovers the dynamic force which accounts
for the progress and development evident in history.
 It is through the conflict (class struggle) between
these two classes: the bourgeois (thesis) and the
proletariat (anti-thesis), there will come out a new
and most perfect society: the communism
(synthesis)
The Marxist Alienations: Social
 Critique
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Marx concludes that all society is made up of two
classes, that every man either exploits or is exploited.
Ownership of property is not the cause of exploitation
Exploitation is rooted in lack of justice and charity in
particular individuals
Justice and rights do no mean anything to the Marxists,
and consequently, it is not possible that they really care
about the welfare of the proletariat
Evil is drowned by the abundance of good.
The Marxist Alienations: Economical
 Man expresses his essence, exteriorizes himself in
the work of his hands, homo faber (man worker).
 Private ownership is at the root of the exploitation:
capitalists exploit workers; thanks to the liberal
State’s protection of private ownership.
 The profit, or difference between the subsistence
level cost of the product (i.e., salary paid to the
worker) and the actual market price, is what Marx
calls “surplus value”.
The Marxist Alienations: Economical
 From the surplus value theory, Marx deduces four
economic laws:
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The law of capital accumulation
The law of falling rate of profit (since capital
accumulates under consumption also rises)
The law of concentration of capital
The law of increasing misery
 According to Marx, the capitalist exploits the
working man by using him for his own profit, thus
enslaving him.
The Marxist Alienations: Economical
 Critique
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It forgets that everyone who has contributed mentally or
physically toward the new product deserves some
compensation.
The value of a product is not dependant on cost alone,
but by the laws of supply and demand.
There is no exploitation on the part of the employer by
the simple act of selling a product at a price higher than
the salary given to the worker.
Because of the error of the surplus value theory, all the
other economic laws derived from it are also wrong.
A CRITIQUE OF MARXISM
Historical Materialism
Historical Materialism: Overview
 Marxism believes that any philosophy of history
which admits the existence of free will (freedom of
choice) can never explain the development evident
in history.
 A true philosophy of history must:
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Seek the fundamental dynamic power which furnishes individuals
with the motives of their actions
Discover the factor(s) which mold society and its institutions
Pursue investigations beyond ideological motives (religious,
patriotic,..)
Discover that which determines the character of these ideal forces
which we call religion, society, the state, philosophy and social
conventions.
Historical Materialism: Overview
 Continuity in existence is the first law of man’s
nature.Men must live before they think. The means
whereby man produces these necessities of life
(mode of production) must therefore be the driving
force in history.
 All though, religion,art,philosophy… does partially
determine the course of history, it does so only as a
proximate cause, since the ultimate cause, is the
productive forces, the economic conditions.
Historical Materialism: Overview
 Consequences
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It outlaws the idea of a Supreme Intellect guiding the
destinies of men by a divine providence
Refuses to regard the human intellect as the basic cause
of social phenomena
It proposes a social determinism, struggle-reorganization
 Marx affirms that the very end-product of the
proletarian revolution will be a society without
private property, classes, State, religion and without
distinction between manual work and intellectual
work.
Historical Materialism: Critique
 Two conclusions from the theory
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Whenever we find different modes of production
we should find different types of States
Whenever we find similar modes of production
we should find similar types of States
 It is obvious that in history of mankind this
two conclusions do not hold.
Historical Materialism: Critique
 Religion will safeguard and foster the current method of
production. All major religions have remain while the
methods of production have changed.
 Changes in methods of production follow upon the invention
of new tools. Invention is primarily an intellectual activity,
and as such, the economic motives cannot be the ultimate
cause of the ideological elements of our society.
 Why is it that the proletariat has the right to use the State
power to suppress the bourgeois if Marx constantly
condemns the State as an instrument which the class in
power uses to suppress its rival class?
A CRITIQUE OF MARXISM
Dialectical Materialism
Dialectical Materialism: Overview
 The dialectic of Marx comes from
 Marx applies dialectic to matter, conceiving matter
as essentially active.
 Without appealing to any cause external to the
matter itself, this analysis of nature tries to offer an
explanation of all natural phenomena.
Dialectical Materialism: Overview
 The dialectic of Marx follows that of Hegel, which
signifies a movement of jumps- by thesis, antithesis
and synthesis.
 Marx applies dialectic to matter, conceiving matter
as essentially active.
 Without appealing to any cause external to the
matter itself, this analysis of nature tries to offer an
explanation of all natural phenomena.
Dialectical Materialism: Dialectic and Matter
 The Law of Opposites
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It begins by insisting that science has outlawed the
principle of non contradiction. Everything is at once
itself and something else. Reality is unity of opposites.
Science has helped in this claim
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A + and – charge are needed in electricity
Magnetism is made of + and – poles
Atoms are composed of protons and electrons
If a thing is looked upon in an abstract way, there is no
contradiction, but there is when we look at it, as it exist
in nature.
Dialectical Materialism: Dialectic and Matter
 The Law of Negation
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The Hegelian process: assertion, negation and negation
of the negation.
DM contends that the nature of motion is such that a
being in motion necessarily progresses towards its own
negation.
Engels: the law of negation is the law of nature; in nature
it operates in a particular way for each particular type of
reality in order to produce development.
Dialectical Materialism: Dialectic and Matter
 The Law of Transformation
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This law asserts that a continuous quantitative
development in reality very often results in the
production of an entirely new form.
The emergence of all new forms, including man, is to be
explained as a leap in nature, a sudden production of a
qualitatively new reality due to a quantitative
development in an already existing thing
It will have far-reaching effects when the principle is
applied to social philosophy.
Dialectical Materialism: Dialectic and Matter
 Critique
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The error of the law of opposites lies on the confusion
between contrary and contradictory.
Two contraries must move towards each other to be able
to conflict, hence conflict is not the source of its motion.
First mover of St Thomas.
The mere presence of motion of matter cannot, of itself,
account for the fact that motion tends towards the
development of the being. Hence there is a need of a
transcendent Intelligence which directs the progress and
development of all nature. St Thomas 5th way to prove
the existence of God
Dialectical Materialism: Dialectic between
Man and Nature
 Reality is not the beings, the things, the changes of those
things,etc., but rather human actions. The reality Marx talks
about is the historical reality. The only thing that is real is
history which is constructed by man
 The relationship man-nature depends neither on the nature
nor on man; it is pure activity. Man makes work and work
makes man.
 Work is then considered as the process of interchange of
matters between man and nature.
 When a worker receives his salary for his work; upon selling
his work, he is selling himself as well (economic alienation).
Dialectical Materialism: Dialectic between
Man and Nature
 Critique
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The main error is the reduction of being into action
If there is an action, it is always an action of someone
since it is the individual who is the ultimate owner of the
act of being which is what makes something real.
No one looses his identity (his act of being) by giving up
something which does not enter into his essence, and the
work of man does not determine a man to be a man.
Dialectical Materialism: Matter and
Consciousness, Theory and Praxis
 Materialism affirms that consciousness (ideas in our mind) is a
manifestation and product of matter (things in reality)
 In opposition to idealism, DM emphasizes the fact that
knowledge does not have a purely subjective source; in
opposition to the old materialism, it contends that the mind
plays an active role in the acquisition of knowledge. Interaction
between mind and external reality.
 Another important interaction is known as the “unity of thought
and action”, they are inseparably united.
 On one hand, man himself is being changed by the knowledge
which is acquiring; on the other hand, in the same act of
acquiring knowledge, man is simultaneously and necessarily
utilizing his knowledge to change the external reality.
Dialectical Materialism: Matter and
Consciousness, Theory and Praxis
 This doctrine denies the existence of contemplative
knowledge.
 If all knowledge must lead to action, and if the purpose of all
action is to change matter, then obviously, that knowledge is
true which enables us to change matter successfully.
 DM is not to be identified with pragmatism, which does the
same. The fundamental difference is that pragmatism is
rather subjectivist, whereas DM refers to objective practice
as the criterion of truth.
Dialectical Materialism: Matter and
Consciousness, Theory and Praxis
 Critique

First we need to establish the fact that immateriality is the basis of all
knowledge
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The mind is able to formulate abstract and universal concepts
The mind is able to reflect upon its own conscious state.
The presence of an immaterial mind implies the falsity of the
Marxist theory that there is no distinction between mind and matter,
as well as, the assumption that the mind could arrive at true
knowledge of reality through a process of analysis and synthesis.
We might say to a Marxist that a thing is true not because it works;
rather it works because is true.
The real criterion of truth should, therefore, be the conformity
between the intellect and the thing in reality with the latter as the
foundation of the marching.
Dialectical Materialism: Necessity and
Freedom
 Materialism tells us that the economic motives underline and
determine all mental activity, but it also claims that man’s
will is free.
 Marxism will profess determinism but strongly protest
against the theory being labeled fatalistic.
 It identifies freedom of will with knowledge of natural
necessity. Man is free because he is able to know that he
must act according to determined laws. Man is composed of
opposite elements, he is determined and free at the same
time.
Dialectical Materialism: Necessity and
Freedom
 Critique
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It is the nature of the will to tend to what is good. It is
free to choose or not to choose a particular good. There is
no freedom if there is no choice.
Freedom and necessity are not always opposed to each
other. Men freely but necessarily desire happiness.
Two types of necessity
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Necessity of force: imposed upon the will by force.
Necessity of natural inclination
A CRITIQUE OF MARXISM
Decomposition Of The Theoretical
Marxism
Decomposition Of The Theoretical Marxism :
Orthodox Communism
 Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932)

German, the denial of the necessity of revolution in order
to obtain the establishment of socialism, denial of the
theory of the inevitable and progressive accumulation of
capital in few hands and impoverishing of the proletariat,
based on the fact that the middle class increased
 Nikolai Lenin (1874-1924)
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Substitutes the proletariat by the communist party.
There is no need of simultaneous revolution, from Russia
to the world
Imperialism is the last phase of materialism
Decomposition Of The Theoretical Marxism :
Orthodox Communism
 Mao Tse-tung (1893-1976)
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A determinant factor is Nationalism.
Marxism is put in relations between agriculture and
industry, the filed and the city.
 Georgy Lukacs (1885-1971)
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
Hungarian, dialectic –once accepted- had to be applied
also to the society born out of the Revolution.
Lukacs comes to show that if dialectics is assumed fully
and brought to its last consequences, ends by denying
materialism, in order to return to the idealism which it
was taken.
Decomposition Of The Theoretical Marxism :
Western Communism
 All began with the capital points of Marx’s thought,
taking for granted: atheism, materialism, dialectic
and in one way or another socialism.
 The problem comes when it comes to filling the
voids of the Marxist system, the disintegration is
produced in all directions.
 The Marxism of the West is more humanistic and
less dogmatic version of the Soviet one.
A CRITIQUE OF MARXISM
Conclusion
Conclusion: The Absolute Incompatibility
Between Christianity and Marxism
 Any religion which upholds as Christianity does:
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The existence of God as transcendent to the world
The freedom and immortality of the human soul
The superiority of spirit over Matter.
Is radically irreconcilable with Marxism.
 The recourse to class struggle and its abolition of
private property goes vs Christian charity and the
Church’s defense of private property