Gilbert Marx Justice

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An Ambiguity in Marx's and Engels's Account of Justice and Equality

Author(s): Alan GilbertSource: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 76, No. 2 (Jun., 1982), pp. 328-346Published by: American Political Science AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1961113 .Accessed: 04/05/2011 11:34

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An Ambiguity in Marx's and Engels's Account ofJustice and Equality'ALAN GILBERTUniversity of Denver

Given the widespread moral conventionalism or historicism in contemporary social science andethics, many have viewed Marx as arguing either that conceptions of justice simply shift historicallyand lack objectivity (relativism) or that notions of justice are to be understood solely as expressions ofclass interests (reductionism). Although metaethical ambiguities about the status of conceptions ofjustice influenced some of Marx's and Engels 'sformulations, they condemned the "crying contrasts "of rich and poor. Marx is better understood as defending a version of moral objectivity or moralrealism. The paper begins with an example from the recent debate about justice in the internationaldistribution of wealth to highlight the implausibility of a relativist or reductionist account. It thendescribes alternative views of the status of justice and equality in Marx and Engels and explores thelogical structure of Marx's critique of Proudhon. A fourth section examines the analogy betweenMarx's and Engels's realism in the philosophy of science and their realist arguments in ethics, focus-ing on Marx's and Engels's non-relativist and non-reductionist conception of moral progress. Theconclusion sets Marx's use of concepts of exploitation in the context of his overall moral judgmentsand suggests that Marx's social or historical theory rather than his moral standards are the most con-troversial part of his ethical argument.

MoralObjectivity ersusHistoricismOn Marx'sgeneraltheoreticalhypothesis,sys-tems of law and related moral conceptions arisewith given systems of production, spur their ad-

vance, and share in their demise. Such prevailingconceptions are relative to historical epochs; theyenjoy validity for a limited period but compel noeternal or universal assent. Thus, in response tothe claim that payment of interest is a matter ofnatural justice, Marx contended:The justiceof transactionswhichgo on betweenagentsof production ests on the fact that thesetransactions riseas naturalconsequences f therelationsof production.The juridicalforms inwhich these economic transactionsappear asvoluntary ctionsof the participants, . . as con-tracts hat may be enforcedby the stateagainstasingle party, cannot, being mere forms, deter-minethis content.Theyonlyexpress t. This con-tent is just whenever t correspondso the modeof production,is adequateto it. It is unjustwhenever t contradicts hat mode (Marx 1961,Vol. 3, pp. 339-40;Marxand Engels1959, Vol.25, p. 351).

Three interpretations of justice, each with somebasis in Marx and Engels, might be consistent

'I am indebted to Nicholas Sturgeon and RichardBoyd for helpfulcriticismsof this paper,and to AllenWood for several enlighteningconversationsaboutthese issues.

with this theory of history. According to the rela-tivist and reductionist views, Marx and Engels of-fered only a historical critique of prevailing con-ceptions of justice and equality and eschewedthese concepts except to debunk them. A thirdview, a moral realist one, suggests that Marx andEngels dialectically reformulated existing pro-letarian demands for equality and justice.According to the relativist view, the Marxistsees as an issue only the historical efficacy of anethical system to a given mode of production-forexample, a justification of the natural characterof slaveholding in ancient Greece or of wageslavery in the contemporary United States-ratherthan the truth of a moral argument. Claims ofjustice in social theory are incidental to the causalrole of prevailing economic tendencies, althoughthose claims might reinforce or retard economictrends, and moral concepts make no distinguish-able contribution to social explanations. Concep-tions of justice differ incommensurably from per-iod to period, class to class. (See, for example,Trotsky 1963, and Fisk 1975). Representative pro-ponents of these conceptions, abstracted fromtheir specific historical settings, would continue todefend their own visions of justice, but quarrelendlessly. This interpretation is a form of ap-praiser's-group relativism: that is, an act is judgedby a given appraiser to be right if and only if it ac-cords with his society's prevailing moral code(Lyons 1976, p. 109).Whereas the representatives of different epochstake their own visions of justice seriously, Marx-

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1982 An Ambiguity n MarxandEngels 329ists do not; they adopt a version of ethical rela-tivism and dismiss moral arguments as a muddle.Ethical relativists could still defend their ownethical conceptions or those of their epoch, yetMarxian relativists refuse to endorse such concep-tions because they radically differentiate moralknowledge from other kinds of knowledge. SuchMarxians argue that in natural science and socialtheory, investigators can discover approximatetruth without reference to the social origins of apoint of view. Here ethics suffers by comparisonwith science. From a scientific standpoint, nomoral truth or objectivity exists. Furthermore,this ethical relativist interpretation denies bothmoral progress and advance in ethical theory, aview that corresponds to the widespread ethicalrelativist, conventionalist, or historicist trend inAnglo-American philosophy and social science.According to the reductionist interpretation, aMarxist could not only explain standards of jus-tice by reference to the mode of production, butcould endorse them on this basis (Wood 1972,1979, has skillfully defended this argument). Thisview conflicts with ethical relativism. It relates theexisting historical variety of conceptions of justiceto the agent's group; an act is right (at a giventime) if and only if it accords with the moral codeof the agent's mode of production or social class.(Lyons 1976). The reductionist then assesses thevalidity of these differing conceptions of justicenot in their own terms but according to their im-pact on the productive forces. Thus, observerscould agree that slavery was just not becauseslaves were inferior or barbarians lacking mentalcompetence, as slaveholders alleged, but becauseslavery temporarily stimulated production. Infact, although temporarily endorsing the slave-holders' judgment about justice, this view seems(peculiarly) compatible with the denial of theslaveholders' reasons. Such an interpretationsaves itself from ethical relativism but only at theexpense of reductionism. More strongly than therelativist interpretation, this view debunks all con-ceptions of justice.In Wood's version of reductionism, the histori-cal observer concurs with juridical standards ifthey conform to the relations of production.Wood sees justice as a conservative notion thatcorresponds to the old relations of productioneven when that productive system has gone intodecline. Radical critics can never use such concep-tions. A new view of justice becomes valid onlyafter a political revolution has sanctioned newproduction relations. Although this interpretationattempts to account for Marx's criticisms of theuse of the term eternal justice by moralisticradicals (Marx 1966, Vol. 1: 84-85), it leaves acrucial question unanswered: in periods when onemode of production declines, a new one arises,

and a revolutionary movement flourishes, at leasttwo conceptions of justice clash. How is theobserver to choose between them? According toMarx's general historical theory, a reductionistcould endorse the new conception because it ad-vances the productive forces even before new pro-duction relations become predominant. Prevalentmoral standards lose their validity when the oldproduction relations retard the productive forces,and the reductionist could then sanction the use ofthe term unjust by radicals. Either version ofreductionism permits a kind of dialectical pro-gress, a progress in productivity, but at least inWood's account, no progress in morality orethical theory can occur.In subsequent debate, Wood maintained thatMarx used other ethical standards, such as politi-cal community, freedom, and self-realization, toindict predominant modes of production andrestricted a reductionist argument to concepts ofjustice (Wood 1979, pp. 282-91). This recognitionundermines any historicist attempt to reduceMarx's overall ethical judgments to his critique ofprevailing ideas about justice. In comparison tothese other ethical goods, Wood regardsjustice asunimportant. A reductionist account could, there-fore, acknowledge ethical progress in these othergoods, but Wood does not. For Marx and Engels,however, greater realization of political commu-nity, cooperative productive activity, and indi-viduality distinguishes communism from previousexploitative societies (Marx and Engels 1962, Vol.2, p. 24; Marx 1973, pp. 325, 487-8).We might regardthis reductionist interpretationas a version of scientific realism, one that identi-fies which actual relationships have been termedjustice. But unlike the moral realist interpretation,the reductionist account denies that any concep-tion of justice could be true. Like its ethicalcousin, relativism, the reductionist interpretationdenies moral truth or objectivity.

Some theorists, such as Leo Strauss, have criti-cized all modern political thought, liberal andradical, for a putative commitment to moral rela-tivism or historicism in contrast to the moral ob-jectivity and loftier political and philosophicaltheory of the ancients (Strauss 1965). In Strauss'sterms, modern liberalism and radicalism must en-dorse a contentless notion of individual freedom.If either a relativist or a reductionist account ofMarx's moral judgments is true, such a criticcould identify Marxian theory as part of an his-toricist trend.Strauss's critique captures one important strandin modern political theory. For example,Hobbes's idea of an anarchy of moral meaningswhich requires the Leviathan of civil society toestablish a positive order, is a strongly conven-tionalist view; that is, moral ideas mean what the


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330 TheAmericanPoliticalScienceReview Vol. 76sovereign says they mean (Hobbes 1962, pp.39-40). Michael Oakeshott offers an elegant refor-mulation of Hobbes's conception: a philosophicaldefense of modern individuality reflects currentEuropean self-understanding and has no further,more objective basis (Oakeshott 1975, pp. 325-6).John Rawls, a liberal theorist, looks to moralreasoning in an original position to encouragemoral objectivity. Yet Rawls draws the relativelypure moral intuitions that play a role in his"reflective equilibrium" from "our intuitions,"that is, the intuitions which at this historical mo-ment moral philosophers happen to have (Rawls1971, pp. 19-20, 49-50). In the social sciences,similar notions of moral conventionalism havebecome widespread. To take only one example,Max Weber's conception of legitimacy appeals towhat a given population thinks to be just. Weberbrackets the issue of whether legitimate govern-mental practices actually are just or unjust. Fur-thermore, Weber viewed different dimensions ofreality, politics and religion for example, as ruledby clashing demons and denied the possibility ofmoral objectivity. His "national economics" cele-brated the eloquent relativist ideal of Machia-velli's Florentine, who valued his city more highlythan his soul (Weber 1958a, p. 126; 1958b, p. 107;Gilbert 1981c). The importance of moral rela-tivism in contemporary liberal philosophical andsocial scientific thinking lends some plausibility tothe general Straussian critique.Nonetheless, Strauss's argument is thoroughlyunfair to the diversity of modern liberalism. Heignores the hardly contentless liberal and radicaldenial of ancient slavery as a prerequisite for anymorally defensible form of social cooperation andindividuality (see Montesquieu 1965, bk. xv;Hegel 1975, pp. 54, 140; Gilbert 1981b), and hefails to identify Marx's moral judgments, if Marx-ian social theory is true, as objective or realistclaims about human needs and capacities.Thus, a moral realist interprets Marx's stan-dards of human goods, including political com-munity, freedom, individuality, friendship, soli-darity, and scientific and artistic achievement, asstemming from Marx's conception of humannature (see also Gilbert 1981a). This humannature exhibits certain original capacities andneeds, roughly those identified by Darwin'stheory; subsequent historical development hasrefined these original capacities or created newones (Marx 1961, Vol. 1, pp. 178, 341: Cohen1979, pp. 151-2). This vision of a historicallymodified human nature combined with Marx'stheory of economic and political developmentfavors a society that fosters the greatest flourish-ing of individuality and achievement of poten-tials. Note that this view contradicts any relativist

interpretation, which sees humanity itself asepoch relative or contends that no human natureexists (Fisk 1975, pp. 74-8).Defending an aspect of moral realism, Husamihas challenged Wood's reductionism by dis-tinguishing Marx's claims about the truth ofmoral judgments from his account of their originsor "sociology of moral norms" (Husami 1980,pp. 42-53). Husami argues that Marx recognizedmoral facts about justice under capitalism; how-ever, he tries to deny Wood's reductionism anybasis in Marx's own comments on justice. But asWood (1979 Section III) has responded, Marx notonly criticized capitalist standards of justice butalso the notions of "eternal justice" offered byradicals like Proudhon and Lassalle. Marx some-times appeared to substitute scientific explanation(and political strategy) for any moral claims at all.By rejecting Wood's interpretation outright,Husami has nearly painted Marx as the type ofmoralist Marx criticized, a theorist who offers aprimarily ethical critique of capitalism. Wood inresponse similarly denies any merit in Husami'scontention that Marx scathingly indicted the in-human consequences of capitalist exploitation.Taking Husami's and Wood's accounts to-gether, Marx and Engels appear to be ambiguousabout whether or not capitalist exploitation is un-just. I will argue, however, that although Marxand Engels did not regard injustice as the only oreven the main indictment of capitalism, they sawthe historic differences between rich and poor, ex-plained by Marx's theory of exploitation, as, inEngels's phrase, crying injustices. Thus, theWood-Husami debate does not stem from anyambiguity in Marx's and Engels's moral judg-ments or in their condemnation of capitalism andprevious exploitative societies but rather from adifferent ambiguity in Marx's and Engels's ac-count of the status or truth of moral concepts.The difficulty lies not in Marx's and Engels'sethics but in their metaethics and its peculiar im-pact on their interpretation of their scientific,political, and ethical disputes with other radicals.On this argument, many readers of Marx, bothsympathetic and unsympathetic, have mistakenlyused some of Marx's and Engels's relativist orreductionist metaethical statements to ignore theiractual moral judgments.I call my interpretation of Marx's ethical judg-ments a moral realist one in analogy with the real-ist arguments of Putnam (1975), Boyd (1979) andKripke (1980) in contemporary philosophy of sci-ence and language. Moral realism recognizes theobjectivity of moral judgments about humanneeds and capacities, progress in morality andmoral theory, the dependence of ethical progresson advances in social organization and social


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1982 An Ambiguity in Marx and Engels 331theory, and the role of moral conceptions,especially true ones in social explanation andpolitical strategy.Anglo-American philosophy, influenced by em-piricism, has stressed a priori analysis of the defi-nition of moral terms; for example, the ancientGreeks' criteria for using the term good would de-termine its meaning.' Consequently, any changein the definition of the term good renders moralcontinuity problematic, and a claim that ancientGreeks and modern liberals share important con-ceptions of the good life or freedom is incoherent.Thus, this general empiricist conception in thephilosophy of language leads directly to moralrelativism or historicism (Rorty 1979, pp. 280-1).In contrast, for the realist, moral concepts referto actual human social and psychological capaci-ties for cooperation, freedom, and individualitymanifested in the course of historical develop-ment. The realist view begins from Aristotle'sargument that the Greek polis first demonstratedthe human potentials for a good life, or of man tobe a political animal, potentials that were notpreviously recognized in Persian or ancient Greekdespotism (Aristotle, Politics, 1252b16-23,1253a30-31). Later arguments, such as Hegel'sthat in Greece, only male citizens were free, butmodern society has recognized that all males arefree, or Marx's argument that communismenables the full realization of social individuality,attempt to identify new manifestations of humanethical possibilities.Thus, a realist explanation of the ambiguity inMarx's metaethics can lead to a much more sym-pathetic view of justice than relativism or reduc-tionism. Realism acknowledges some merit in pastand current views about justice but offers a theo-retical reformulation of those views; it shows howdramatically moral differences between liberalsand the ancients, for example Montesquieu's re-jection of Aristotle's social biological defense ofslavery, or between Marxistsand liberals, pivot onissues of social theory rather than on incommen-surable ethical premises. The moral realist ac-count recognizes historical progress but is not his-toricist or relativist. Unlike empiricist or neo-Kantian moral philosophy, moral realism empha-sizes the discovery of moral knowledge a pos-teriori based on observable human social practiceand denies it any a priori status. The realist re-gards an approximately true moral theory as pos-

2The empiricist view of moral terms ultimately derivesfrom Locke's argument that words refer only to nomi-nal essences, specified by lists of secondary qualities,not to real or internal essences. Locke, 1979, bk. 3, chs.5-6, esp. pp. 442-45. Kripke (1980, pp. 134-40) andBoyd (1980) have criticized this view.

sible. One might even claim that Aristotle ad-vanced such a theory about cooperation and free-dom among those recognized as human, althoughhe wrongly excluded women and slaves (Gilbert198 b). The realist also contends that progress hasoccurred in morality, for instance from slave tononslave organizations of society, and in moraltheory. Such advances are heavily dependent onadvances in history and in social theory. The truthof claims about justice or other moral judgmentswould influence the destiny of radical movementsand would prove indispensable to an adequatesocial theory.Thus, this paper argues that a moral realist ac-count provides the most consistent interpretationof Marx's and Engels's judgments about justiceand the role of ethical judgments in Marxiansocial theory and will show that their occasionalmetaethical relativist or reductionist commentsare misleading. If this argument is correct, itresults in a more sweeping reinterpretation of thestatus of moral argument in Marx's historicaltheory and political strategy and a more funda-mental recasting of Marx's relationship to an-cient, liberal, and earlier radical political andmoral theory than any previous view.What Can Marxists Fairly Say About Injustices?

In One Hundred Countries, Two Billion Peo-ple, Robert S. McNamara, then president of theWorld Bank, made an impassioned plea for inter-national redistribution. Pointing to the plight ofthe most impoverished citizens of India, he con-tended:It is thepoorest40%whodespite heircountry'sgross economicgrowthremain n conditionsofdeprivation hat fall below any rational defini-tion of human decency.... When we reflectthatof themore han halfa billionpersons ivingon the Indiansubcontinent,some 200 millionsubsist on incomes that average ess than $40 ayear,howare we to comprehendwhatthatreallyimplies? McNamara1973, pp. 104-5)

One might add that if the lowest 400o7are so poor,the circumstances of the vast majority are onlyslightly less oppressive and uncertain. By any con-ception of meeting the minimal human needs offood, shelter, and jobs, let alone health care andschooling, these inequalities, characteristic of in-dividual countries and more strikingly of inter-national society as a whole, seem unjust if notperverse and outrageous. Furthermore, byMcNamara's own account, inequality of incomeshares is increasing in India as in many other poornations.For McNamara, the causes of this impoverish-ment seem unclear; they reside in some absence of


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332 The American Political Science Review Vol. 76dynamism among entrepreneurs or the masses inpoor nations, or perhaps ultimately in some puta-tive cultural or psychological deficiency, and donot stem mainly from the heritage of colonialismor the contemporary effects of foreign interven-tion. But once a common concern, spurred byMcNamara's book, becomes widespread amongpolicy-making elites, McNamara expects that theconditions of the least advantaged will improve.How might a Marxist respond to McNamara'sappeal to justice? In a classic strategy suggestedby Engels's The Housing Question (1873), a cri-tique of the German Proudhonist Millberger, aMarxist might point to facts about the interactionof rich and poor which make McNamara's viewimplausible. In the poor nations the new elitesbenefit from skewed income distribution (Tucker1977, pp. 154-5). Furthermore, the elites of theadvanced capitalist nations who sometimes supplyeconomic and military aid to the poor nationshave a common interest with these elites in main-taining impoverishment (they benefit from cheaplabor, for example), and international monetaryinstitutions sustain their interests. For the Marx-ist, some version of Lenin's theory of imperialismor today's dependency theory would appear to ex-plain the increase in inequality and to illuminatethe gap between at best skewed and unequaleconomic growth and internal and internationalrhetoric about redistribution (Myrdal 1970, pp.60-1).3 Correspondingly, only mutual supportamong workers, peasants, students, and intellec-tuals in both poor and rich nations, offers anyhope of securing redistribution to the less advan-taged (Gilbert 1978b).McNamara's view suggests that the WorldBank, once it recognized the injustice of inter-national distribution, would welcome attempts atredistribution in the poor nations. From a Marx-ian point of view, the World Bank is tied to cer-tain class interests, and rhetoric notwithstanding,would oppose serious attempts at such redistribu-tion. For example, consider the World Bank'sreaction to the election in 1970 of the democraticsocialist regime of Chilean Salvador Allende. Farfrom encouraging this non-revolutionary attemptat redistribution, the World Bank cut its aid frommore than twenty million dollars to none. Afterthe 1973 coup, the World Bank restored its aid tothe Pinochet regime (Cusack 1977, p. 144; Payre1975). The Marxist might conclude that the factsand an accurate social theory show that within a

3Though cannotexamine he issuein thispaper,theinternationaldivisionof labor in EasternEuropeandthe ThirdWorld, presidedoverby the Sovieteconomicelite, strikinglyresemblescapitalist forms of depen-dency.

capitalistinternationaleconomic system, majorredistribution annotoccur.Yet somethingseems peculiaraboutthis Marx-ian response.Although McNamara gonizesoverthe arbitrary atureof this situation,the Marxistsays nothing about justice. Perhaps this Marxistholds the relativist interpretation,according towhichMcNamarahas a bourgeoisconceptionofjustice, and conceptionsof justice are simply amuddle, or perhapshe has a reductionist oncep-tion, that McNamaras right hat this distributionis unjust (capitalismas a productivesystemhaspassed its historicalzenith), but wrongabout thereasons.Yet the Marxist's ocial analysis, f true,undermines only McNamara's claim that theWorld Bank can serve as an instrument forredistribution (Taylor 1973); it leavesMcNamara's laim about the glaring njusticeofinternational distribution,or the "crying con-trasts" of rich and poor, in Engels's phrase,perfectly ntact (Engels 1966,pp. 173-4).Further-more, the Marxist's social theory shows whobenefits from these injustices and pinpoints adefect of character n McNamarawho at leastdeceives himself.4Although the Marxistmightcontend that the condemnationof injusticecanoccur only on McNamara'smoralpremise,it ishard to see why a Marxist wouldn't share thispremise. Marxistsdo, after all, object to eror-mous disparitiesof wealth and povertyand theirsocial consequences;an indictmentof thesecon-sequencesprovidesan importantmotivationforsocialism.In this case, a commonmoral concernlends urgency to the Marxian criticism ofMcNamara's olution. Nothing in the social cri-tique of McNamara'sremedy-calling on con-scientious elites to rectify impoverishment-logically requiresa rejection of all concepts ofjustice.Beyond this, the Marxist'srefusal to addressMcNamara'smoral assessmentof internationaldistribution seems ironic, for if anything, theMarxisthas betterreasonsfor callingthis situa-tion an injustice than McNamara has.McNamara's rgumentmightblame the victimorhistorical accident, but suppose the citizens ofpoor nations lack initiativeowing to internalen-vironmental auses,or supposeno one is to blamefor international nequalities.If people are im-poverishedas a resultof theirown inadequacies,no injusticehas occurred.And althoughRawlshas forcefullydefended the fairnessof rectifyingsocial and naturalarbitrariness,t is hardto see.blameless arbitrarinessas an injustice (Gilbert1978a, pp. 109-10, 117). The Marxiananalysis,

'Shklar (1979) rightly argues against exaggerating themoral significance of such character defects.


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1982 An Ambiguity n Marxand Engels 333however, fixes appropriate responsibility on thebeneficiaries of inegalitarian distribution andshows how victimization has occurred. Moreplausibly than McNamara, a Marxist can viewcontemporary international distribution as unjust.A realist argument demonstrating the grain oftruth in McNamara's conception, seems far moreappropriate than either relativist abstention frommoral comment or reductionism. This examplehighlights the inaccuracy of Marx's and Engels'soccasional characterization of their own views asa historical critique of prevailing conceptions ofjustice. Since Marxian historical theory leadsmore decisively than McNamara's to a condemna-tion of injustice, this analysis compels a deeper in-quiry into the reasons why Marx and Engelsfound relativist or reductionist formulationsattractive.

Three Accounts of Justice in Marx and EngelsMarx's and Engels's metaethical argumentvacillates between relativist or reductionist andrealist conceptions of justice. As I have noted, onMarx's and Engels's historical critique, prevailingconceptions of justice derive from a system of lawwhich suits the needs of a predominant mode ofproduction. Pointing to the epoch relativism ormerely functional validity of such moral concepts,

this historical theory deflates the grandiose claimsof theorists who seek to recast society accordingto ideal standards of justice. Ironically, even radi-cal claims about injustice frequently share in theprevailing conceptions and offer no adequateanalysis of social structure and political alterna-tives. In some of Marx's formulations, radicals re-quire only a clear understanding of the internalconflicts in capitalist society and definite politicalstrategies to overthrow it. Moral indignation can-not substitute for such analysis and obscures theneed for a patient, realistic strategic perspective(Marx 1961, Vol. 1, 84-5; Marx and Engels 1962,Vol. 2, pp. 25, 30). Furthermore, such moralviews encourage an elitist radicalism that scornsthe struggle of the oppressed classes, where theparticipants might discover the validity of a revo-lutionary point of view. Moralistic radicals substi-tute their own artificial solutions-crotchets, asMarx called them-for real class conflict. Thus,Proudhon sought to inaugurate a reign of eternaljustice by the formation of cooperative bankingarrangements (mutualism) as the guarantor of fairexchanges among small propertyholders. He op-posed unions on the grounds that they violated in-dividual liberty and even defended the Frenchgovernment when it shot down striking coalminers at Rive-de-Gier (Marx 1963, pp. 125-6;Proudhon 1924, pp. 377-80, 384-5). Similarly,the German tailor Wilhelm Weitling, sometimes

celebrated as a Christian humanist alternative tothe heartless atheist Marx, dismissed the industrialworking class as unready for immediate revolt andrecommended a communist uprising by the"thieving proletariat" (Wittke 1950, p. 120;Forder 1970, pp. 220-21; Gilbert 1981, chs. 3-4).In both cases, influential radical opponents ofMarx relied on moral concepts as the centralfeature of their social theory and displayedprofound elitist hostility to the working-classmovement.To combat these views, Marx and Engels at-tempted to distinguish neatly between communistpolitical radicalism (designed to make socialismand internationalism issues in the midst of activeclass conflict) and moralistic radicalism. In quasi-positivist fashion, they contrasted their scientificarguments with their opponents' ethical or ideo-logical ones, interpreted on a relativist or reduc-tionist basis. (In fact, a reductionist reconstruc-tion of issues of justice is a classic empiricistmove, which begs the question of whether or notthe situations people have referred to as unjustdeserve our concern (Sturgeon 1980, pp. 31-2)).A reader may properly ask whether Marx's quar-rel is with all moralities or only with the use ofmoral concepts by ruling class spokespersons orby radicals who hold accompanying erroneoustheories of capitalism.Yet Marx and Engels offered another view ofjustice and equality. They recognized thatworkers, artisans, and peasants often use moralconcepts to criticize a prevailing social order. AsEngels remarked in Anti-Duhring (1878), the de-mand for social equality became the battle cry ofthe sixteenth-century German peasant war and ex-pressed "the revolutionary instincts of the pea-santry," their "spontaneous reaction against thecrying social inequalities, against the contrast ofrich and poor, feudal lords and their serfs, surfeitand starvation." He noted similar demands in theFrench communist workers' movement and calledfor "the abolition of classes" as the "real con-tent" of these demands (Engels 1966, pp. 117-8).But indignation over inequality between richand poor is a component of justice. In inegali-tarian economies, all crises and hardships fall withespecial severity on the poor. As class societies,even feudal ones, legitimize expectations of cus-tomary provision of subsistence among the pro-ducers, such special hardships often appear as anabridgment of the obligations of the non-producers, or in modern times as a violation of in-dividual rights. Given that the lives of the pro-ducers and their families depend on the reliablefulfillment of such expectations, their violation isa seeming breach of promise and provokes a par-ticularly vivid sense of outrage, which historicallyhas played an important causal role in popular


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334 The American Political Science Review Vol. 76revolts (Moore 1965; Thompson 1971; Scott1976).In contrast to an impoverished conception ofjustice that confines itself solely to legal relationsand hence cannot, for example, criticize the in-justice of laws that sanction slavery, any adequateconception must assess how given social arrange-ments affect the needs and capacities of all in-dividuals. Minimally, it would condemn anysystem of distribution that provided superfluityfor the few combined with starvation for themany. Maximally, in Marx's view of communism,for example, a just system of distribution wouldmeasure need according to diverse individualcapacity, a view that invokes an ancient concep-tion of natural justice, such as Aristotle's sugges-tion that the best fluteplayer, rather than thehandsomest or wealthiest, should receive the bestsupply of flutes (Aristotle, Politics, 1282b30-1283a4; Brecht 1966, p. 128). Thus, Engels andMarx do not reject the proletarian demand forequality as ideological but justify it in terms ofneed and reformulate it as a demand for abolitionof classes.In Marx's Value,Price and Profit (1865), he ad-vocated participation in strikes and unions thatcould drive up workers' wages at least tempo-rarily. (Marx drew a new distinction between arelatively invariant physical element of subsis-tence and a much more elastic moral or social ele-ment.) In the long run, however, Marx contendedthat capitalism would undercut these union gainsand drive workers to revolt. Through participa-tion in their "real movement," he advocated thesubstitution of the "revolutionary watchword,"abolition of classes, for the "conservative motto'a fair day's pay for a fair day's work' " (Marxand Engels 1962, Vol. 1, p. 446). Marxian socialtheory sees the concept of a "fair day's pay" asconservative because that demand does not ques-tion the existence of capitalism and seeks only a"better rate of exploitation" from the workers'point of view. According to Marx, the particularconception of "fairness" invoked in this demandcuts against the workers' real interests. Yet Marxdefended the workers' anger and supported theirdemands with this particular moral gloss re-moved. He thought that the capitalist division ofrich and poor, characterized by a certain kind ofexploitation in production, justified the workers'fight for higher wages and a shorter working day.His own social theory dramatically extended theworkers' claims to the expropriation of all surplusvalue from the capitalists and the creation of aclassless society. Since Marx's analysis illuminatesand reinforces the workers' indignation, it seemspeculiar to view this change of demands asreplacement of an ideological ethics devoid of sci-entific content with a social theory devoid of

ethical content. More plausibly, science does notneatly replace ethical evaluation. The revolu-tionary demand grows out of the moral content ofthe workers' original demand and in a Hegeliansense recalls it.According to Marx's moral realist line of argu-ment, ethical indictments by workers, artisans,and peasants arise from the real experience andunderstanding of a given social system's oppres-siveness; Marx sought to learn from this popularunderstanding by studying actual movements(Gilbert 1981, chs. 1-2). Thus Marx's scientificand political critique of Proudhon and the uto-pian socialists focused on their refusal to par-ticipate in and learn from class conflict. Unlikesuch elitists, his theory requires Marxists to takethe opinions of others seriously and to engagethem in moral as well as theoretical and politicalconversation about why, for instance, workersshould aim for the abolition of classes rather thanequality. In contrast, according to the relativist orreductionist interpretations, all that a Marxist canfairly say about concepts of justice is to debunkthem.

Engels's and Marx's Argument againstProudhon's "Eternal Justice"In The Housing Question, Engels dismissedProudhon's conception of "eternal justice" as afantasy. As one strategy for making this argu-ment, Engels debunked all conceptions of justiceas relative either to a mode of production or to theperson holding the specific conception. He con-tended that "The justice of the Greeks andRomans held slavery to be just; the justice of thebourgeoisie of 1789 demanded the abolition offeudalism on the ground that it was unjust. Forthe Prussian Junker even the miserable DistrictOrdinance is a violation of eternal justice."' Fur-thermore, the concept of eternal justice "belongs

among those things of which Millberger correctlysays 'everyone understands something differ-ent' " (Marx and Engels 1962, Vol. 1, p. 624). Inthese statements, Engels adopted either an ap-praiser's-group relativism or a person relativism.Engels again seemed to take a positivist standtoward moral concepts; unlike scientific investiga-tion in which researchers can ultimately resolvedisagreements, human beings can never resolvedisputes about justice, which only result inceaseless wrangling.Earlier, Engels criticized Millberger's wish that

'See also Marx 1961, Vol. 3, pp. 339-40. Marx, how-ever, avoided the puzzling inconsistencies, for instancethe endorsement of person-relativism, sometimes foundin Engels's philosophical arguments.


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1982 An Ambiguity n MarxandEngels 335rent agreements under capitalism could be "per-vaded by a conception of right . . . carried outeverywhereaccording to the strict demands of jus-tice." This "justice" would protect each artisanor peasant in his ownership of a dwelling. Engelscounterposed the facts of capitalist production toMfilberger's dream. Capitalism persistently up-roots small propertyholders and forces them intolarge cities; it tends to replace independent prop-ertyholding, including homeownership, withcapitalist landlordship:

Whatdoesthis rigamarolemean?Nothing morethan that the practicaleffects of the economiclaws which governpresent-day ociety run con-trary o the author'ssense of justice and that hecherishes he pious wish that themattermightbeso arrangedas to remedy he situation. Yes, iftoads had tails they would no longer be toads!And is then thecapitalistmode of productionnot'pervaded y a conceptionof right,'namely, hatof its own right to exploit the workers?And ifthe author tells us that is not hisconceptionofright, are we one step further Marxand Engels1962,Vol. 1, pp. 562-3)?

In this argument, we can see that Engels's claimabout the person relativism of justice ("theauthor's sense of right") does not necessarilyfollow from the claim of Marx's historical theoryabout mode-of-production relativism. In fact,Engels uses the conception of right appropriate tocapitalism to debunk Milberger's personal sense.Furthermore, throughout The Housing Question,Engels analyzes Millberger's sense of right as aclass sense, namely a small propertyholder's orpetit bourgeois conception of justice, renderedanachronistic by capitalist expansion. Thus, froma Marxian point of view, one could simply dropthe person relativist argument and stick with theappraiser's-grouprelativist one. But given this ac-count, Engels's argument seems peculiar. Engelscharacterizes capitalism's "justice" as "its ownright to exploit the workers"-a description that acapitalist would hardly endorse. (Is this charac-terization merely an expression of Engels's "ownsense of justice"?). Engels's comment on ex-ploitation does not follow from his ethical relativ-ism or reductionism but rather from the realistargument noted above, which Engels used to in-dict capitalism.'

'NotethatEngels's udgmentmightbeappropriateoa formof ethicalrelativism,namelya defenseof one'sown moralviews given that this moral position is asvalid as anyother.Engelsdid not endorse his formofrelativism,however,becauseof his admiration or sci-enceat the expenseof ethics. Beyondthis, contrary oanyformof relativism,as we shallsee, Engelsthoughtdivisionsof rich and poor were unjust given humanneeds,not merelydependingon the specificobserver,

Elsewhere in The Housing Question, Engelscondemned miserable housing conditions andcheating by merchants as examples of the "count-less small, secondary abuses (Obelstande)" ofcapitalism and stigmatized exploitation(Ausbeutung) of the worker in production as the"fundamental evil (Grundilbel)." Recalling theCommunist Manifesto, Engels criticized theProudhonists in a realist vein: "It is the essence ofbourgeois socialism to want to maintain the basisof all the evils of present-day society and at thesame time to want to abolish the evils themselves"(Marx and Engels 1959, Vol. 18, pp. 214-5; 1962,Vol. 1, pp. 558-81). Thus, a revolutionary strategybased on an accurate social theory would strike atthe basic evil in the mode of production.Engels analyzed the facts against Proudhon'sappeal to "eternal justice" in the light of Marx'shistorical theory; his claims depend upon the ap-proximate truth of the theory and include a spe-cific explanation of capitalist exploitation, of thefundamental class conflicts that grow out of it,such as the fight over the length of the workingday, of capitalism's tendency to concentrate con-trol of industry in a few hands and to create alarge propertyless proletariat, and of the tendencyof the rate of profit to fall and engender crises.Given this analysis Engels argued that "fac-tually," capitalism produces its own gravediggers.Contrary to Proudhon and Miflberger, workerscould not, scientifically speaking, overturncapitalism by establishing the "sincerity of ex-changes" among revivified small propertyholders,any more than according to Darwin, toads couldhave tails (Proudhon 1923, Vol. 1, p. 258).In Capital, Marx gave an ironic twist to this cri-tique of Proudhonism. Proudhon identified jus-tice among small propertyowners with the regula-tion of production and exchange by means of theequal labor times embodied in commodities. ForProudhon, the violation of such exchanges bylarge capitalists could occur only through "swin-dling," someone taking more than his or herdue. Contrary to Proudhon, Marx showed thatthe extraction of surplus value and its concreteforms of profit, interest, and rent could occurregularly under capitalism without swindling. Heargued that one commodity in use, labor power,creates a greater value (surplus value) than its ownvalue in exchange (subsistence). But, Marx in-sisted, the capitalist extracts surplus value withoutviolating the laws of circulation, that is, the juridi-cal standards of capitalism (Marx 1966, Vol. 1,pp. 193-4); in this sense only, capitalist exploita-

and defendeda conceptionof moralprogress nd moraltruth.


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336 TheAmericanPoliticalScienceReview Vol. 76tion is not "robbery" (Marx and Engels 1959,Vol. 19, pp. 382, 359-60). Satirizing Proudhon,Marx showed that the generalization of commodi-ty production, characteristic of capitalism, led tothe gradual expropriation of small holders, not totheir salvation: "So long as the laws of exchangeare observed in every specific act of exchange themode of appropriation can be completely revolu-tionized without in any way affecting the propertyrights which correspond to commodity produc-tion" (Marx 1961, Vol. 1, p. 587). Marx added,"We may well therefore feel astonished at thecleverness of Proudhon, who would abolish capi-talist property by enforcing the eternal laws ofproperty that are based on commodity produc-tion" (Marx 1961, Vol. 1, p. 587, n. 1) and com-pared Proudhon to an incompetent chemist:Proudhonbegins by takinghis ideal of justice(Gerechtigkeit), f 'justice eternelle' from thejuridical elations hatcorrespond o theproduc-tion of commodities;hereby t may be noted heproves to the consolation of all good citizens,thattheproductionof commodities s a form ofproduction as everlastingas justice. Then heturns roundand seeks to reformthe actual pro-ductionof commodities, ndtheactual egalsys-tem correspondinghereto, in accordancewiththis ideal. What opinion should we have of achemistwho, insteadof studying heactual awsof themolecular hanges n thecompositionanddecompositionof matter, and on that founda-tion solvingdefiniteproblems,claimedto regu-late the compositionanddecomposition f mat-terby the 'eternal deas'of 'naturalit6' nd 'af-finite?(Marx 1961,Vol. 1, pp. 84-5;Marx andEngels 1959, Vol. 23, pp. 99-100).

Based on his scientific criticism of Proudhon'stheory, Marx made seven claims: (1) he identifiedProudhon's specific conception of justice as anideological reflection of capitalist juridical rela-tions; (2) he argued that conceptions of justice aretransitory (limited to one or several historicalepochs) rather than eternally valid as Proudhonthought; (3) contrary to the Ricardian socialistsand Proudhon, he showed that capitalist exploita-tion occurs without robbery in the process ofcommodity circulation; (4) he opposed Proud-hon's overrating of the significance of justice inhistorical explanations; (5) he argued that stra-tegically, workers could not overcome capitalistoppression by reforming the juridical system toaccord with its corresponding ideal of justice, butrather by making political revolution and trans-forming the mode of production; (6) he con-tended that given the nature of capitalism, appealsto the moral sense of capitalists would do no good(Marx and Engels 1962, Vol. 1, pp. 62, 582); and(7) he criticized all ideas of justice in the name ofscience. If Marx's scientific argument is correct,however, it establishes only claims one through

six; it does not show that all claims of injusticeand exploitation are relative to specific modes ofproduction but just that Proudhon's is nor does itshow that all claims of justice must be the basis of(or be based upon) an inaccurate scientific theoryand an inadequate political strategy. It does notrule out, for example, a scientific and moraltheory-say one of exploitation-which couldevaluate social situations over several epochs ofclass society and play a political role in the forgingof communism. Claims one through six are con-sistent with any of the three interpretations ofjustice described in the introduction. Only claimseven-an implausible one given Marx's actualargument against Proudhon-would sustain anethical relativist or reductionist account against arealist one.Furthermore, Marx and Engels underminedclaim seven because their own argument shares acommon moral premise with Proudhon's. InAnti-Duhring, for example, Engels wrote:

If for the imminentoverthrowof the presentmode of distributionwithits cryingcontrastsofwant and luxury, starvation and debauchery(schreiendenGegensatzen on Elend undUppig-keit, Hungersnotund Schwelgerei),we had nobetterguarantee hanthe consciousness hat themode of production is unjust (ungerecht) . .. weshouldbe in a prettybadway.Themysticsof theMiddleAgeswho dreamed f thecomingmillen-nium were already conscious of the injustice(Ungerechtigkeit)f classcontrasts Engels1966,p. 173; Marxand Engels 1959, Vol. 20, p. 146).

Engels commented that "to economic science,moral indignation, however justifiable, cannotserve as an argument, but only as a symptom"(Engels, 1966, pp. 173-4). Engels not only recog-nized the justification of moral anger, but con-tended,The indignation Zorn)whichcreates he poet isabsolutelyin place in describing hese terribleconditions,and also in attacking hose apostlesof harmonyn theserviceof therulingclass whoeitherdeny or palliate heseabuses,but how littleit can prove anything for the particular ase isevident from the fact that in each epoch of allpast historytherehas been no lack of materialfor such indignation Engels 1966, p. 166;MarxandEngels 1959, Vol. 20, p. 139).

Engels viewed divisions between rich and pooras a reprehensible feature of all previous epochsexcept early communal society. Although a senseof injustice alone could not do away with thesedivisions, "poetic criticism" had unmasked the"apostles of harmony" and contributed to apolitical atmosphere conducive to a more thor-oughgoing radicalism. Engels suggested that theproletarian demand for equality had a doublemeaning. One meaning grew out of the bourgeois


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338 The American Political Science Review Vol. 76small holders of the means of production, pittinga majority of propertyless proletarians against asmall number of property owners, and creating in-creasingly harsh conditions for the propertyless.As Chartism, the June insurrection, and the ParisCommune demonstrate, working-class solidarityand political community is possible. Marx andEngels saw the remedy as the abolition of exploi-tation and ultimately all class divisions and theestablishing of a society in which social in-dividuality can flourish.In summarizing their disagreement with Proud-hon, Marx and Engels stressed a drastic conflictbetween ethical judgment and scientific theoryand surmised that their argument engaged Proud-hon's only with respect to social theory and notmoral judgment. But since Marx and Engelsjoined with Proudhon to condemn the crying con-trasts of luxury and need, their scientific argu-ment had an inextricable moral component. Marxdid not disagree with Proudhon about the moraldesirability of opposing capitalism but ratherabout the inadequacy of Proudhon's theory ofmutualism as an effective means of transforma-tion. In other words, the dispute turned not overindignation, but over the notion that, in today'sphilosophical jargon, "ought implies can." Con-trary to the positivist impression created byEngels's and Marx's relativist or reductionistremarks, they appealed to facts and social theoryto show how moral disputes and indignation atunjust conditions might at last be successfullyresolved.If the foregoing analysis is correct, it has broadimplications for a comparison of Marx's viewwith other arguments about justice. Marx shareshis ethical premise with many contemporary theo-rists and would disagree with today's moraltheory mainly over the nature of modern societyand the means needed to change it. For instance, aRawlsian would object to divisions of income thatfail to benefit the least advantaged, and for utili-tarians, the deprivations of the poor would under-mine overall or average happiness. But if Marx'ssocial theory is true and such divisions arise as afundamental consequence of capitalist exploita-tion, then either of these moral arguments wouldjustify socialism (Rawls 1975, p. 546). As Woodhas argued, probably any recognizably moralprinciples would lead to the condemnation ofcapitalism and its consequences as Marx under-stood them; a theory that could condone theseconsequences would not be a moral theory at all(Wood 1972, pp. 281-2). Although Wood doesnot draw this conclusion, his argument suggests agreater objectivity in moral theory than has oftenbeen supposed.Now a Rawlsian might deny this degree ofobjectivity in moral judgments by arguing that

Marx's (and Rawls's) criticism of divisions ofwealth and poverty rests merely on a relativelypurified intuition. However altered by socialtheory and moral principles to achieve a reflectiveequilibrium, such a condemnation remains ulti-mately "our" (historically limited) judgment. Butone might look at such intuitions as embryonicmoral generalizations and analyze the notion ofhuman nature, needs, and capabilities on whichthis indictment rests. If one interprets intuitions inthis way, one can argue about whether they are(empirically) right or wrong. For instance, Ari-stotle offers certain strongly intuitive argumentsabout the "naturalness" of slavery (Politics, Bk.1). Given subsequent revolts against slavery andthe existence of non-slaveholding societies, Mon-tesquieu, Hegel, and others showed that this intui-tion rested on a mistaken theory about otherhuman beings. Marx would make similar argu-ments against the naturalness of wage slavery. Inother words, such intuitions could be consideredmoral observations and might play a role inethical theory more nearly akin to theory-loadedscientific observations than Rawls envisions. Inthat case, the process of observation and theo-retical refinement characteristic of reflectiveequilibrium would strongly resemble the processof scientific reflection and alteration of theory toachieve successive approximations to the truth(Rawls 1971, pp. 49-50).'

Scientific Realism and Moral RealismIn debating with Mulberger, Engels comparesthe possibility of moral progress, which he ap-pears to deny, with that of scientific progress,which he vigorously affirms, but here, too, hisargument is more ambiguous than it seems at firstglance. To combat MUlberger,Engels likened jus-tice to a sort of "social phlogiston":While in everyday life, in view of the simplicityof the relations discussed, expressions like right,wrong, justice and sense of right are acceptedwithout misunderstanding even with reference tosocial matters, they create, as we have seen, thesame hopeless confusion in any scientific investi-gation of economic relations as would be cre-ated, for instance, if the terminology of the phlo-giston theory were to be retained. The confusionbecomes still worse if one, like Proudhon,believes in the social phlogiston, 'justice' or ifone like MUlberger avers that the phlogiston

'I owe this comparison to Richard Boyd. In an impor-tant ambiguity, Rawls does not just argue intuitively forpolitical and moral equality but recognizes its basis infacts about human moral capacity-"equality is sup-ported by the general facts of nature." Rawls 1971, pp.506, 510, 548.


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1982 An Ambiguity n Marxand Engels 339theory is as correct as the oxygen one (Marx andEngels 1962, Vol. 1, p. 625).

Here again, Engels drew a positivist distinctionbetween scientific investigation, which achievesagreement on relatively reliable theories, andmoral clashes, which lead to no resolution. Engelspraised MUlberger's person-relativist conceptionthat concerning justice, "everyone understandssomething different," but refused to commendMilberger's peculiar conception of oxygen-basedand phlogiston-based chemistry as, scientificallyspeaking, equally valid. In this context, Engels'sanalogy of justice with social phlogiston, movingfrom ethics to science, views justice, like phlogis-ton, as simply part of an inadequate (unscientific)ethical theory that a purely scientific one hasreplaced. Engels's mode-of-production relativistarguments reinforce this impression. In this set-ting, Proudhon's notion of eternal justice, reflect-ing commodity production, seems just so mucherroneous ideological mist that will dissipate inthe sunlight of a socialist mode of production.Yet Engels's analogy has another possible inter-pretation. In a footnote to this passage, he con-tended that phlogiston theory pointed to a singleelement involved in combustion, even though itgot most of that element's properties backward.The phlogiston theory contributed importantly tothe discovery of oxygen:

Before the discovery of oxygen chemists ex-plained the burning of substances in atmosphericair by assuming the existence of a special igneoussubstance, phlogiston, which escaped during theprocess of combustion. Since they found thatsimple substances on combustion weighed moreafter having been burned than they did before,they declared that phlogiston had a negativeweight so that a substance without its phlogistonweighed more than one with it. In this way, allthe main properties of oxygen were graduallyascribed to phlogiston, but all in an invertedform (Marx and Engels 1962, Vol. 1, p. 625).The phlogiston theory was not even approxi-mately true. Yet that theory helped to pose theissue of the nature of combustion in such a waythat a novel theory could explain it. In this sense,Lavoisier's discovery of a new element, oxygen,which combined with other elements upon burn-ing, grew out of and solved the central problem ofphlogiston chemistry. In his Preface to Volume 2of Capital, Engels remarked that "this discovery(phlogiston) sufficed for the explanation of mostof the chemical phenomena then known (until thelater 18th century) although not without forcingin many cases" (Marx and Engels 1-962, Vol. 1, p.470). Compared to Engels's relativist descriptionof justice as mere shifting ideology, this argumentseems strikingly favorable to the scientific accom-plishments of phlogiston theory. For Engels,

modern chemistry provided a better explanationfor anomalies in a previously mistaken but notwholly inadequate chemistry. In today's terms,Engels adopted a scientific realist attitude towardphlogiston theory rather than that of a relativistor a Kuhnian.1'Thus, the analogy of justice with phlogistonreflects a realistic hunch on Engels's part aboutmoral questions, one that might also explainEngels's claim that matters of right and wrong ineveryday life are not confusing. If this majorfeature of morality presents no important diffi-culties, it is hard to see why we could not ulti-mately hope to achieve similar agreement in moraltheories about the basic structure of society, sinceself-interest and rationalizations certainly affecteveryday judgments in one's own case. Com-parable rationalizations, based on class interests,might simply renderprogress in moral theory (andin moral reality) more difficult, though not insur-mountably so, than progress in daily life and inthe sciences (Marx and Engels 1962, Vol. 1, p.582). We can gauge the strength of this realist ink-ling by examining Engels's most important use ofthe phlogiston analogy, his exploration of the sig-nificance of Marx's discovery of surplus value forpolitical economy and moral argument.According to Engels, earlier scientific expo-nents of a labor theory of value had partiallyrecognized that capitalists extracted a surplusfrom the workers. In The Principles of PoliticalEconomy and Taxation, Ricardo argued thatAdam Smith had confused the value of the labor-time incorporated in the production of commodi-ties with the value of the labor-time which theworker's wages could command on the market(1948, pp. 5-11). Distinguishing these separatecommodities, Ricardo isolated the amount paidfor the use of the worker's labor (what Marxwould call labor-power) and the extra value cre-ated by the worker in production (what Marxwould call surplus value). Yet Ricardo nevertreated this surplus as a special concept nor at-tempted to reexamine previous political economybased on this insight (Marx 1961, Vol. 1, pp.515-6, 537-8). Engels drew an analogy betweenRicardo's identification of surplus and Priestley'sand Scheele's discovery of "dephlogisticated air"or "fire air." As Engels suggested, these chemists,although close to discovering oxygen, remainedentangled in the "phlogistic categories as theyfound them" just as Ricardo remained enmeshedwithin the older political economy. But the Ricar-dian socialists and Proudhon abandoned

"'AKuhnian attitude toward science would in fact befar more consistent with ethical relativism than Engels'sown position. See Rorty 1979.


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340 The American Political Science Review Vol. 76Ricardo's clear distinction. They asked: what isthe value of labor? and answered: the full value ofthe product. They then condemned the appropria-tion of any part of the output by the capitalist asinjustice or stealing. Here we see a different andparticularly strong motivation for Marx's andEngels's critique of "eternal justice." Instead ofsolving political economy's central problem of thevalue of labor, Proudhon and others obscured itthrough the use of moral categories. Thus, thisspecific disagreement with other radicals in scien-tific analysis fused with Marx's and Engels'sgeneral antipathy to Proudhon's moralism; scien-tific and political critique, focused against themoralists' economic analysis, seemed to go handin hand. Engels's phlogiston analogy demon-strates the full force of Marx's characterization ofthe moralists, who derived political remedies froman inadequate social theory, as bad chemists(Althusser 1965, Vol. 2, pp. 118-26).

According to Engels, Marx, like Lavoisier, ap-proached the central anomaly in previous theorywith fresh eyes; where others "had seen a solu-tion, he saw only a problem." Marx solved thisproblem-"placed previous political economy onits feet"-with his discovery of surplus value, andprovided new analyses of such crucial difficultiesin classical political economy as the relations ofcommodities and money, the character of classconflict under capitalism, and the nature of rent,profit and interest. For example, Marx explainedthe generally recognized falling rate of profit as aqualified tendency resulting from a rapid intro-duction of machinery or shift in the organic com-position of capital, whereas older theories had in-terpreted it as an inevitable result of increasingpopulation (Malthus) or rising rent (Ricardo)(Dobb 1973, p. 157). Engels contended:

With this fact (surplus value) as his startingpoint, he (Marx) examined all the categories hefound at hand, just as Lavoisier, with oxygen ashis starting point, had examined the categories ofphlogiston chemistry he had found at hand(Marx and Engels 1962, Vol. 1, pp. 471-2).In the projected fourth volume of Capital,Theories of Surplus Value, Marx examined earliertheories in political economy to mark their dis-coveries and to show how the concept of surplusvalue could resolve their internal problems. BothMarx and Engels viewed political economy-thestudy of the real relations of capitalist produc-tion-as a more mature scientific theory thanphlogiston chemistry (Marx 1961, Vol. 1, p. 80).Despite the major changes wrought by Marx's dis-covery of surplus value, political economy hadpreviously existed as a full-blown scientific enter-prise. Thus, they explored the history of this disci-pline from a realistic perspective and demon-

strated its progress in achieving successive approx-imations to the truth.Given Marx's and Engels's realist interpretationof political economy, Engels's comparison ofjustice with phlogiston chemistry seems strikinglyfavorable to justice. At least popular conceptionsof justice, one might surmise, would serve as afirst approximation to the truth, and Marx'stheory reformulated them. Engels failed to see theforce of his analogy in sustaining moral realismbecause of his criticism of Proudhon's labortheory as a mistaken solution to the fundamentaldifficulty in Ricardo's political economy, his op-position to Proudhon's focus on the putative"eternality" of justice, and his rejection of moral-ism in the radical debates of the time. Butalthough Engels's general account wobbled be-tween relativist or reductionist and realist formu-lations, his specific arguments about moral con-cepts were strongly realistic.For instance, he contended that the proletariandemand for social equality grew out of the bour-geois demand for political equality in the Puritanand French Revolutions: "The proletarians tookthe bourgeoisie at their word: equality must notbe merely apparent, must not apply merely to thesphere of the state, but must also be real, must beextended to the social and economic sphere"(Engels 1966, pp. 117, 24-5). Did Engels see thisproletarian extension of the demand for socialequality as an inaccurate or ideological one? Onthe contrary, this extension improved on thegeneral demand for political equality by identify-ing the real source of class domination that wouldcorrupt the quality of citizenship. It moved a stepcloser to the true conception as articulated inEngels's and Marx's social theory. Thus, Engelsconcluded that the proletarian demand "draw(s)more or less correct and far-reaching demandsfrom the bourgeois demand."" Engels reformu-lated this conception of social equality: "The realcontent of the proletarian demand for equality isthe abolition of classes. Any demand for equalitywhich goes beyond that, of necessity passes intoabsurdity" (Engels 1966, p. 117).On the basis of Marx's historical theory, Engelspartially criticized this proletarian slogan-hesuggested that a demand for absolute equalityamong human beings denies individuality andbecomes absurd-but called for the achievementof an aspect of equality, the abolition of exploita-tion as a prerequisite for (social) individuality.Engels himself used the term equality in preciselythis way. Contrary to Wood's interpretation,

"In citing Engels's remark, Wood 1979, p. 282, omitsthe crucial clause and fails to see a possible realist inter-pretation.


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1982 An Ambiguity n MarxandEngels 341Engels contended in "On Marx's Capital" thatthe bad or exploitative features of capitalismnonetheless "develop(ed) the productive forces ofsociety to a level which will make possible anequal development worthy of human beings forall members of society" (Marx and Engels 1962,Vol. 1, pp. 468-9).'"According to a realist account, the earlier radi-cal theories of Munzer, Fourier, Blanqui, andBray about social inequality provided approx-imately true descriptions of exploitation and thecorruption of bourgeois society. Marx's theoryimproves on them and represents a form of moralprogress just as proletarian socialist movementsrepresent a moral improvement over the Levellers.Alternately, these (mainly inadequate) ethicaltheories, analogous to phlogiston chemistry,posed problems that a better scientific and ethicaltheory could solve." Marx's theory of exploita-tion, class conflict, and the abolition of classescaptures the important grain of truth in the claimsof injustice of preceding radical theories. Eventhis weaker claim for the earlier theories recog-nizes the possibility of ethical progress.In Anti-Duhring, Engels defended such prog-ress in moral knowledge and compared it to ad-vances in the natural sciences:

... as societyhas hitherto moved in class an-tagonisms,moralitywasalwaysclassmorality;thaseither ustifiedthe dominationand theinter-ests of the ruling class, or, as soon as the op-pressed lass has becomepowerful nough,ithasrepresented he revolt against this dominationand thefuture nterestsof theoppressed.Thatinthisprocess herehason thewholebeenprogress(Fortschritt)n morality,as in all otherbranches

"In analyzing Marx's Critique of the Gotha Program,Wood 1979, p. 292, argues: "To do away with thesedefects (the defects of equal right) one must 'whollytranscend the narrow horizon of bourgeois right' repre-sented by all principles of equality. Marx alludes toLouis Blanc's slogan 'from each according to his abili-ties, to each according to his needs' precisely becausethis is not in any sense a principle of equality, it does nottreat people alike or equally from any point of view butconsiders them simply as individuals with their ownspecial needs and faculties." Contrary to Wood, Marx'sconception of social individuality sees all individuals asequally free from the exploitation characteristic of pre-vious class societies and as "individuals with their ownspecial needs and faculties.""A reductionist though realist view leaves the conceptof justice in even worse shape than phlogiston.Although an atomic analysis of combustion is true eventhough phlogiston does not exist, no ethical analysis ofthe relationship designated by justice is true. Engels'sand Marx's refinement of workers' demands for equali-ty or fairness, however, counts decisively against areductionist interpretation.

of human knowledge (Erkenntnis), cannot reallybe doubted. But we have not yet passed beyondclass morality. A really human morality (wirklichmenschlische Moral) which transcends class an-tagonisms and their legacies in thought becomespossible only at a stage of society which has notonly overcome class contradictions but has evenforgotten them in practical life (Engels 1966, p.105; Marx and Engels 1959, Vol. 20, p. 87).

Given exploitative class divisions, all moral judg-ments, true as well as false, have served class in-terests; such divisions and the ideologies that theyengender cloud moral argument and prohibit theclarity that exists, according to Engels, in themorality of everyday life. But the removal of suchclass divisions and ideologies renders the ethics ofsocial relations under communism as transparentas those of individual relationships had been. Itpermits a "genuinely human morality."Wood has properly recognized a conflict be-tween his reductionist interpretation of Marx onjustice and Engels's argument about a genuinenon-relativist human morality, but he suggeststhat in this passage, "Engels denies that the 'pro-letarian morality of the future' is 'true' as con-trasted with its predecessors" (Wood 1979, p.291). To concur with Wood's judgment, onewould have to ascribe to Engels the notion that notruth or progress exists in chemistry or politicaleconomy, a view that Engels plainly rejects. Evenin his most relativist comments on morality,Engels disagreed with that contention in Mul-berger. In the chapter in Anti-Duhring on moralprogress, Engels dismissed the "eternality" ofchemical and biological theory which, he noted,achieve approximate truth only eventually andafter major conceptual changes (Engels 1966, pp.98-9).14 This critique of an alleged "eternality" ofscientific theories, analogous to Engels's argu-ment against Proudhon, hardly rules out thepossibility of true biological knowledge. Wood'sfailure to see Engels's scientific realism leads him

'4Engels argued:What a long series of intermediaries from Galento Malpighi was necessary for correctly establish-ing such a simple matter as the circulation of theblood in mammals . . . and often enough dis-coveries, such as that of the cell, are made whichcompel us to revise completely all formerly estab-lished final and ultimate truths in the realm ofbiology, and put whole piles of them on the scrapheap once and for all.Engels rightly used a concept of approximate truth butcontended carelessly that: "Really scientific works as arule avoid such dogmatic and moral expressions as Ifinaland ultimate] error and truth." Engels 1966, pp. 99,102.


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342 The AmericanPoliticalScienceReview Vol. 76to overlook the strong element of moral realism inEngels's account of justice.To illustrate progress in moral theory, we mightbriefly examine Marx's relation to Hegel. Hegelhad argued that the primary ethical difference be-tween the ancient Greek city and the modern stateresides in the modern recognition of subjectivity(freedom, individuality) as a fundamental compo-nent of universality or political community. Inthis regard, Hegel contended, "the very statusslavery is an outrage on the conception of man."The complex ethical life of the free individualdeveloping through family, civil society (the arenafor the individual pursuit of economic needs andinterests), and the universality of the state (thegeneral legal framework for the realization of in-dividuality), requires the abolition of slavery.Having studied English political experience andclassical political economy. Hegel already fearedthat the dynamics of the capitalist division of richand poor would undermine the ethical universalityof the modern state. Starting from this tension inHegel's The Philosophy of Right, Marx arguedthat capitalism would use the state against theworkers and that the proletarian movement wouldcreate the genuine possibility for the flourishingof individual achievement, based on politicalcommunity and the elimination of exploitation(Hegel 1977, pp. 15, 48, 84, 126-7, 133-4, 148-51;Avineri 1972, pp. 90-8; Gilbert 1981b). He mighthave reformulated Hegel's dictum: "wage slaveryis an outrage on the conception of man," andseen social individuality under communism as therealization of Hegel's basic argument on indi-viduality and universality.Hegel had emphasized historical progress inmorality: Christianity had helped to create theconditions for a development of individuality andthe abolition of slavery; post-French-revolutioncivil society, at least as it existed in Germany, em-bodied a significant achievement of freedom(Hegel 1977, pp. 31, 129-30). Marx could shareHegel's judgment about progress since slavery,but given his analysis of capitalism, he extendedHegel's argument: only the working class move-ment could fully realize human freedom and in-dividuality. On the issue of freedom and moralprogress, Marx by no means rejected but criticizedand refined Hegel's vision.Given this conception of a dialectical moralprogress, one might see Engels's phlogistonanalogy as providing an accurate interpretation ofthe relation of Marx's historical theory toprevious political economy, of the relation of itsethical component to previous demands forequality, and of the relation of Marx's ethical andpolitical theory to previous ones. In this sense,Engels's and Marx's mode-of-production rela-tivism or reductionism serve as misleading glosses

on their own theory. These interpretations cap-ture only their critique of prevailing moralitiesand of Proudhon's eternal justice but miss theirown fundamental moral realism. Starting fromthe negative consequences of divisions betweenrich and poor, their historical theory, if true,points to a single ethical resolution: the abolitionof exploitation and the uniting of mental andmanual labor.Interestingly enough, Lenin, a not overly senti-mental Marxist, took up Marx's and Engels'smoral as well as scientific realism. In his note-books on Hegel's Logic, Lenin contrasted Kant's"empty abstraction of the Thing-in-itself with liv-ing movement, deeper and deeper, of our knowl-edge about things" (Lenin, 1974, Vol. 38, p. 91).The historical progress of experimental or practi-cal investigation and theoretical criticismengenders theoretical conclusions that increasing-ly approximate the truth. In State and Revolu-tion, Lenin adopted a similarly realistic interpre-tation of Marx's critique of earlier conceptions ofequality and regarded Marx's theory of the phasesof communism in Critique of the Gotha Programas a refined conception of justice:

The first phase of communism, therefore, cannotyet provide justice and equality: differences andunjust differences in wealth will still persist, butthe exploitation of man by man will have becomeimpossible because it will be impossible to seizethe means of production-the factories, ma-chines, land, etc.-and make them private prop-erty. In smashing Lassalle's (early leader of Ger-man worker's movement) petty-bourgeois, vaguephrases about 'equality' and 'justice' in general,Marx shows the course of development of com-munist society which is compelled to abolish atfirst only the 'injustice' of the means of produc-tion seized by individuals and which is unable atonce to eliminate the other injustice which con-sists in the distribution of consumer goods 'ac-cording to the amount of labor performed' (andnot according to needs) (Lenin 1974, Vol. 25, p.466).

For Marx, the first phase of communism wouldrectify some fundamental grievances, notably ex-ploitation, which workers previously referred toas injustice. Yet the initial communist principle ofjustice results in further inequalities since it bene-fits those who work harder or more skillfully andthose who have smaller families. The principle ofto each according to her work fails to recognizeindividual differences and needs; the originalcomplaints about injustice stemmed from thedenial of such needs. As Marx put it, "In order toavoid all these defects (Misstande), justice (Recht)would more often have to be unequal thanequal." Although full recognition of these dif-ferences by distribution according to need in a


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1982 An Ambiguity n Marxand Engels 343sense goes beyond justice, the higher stage ofcommunism also realizes that people have meantby justice. In the Critique, Marx suggested that:"Justice can never be higher than the economicform of society and the cultural developmentdetermined by it" (Marx and Engels 1962, Vol. 2,pp. 24, 21; Marx and Engels 1959, Vol. 19, pp.21, 18). This statement, marking the limitationson realizing justice in differing forms of society,recognizes moral progress from the lower (classdivided societies) to the higher (communism).Lenin provides a straightforward realist readingof the Gotha Program (Marx and Engels 1962,tribution and need in Anti-Da/hring and Critiqueof the Gotha Program (Marx and Engels 1962,Vol. 2, pp. 22-4).Written just before the October Revolution,Lenin's "Can the Bolsheviks Retain StatePower?" strikingly affirmed a Marxian concep-tion of justice. Peshekhonev, a governmentminister, had opposed such Bolshevik programsas those for shorter hours of work, nationaliza-tion of factories, and an end to the supression ofnational minorities in order to maintain Russianparticipation in World War I. Yet he acknowl-edged the justice of Bolshevik demands: "Theyare the claims of the working people, the claims ofthe cheated and oppressed nationalities. It is notso easy, therefore, for the democracy to breakwith the Bolsheviks, to reject these class demands,primarily because in essence these demands arejust." Although Lenin stressed the economic andpolitical conditions that would make justicerealizable, he insisted on the revolutionary powerof such proletarian claims against opponents whodismissed the efficacy of moral argument:

For him (Peshekhonev) justice' is merely anemptyphrase.For themassof semi-proletarians,however,and for the majorityof the urbanandruralpetitebourgeoisie as well as the workers)whohave been ruined, ortured ndworn outbythe war, it is not an emptyphrase,but almostacute, most burningand immensequestionofdeathfrom starvation,of a crustof bread....Justice s anemptywordsaytheintellectuals ndthose rascalswho areinclined o proclaim hem-selves Marxistson the lofty groundsthat theyhave contemplated he hind partsof economicmaterialism Lenin 1974,Vol. 26, pp. 128-30).

Lenin envisioned that the justice of Bolshevikdemands and specific historical circumstanceswould lead to a broad revolutionary alliance ofworkers and other oppressed classes. In stressingthe radical impact of ethical concepts, Leninrecalled Marx's early remark: "Ideas become apower when they grip the people." In a Marxiansocial theory of revolution, such moral conceptsplay an important explanatory role, and the

political effectiveness of demands for justice andequality stems from their truth.Conclusion

As I have argued elsewhere, Marx's moral judg-ments might cohere in a eudaimonist frameworkof moral argument which focuses on the qualityof individual lives and the consequences of dif-ferent social structures on a broadly conceived in-dividual happiness (Gilbert 1981a). Here Marxenvisioned such intrinsic goods as political com-munity, development of human productivepowers, friendship, and artistic achievement,which composed an ideal picture of communistsocial individuality. These goods were achieve-ments of a historically developing human nature.Human beings could realize some intrinsic goodseven in fundamentally exploitative societies, forinstance, the Greek political community, whichMarx admired despite its roots in slavery, thesolidarity of Roman slave revolt led by Spartacus,or scientific discovery. For long periods ofhistory, however, Marx thought that human prog-ress could not occur mainly through intrinsicallygood activities. Yet such progress, bought at theprice of widespread suffering, laid the basis forthe ultimate possibility of communism. Marxtherefore extenuated such progress with a concep-tion of merely instrumental goods and dis-tinguished communist progress which fused in-trinsic and instrumental goods from previouslyalienated or mainly instrumental progress. Thushe saw a socialist political community like theParis Commune as good in itself and as furtheringthe emergence of communism. Despite hisacknowledgment of the productive achievementsof exploitative societies, Marx severely restrictedhis extenuation of alienated progress. A rhetoricof indictment resounds as the predominant moraltone in Marx's analysis of early capitalist accumu-lation and colonialism. Since in Marx's viewGreek political community or philosophy couldonly arise at the cost of slavery and a mechanizedeconomy from capitalist exploitation, Marx neverreached any overall moral judgment of thesesocieties. In assessing them, however, he dis-tinguishes between good and bad features: Greekscience was praiseworthy; slavery was not. In thissense, Marx's sometimes exaggerated restraint inthe use of moral concepts reflects the characterand difficulty of the cases under examination, notas Marx and Engels sometimes inclined to think,the impossibility of objective moral assessment.In general, moral conceptions not only lead toevaluation but point to action. Even in these hardcases, Marx's standards allow, semanticallyspeaking, a specification of moral conflicts, forinstance, between the progress of science and


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344 TheAmericanPolitical ScienceReview Vol. 76egalitarianism, and counsel action to create in thelong run a society that no longer necessitates suchconflicts (Miller 1978). At the point when his-torically socialism becomes possible, Marx ad-mired the main features of a revolutionarypolitical movement and working class politicalcommunity. At this point, already characteristicof the time when Marx wrote, standards of intrin-sic goods, previously subordinate or merely nega-tive (exhibited mainly in Marx's condemnation oftheir denial), became primary. Given the par-ticular difficulties of the concepts of justice andequality, Marx confined himself even in the firstphase of communism to specifying how the socie-ty is mainly just by abolishing exploitation andsecondarily unjust by failing to distribute accord-ing to need. As Wood has suggested, equality dif-fers from intrinsic goods such as political commu-nity, freedom, and the realization of individual-ity; equality, reformulated by Marx as the aboli-tion of classes, is a means to secure these othergoods (1979, pp. 281-2).The context of Marx's larger moral judgmentsprovides a new perspective on his concepts ofjustice and equality. Such concepts always playedan important role in Marx's historical arguments;he detested the exploitation of man by man andregarded all class-divided societies before social-ism as exploitative. Marx's own conception of ex-ploitation served as a standard to indict the legaland moral concepts generated by prevailingmodes of production. Even though Marx empha-sized this aspect of social development, however,his historical theory extenuates alien or merely in-strumental forms of social progress. In effect, herestrained his moral criticism for historicalperiods in which he regardedalien development asnecessary or no revolutionary movement as pos-sible (Gilbert 1979). Looking at Marx's overallmoral judgments in relation to his historicaltheory, we can see a new reason, beyond his cri-tique of moralism or his specific argument withProudhon, for his caution in using concepts ofjustice, namely an objectively limited possibilityof overall moral judgment for several historicalepochs. This restraint accounts for the grain oftruth in Wood's emphasis on Marx's refusal to of-fer a simple indictment of pre-socialist class socie-ties. Wood's interpretation becomes exaggeratedonly when he ignores the ever-present (even whensubordinated) hatred of exploitation and its con-sequences which runs like the proverbial redthread through Marx's historical argument.

Marx and Engels offered an ethical argumentclosely linked to their historical or scientific argu-ment. Their moral argument makes a specific con-tribution in examining the problem of justice notonly from the point of view of explaining his-torical controversies about justice but from the

point of view of assessing its truth. In analyzingideologies, Marx defended only the consequence-dependence of moral principles-the notion thatin class societies, moral judgments, true or not,would tend to serve specific classes-rather thanan origin-dependence, the conception that theclaims of moral argument to truth can simply bedebunked by pointing to their social or classorigin. In Marx, arguments on exploitation andequality, like his conceptions of political com-munity, freedom, friendship, and individuality,are components of an ethical picture that is a con-tender for moral truth. Such conceptions, as Ihave argued elsewhere, also play an importantpolitical role in the conflicts over the developmentof the working-class movement and the mainte-nance of socialism (Gilbert 1981a).Many contemporary philosophers and socialscientists have imagined that an unbridgable gulfmust exist between descriptive historical theoryand prescriptive moral judgment and that con-flicting moral arguments, for instance Ari-stotelian and Marxian ones, must derive from ir-reconcilable moral premises. This view ignores theintertwining in any nonanalytic moral theory be-tween social theory and moral judgment (Lyons1977, pp. 128-9). To the degree that investigatorscan agree on historical analysis, for instance thatno natural slavery exists, the scope of moral dis-agreement is narrowed (Miller 1978).15 The fore-going argument suggests that disagreements oversocial theory and facts are often far more funda-mental than the original moral disagreements orperhaps even conceal original moral agreement.Few would argue that abundance for a heedlessminority accompanied by starvation for many orthat the widespread denial of individual capacitiesis morally desirable. To give a different example,take those who would want to quarrel, given themany dimensions of moral progress and possibleconflicts among them, with Marx's ethical visionand psychological judgments about the possibilityof a flowering of human achievement and multi-competent individuality under communism. Ifthese theorists concurred with Marx's socialtheory, they would have to agree with many ofMarx's moral and political conclusions althoughthey might still conclude that social individualitywould prove less grand in its accomplishmentsthan Marx had hoped or value different types orbalances of activity than Marx did. These remain-ing differences, however, seem far less striking

'Agreement about natural science may sometimesplay a similar role. Consider the effect on Aristotle'sargument of the modern astronomical observation thatthere are no unchanging celestial beings who engage inceaseless contemplation. (Strauss 1965, p. 8).


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1982 An Ambiguity n MarxandEngels 345than the wide area of common agreement; pre-sumably, once socialism had reached a certainstage, empirical study could even resolve many ofthese disagreements. Correspondingly, the mostpowerful denial of Marx's vision would be a suc-cessful defense of the functioning and conse-quences of capitalism (as opposed to those ofsocialism) coupled with at least roughly similarmoral premises.Marx and Engels sometimes overstressed theimportance of their scientific theory at the ex-pense of moral argument. Yet their scientific viewturns out to be the most debatable part of theirethical argument. According to Marxian theory,straightforward moral rationality-the idea that alucid exposition of moral concepts will persuadeall reasonable people-does not work; for exam-ple, the most eloquent persuasion alone would notget European, American, and Japanese banks

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