Did Karl Marx

[Beeth]

have ideas on matters other than economics/politics?

I am not talking about bits and pieces like 'religion is the opium of the masses' but something more substantial. Did he have beliefs that could be characterized as 'religion' or was he an out and out atheist? Did he even consider the possibility of something 'mystical' or was he a materialist to the core?

Just trying to know the man better ...

[pluckedflowers]

Like any other person, Marx had lots of ideas on lots of issues, but, no, perhaps with the exception of his time as a Hegelian, I don't know of any reason to think he entertained much possibility of any spiritual reality. That being said, I wouldn't dismiss his comments on religion as "bits and pieces." His thoughts on religion played an important role in the general development of his philosophy (see, for example, the Theses on Feuerbach). And while "religion is the opium of the masses" has been extracted from all context and abused dreadfully, the introduction to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right from which it is taken is fascinating and well worth reading.

[Q]

have ideas on matters other than economics/politics?

Yes, anthropology being a field he and Engels had a particular interest in. Engels wrote a book (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/index.htm) on the subject on the explicit request of Marx.

[Positivist]

Well, for Marx, his understanding of economics and politics could not be divorced from his understanding of the rest of the world and its organization. His economic theories developed out of his materialist outlook (an outlook which is exclusively atheist) and his social theories (his understanding of patriarchy, racism, ideology) developed out of his economic conclusions. Marx understood biological, economic, and social developments to be systemic and interrelated.

[Rafiq]

Marxism covers everything regarding human social relations.

[Ostrinski]

One could consider Marx the informal founding father of sociology.

[Dean]

Marx wrote about a lot of things. You could call him mystical to some degree because he believed that human action was an aspect of the creation of history, that is to say, "you can't know unless you try" in simple terms. But mysticism goes further than this, in referring to a shared "truth," entity, or experience that can be achieved by action. It starts to stretch things to say that Marx believed in this, but at the same time, the same ideas can be rephrased to accommodate for this.

Anyhow, like I said, Marx was quite expansive, but he was usually a materialist. Since that implies an economistic relevance to his writing, I'm not sure what would qwualify for being "outside of economics" for you. But his German Ideology (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/) is a great place for some philosophical concepts not tied up in Capital-type discussions.

It's worth noting, a major aspect of his criticism of religion is that it was the spirit of a spiritless world. I also consider myself spiritualist, though I doubt many would characterize me that way. Not sure if he personally identified that way, but the point (for me, anyway) is that being intensely materialist doesn't preclude spiritual and even mystical concepts.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Of course he was, he had a lot to say on many different subjects from philosophy to mathematics. I'm pretty sure he was a "hardcore" materialist though.

[The Jay]

Marx wrote about a lot of things. You could call him mystical to some degree because he believed that human action was an aspect of the creation of history, that is to say, "you can't know unless you try" in simple terms. But mysticism goes further than this, in referring to a shared "truth," entity, or experience that can be achieved by action. It starts to stretch things to say that Marx believed in this, but at the same time, the same ideas can be rephrased to accommodate for this.

Anyhow, like I said, Marx was quite expansive, but he was usually a materialist. Since that implies an economistic relevance to his writing, I'm not sure what would qwualify for being "outside of economics" for you. But his German Ideology (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/) is a great place for some philosophical concepts not tied up in Capital-type discussions.

It's worth noting, a major aspect of his criticism of religion is that it was the spirit of a spiritless world. I also consider myself spiritualist, though I doubt many would characterize me that way. Not sure if he personally identified that way, but the point (for me, anyway) is that being intensely materialist doesn't preclude spiritual and even mystical concepts.


Could you define what you mean by spiritual please? I have a feeling that you aren't using the conventional definition or at least one that is very specific.

[Yuppie Grinder]

One could consider Marx the informal founding father of sociology.
Not informal. They teach you in public school even that Karl Marx is the father of modern social science.

[The Jay]

Not informal. They teach you in public school even that Karl Marx is the father of modern social science.

Which public school did you attend and where should I move so that my future kids can experience this magical place? It sounds lovely.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Which public school did you attend and where should I move so that my future kids can experience this magical place? It sounds lovely.

They also told us in the same sociology class that there are no purely socialist and capitalist economies, that every economy is a hybrid of the two, and that communism is when the government owns everything
so it wasn't that great

[The Jay]

My high school said that as well, but didn't give Marx credit for shit.

[Positivist]

They also told us in the same sociology class that there are no purely socialist and capitalist economies, that every economy is a hybrid of the two, and that communism is when the government owns everything
so it wasn't that great

I don't understand this, especially the part about every economy being a "hybrid" or "mixed." What does telling kids that the economy is half socialist or whatever actually accomplish?

[Ostrinski]

I don't understand this, especially the part about every economy being a "hybrid" or "mixed." What does telling kids that the economy is half socialist or whatever actually accomplish?it gives the capitalist economy hegemony in this context, afterall we know that a "half capitalist half socialist" economy is really just a capitalist economy.

So saying that anything other than a hybrid cannot be achieved is really just saying that anything other than a capitalist economy cannot be achieved.

[A Marxist Historian]

Which public school did you attend and where should I move so that my future kids can experience this magical place? It sounds lovely.

You have to go to college for that and take classes in sociology, no luck at the high school level.

For most sociologists, Marx, Durkheim and Weber are the founding fathers, the holy trinity. And Marx was the one who lived first, albeit Weber, the most recent one, is the guru. So sociologists by and large do venerate Marx a bit, but consider him old hat.

Then there was Comte, the first wellknown bourgeois sociologist, who was a contemporary of Engels if not Marx. But he is so thoroughly discredited that nobody pays any attention to him anymore.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

I don't understand this, especially the part about every economy being a "hybrid" or "mixed." What does telling kids that the economy is half socialist or whatever actually accomplish?

Back before the USSR collapsed, what it accomplished is saying that you didn't need to go commie to get the benefits of socialism, we have those right now in the Hew Hess Hay, to the degree that it is desirable. So you had supercapitalism i.e. fascism, and supersocialism i.e. communism, both of them being totalitarian and brutal, and The American Way as the happy democratic medium in between, with no classes in America 'cuz everybody is part of the Great Middle Class and lives in suburbia and everyone mows their lawns the same way and lives in houses that are all made out of ticky tacky and all come out just the same.

Except if they aren't white of course.

After the USSR collapsed, liberalism went out of style in America and the consensus became that socialism was Evil, so the idea that all economies are mixed has been going out of style too.

-M.H.-

[Luís Henrique]

his time as a Hegelian

What would "his time as a Hegelian" be?

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

After the USSR collapsed, liberalism went out of style in America and the consensus became that socialism was Evil, so the idea that all economies are mixed has been going out of style too.

Or is used to attribute the evils of any real capitalist economies to something else than capitalism, so what we need is an anti-socialist revolution to establish "pure capitalism"...

Luís Henrique

[pluckedflowers]

What would "his time as a Hegelian" be?

Luís Henrique

My impression is that Hegel was a significant influence on Marx's intellectual development, but that Marx grew more critical of his ideas as time went on. You're welcome to correct me if I am mistaken.

[Mr. Natural]

The OP inquired as to Marx's position on religion, and Dean referred to Marx's apprehension of religion as the spirit of a spiritless world. Here is that quotation in full, from the Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Introduction. "Religious suffering is at the same time an expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

Marx's daughter, Eleanor, wrote that he told her, "After all we can forgive Christianity much, because it has taught us the worship of the child."

Somewhere Marx remarked that we must become the gods we have created.

I'm an atheist, but try to be spiritual. I see spirituality as an expression of the feelings that emerge from the various ways in which humans become integral, contributing parts to larger wholes. Spirituality has to do with existential and material belonging to the human community, to life, and to the universe. Marx touched upon this when he wrote, "That man's physical and spiritual life is linked to nature means simply that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of nature." (Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts)

I'm an amateur naturalist, and when I'm on the trail with my dog and connect with nature, it is a deeply spiritual experience.

Pluckedflowers, I appreciate your open, inquiring mind. I strongly believe Hegel was a major, continuing influence on Marx. Hegelian philosophy and the dialectic Marx took from Hegel and materialized remained with him and were essential in the development of "Marxism." Bertell Ollman conclusively establishes this in Dance of the Dialectic (2003).

Pluckedflowers, Here is what Hegel did to Marx's open mind when he was 19 years old, expressed in a letter to his father: "I had read fragments of Hegel's philosophy, the grotesque craggy melody of which did not appeal to me. Once more I wanted to dive into the sea, but with the definite intention of establishing that the nature of the mind is just as necessary, concrete and firmly based as the nature of the body .... I wrote a dialogue of about 24 pages .... My last proposition was the beginning of the Hegelian system. For some days my vexation made me quite incapable of thinking. I ran about madly .... and as the result of nagging annoyance at having had to make an idol of a view that I hated, I became ill .... While I was ill I got to know Hegel from beginning to end .... I became ever more firmly bound to the modern world philosophy from which I had thought to escape."

Hegelian philosophy and dialectics understand the world and society as organic, systemic processes, and that's what they are. Marx then materialized Hegel's idealism--turned it on its head--and we have the materialist dialectic that remained with Marx and Engels and radically shaped Marxism, albeit without much expressed, explicit reference to these dialectical roots.

My red-green, dialectical best.

[Luís Henrique]

My impression is that Hegel was a significant influence on Marx's intellectual development, but that Marx grew more critical of his ideas as time went on. You're welcome to correct me if I am mistaken.

This is what Marx himself says of the issue:


The mystifying side of Hegelian dialectic I criticised nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was still the fashion.

He wrote that in 1873, which means that he considered to have it done considering Hegel around 1843. What would that be? In 1843, Marx wrote a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, in which he directly criticised Hegel; in 1845 he wrote, with Engels, The Holy Family and The German Ideology, in which they criticised mainstream German philosophy, including Hegelianism and its offspring (Feuerbach, Bauer, Stirner, etc.) In 1846 Marx wrote Saint Max. And from 1847 on, Marx deals on economics and politics. Engels still wrote about philosophy eventually, but Marx seems to have been there, done that, and left at it. You can see that here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/date/index.htm

So there was a time (1843-1846) when Marx was struggling with Hegelianism. But that hardly made him a Hegelian; rather it made him a critique of Hegelianism. His criticism seems to have been completed by 1846, and there are few, if any, indications anywhere of a further systematic development in Marx's attitude towards Hegel.

So that process you describe as "Marx grew more critical of his ideas as time went on" was concluded before the Manifesto, ie, it was a process related to the "young Marx". And as the 1843-1846 period was a period of vigorous criticism of Hegel, his followers and epigonoi, any "time as a Hegelian" must have been proto-Marxian, confined to the period up to 1842. There is only one significant work from that period by Marx, his thesis on Epicurus and Democritus, which I am not familiar with (though the choice of the two founding fathers of philosophical materialism as the subject of a doctoral thesis does seem to show an interest in something very different from Hegelian idealism).

Luís Henrique

[levyel]

You have to go to college for that and take classes in sociology, no luck at the high school level.

For most sociologists, Marx, Durkheim and Weber are the founding fathers, the holy trinity. And Marx was the one who lived first, albeit Weber, the most recent one, is the guru. So sociologists by and large do venerate Marx a bit, but consider him old hat.

Then there was Comte, the first wellknown bourgeois sociologist, who was a contemporary of Engels if not Marx. But he is so thoroughly discredited that nobody pays any attention to him anymore.

-M.H.-

Yes, I'll add that Saint-Simon is usually credited as a pillar too. I always took away Durkheim to be the most esteemed classical sociologist, not Weber, by the field at large. I know very few sociologists and am likely wrong in that assertion, but I believe Weber was viewed as having a possessed a great deal of historical knowledge nonetheless.

[Luís Henrique]

It seems to have been proved beyond doubt that he despised Martin Tupper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Farquhar_Tupper)'s "poetry":


Bentham is among philosophers what Martin Tupper is among poets. Both could only have been manufactured in England.

(And might I add, with the benefit of hindsight, only in 19th century England.)

Some of Marx's tastes and distastes can be seen here (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/04/01.htm).

Luís Henrique