Karl Marx: His Life and Environment

Isaiah Berlin's impressive biography of Marx gives the reader a perfect view of Marx's philosophical, social and political ideas and writings. He also gives in depth comments on people who influenced him profoundly or opposed him harshly. Influences Marx drew heavily on Hegel (the dialectical process), Feuerbach (religious and secular ideologies provide ideal compensations for real miseries), Sismondi (the welfare State) and Saint-Simon (economic relationships are the determining factor in history). Opponents He was opposed by Bakunin (anti-State anarchism), Fourier (distrust of all central authority), Lassalle (State-planned economy controlled by a military aristocracy) and Proudhon (`moral' approach to social problems). Vision Marx had a fundamental positive vision on man: `all men are rational by nature'. But the individual doesn't hold the means for his happiness in his own hands, because his acts are not determined by his moral character, but by the socio-economic situation he lives in. This situation was capitalism, where a small privileged class laid its hands on the major part of the proceeds generated by the working class. This `colossal fraud' was veiled by the ruling class through their ideology which blocked the spread of reason that would open the eyes of the proletariat. However, for Marx, history has its own laws of social development (like continued concentration of all the wealth in fewer and fewer hands), which are independent of man's will and consciousness. The ruling classes are doomed and a new free society will be created. Works `Theses on Feuerbach': man eats before he reasons. Man is not amenable to rational arguments and will not voluntarily give up the power acquired by birth, wealth or ability to create a more just society. Man's acts are the product of his economic environment. `Communist Manifest': the abolition of private property through nationalizations is the only way to a classless society. `Inaugural Address of the International': the emancipation of the working class is the great end of every political movement. `Das Kapital': there is only one class which produces more wealth than it consumes. This residue is appropriated by other men simply by virtue of their strategic position as the possessors of the means of production. `German Ideology' (Historical Materialism): the laws of history indicate an irreversible gradual freeing of man. I. Berlin's criticism There was no falling profit rate or decline in the general living standard. Marx underestimated the power of nationalism. And ultimately, Marx has always claimed that `ideas' could not determine the course of history. His own ideas proved the contrary. For more fundamental criticism of Marx's theories I recommend K. Popper (The Open Society) and M. Djilas (The New Class). Hegel's dialectic has been torpedoed by B. Russell. The theory that man doesn't understand his situation is not exact. In Marx's times, man simply didn't have the (political, social

David McLellan's Karl Marx: A Biography is a better standard biography. McLellan had access to much more material about Marx's life than did Berlin and he brings it all together in a satisifying package. Berlin's book, however, provides a superb discussion of the philosophical background to Marx's work. Because of that Berlin's book is extremely valuable. Readers of Berlin's book must be aware that his interpretation of Marx's social theory is colored by Berlin's anti-communist beliefs. Although many today reject that a close tie existed between Marx's social theory and the USSR, Berlin assumed that such a link existed when he looked at things in the late 1930s. As a result, a tone of worry and concern suffuses Berlin's discussion of many of Marx's ideas and Berlin tends to paint Marx as more of a potential authoritarian than did later biographers. Despite that, Berlin's book is well worth a read.

Isaiah Berlin's biography of Karl Marx is as erudite as it is compelling. Taking one of the more controversial and laborious men of the twentieth century as his subject matter, Berlin weaves the intricate and sometimes confounding thoughts of his subject into a patterned and complex whole.Karl Marx is treated fairly in this book--neither with sycophantic adulation nor with profound cynicism typical of other treatments of Marx and his philosophy. Perhaps because of the political consequences of Marx's ideas, the negative overview's of his life have emphasized his tempermental side, the irony of being funded by an aristocratic Engels, or the silliness of his labour theory of value premise (shared by David Ricardo). Meanwhile, on the other side, there are writings on the life of Marx that stick to his genius, his profound impact on the world, and further entrench his cult status.It is this latter part that I found most interesting in Berlin's work--the exploration of Marx's temper tantrums with anyone who should deviate from Marx's conception of how things must be. Proudhon, for instance, is castigated by Marx. So, too, is Feuerbach and the Young Hegelians (Berlin muses about whether or not this has to do with the mighty influence these have had on Marx's own thought and Marx's desire to be seen as a wholly original thinker). Bakunin does not escape public ridicule when they differ on the value of the State as a mechanism to be used by the proletariat. Bakunin, of course, did not believe in hierarchical orderings of any kind--whether in capitalist industry, or in the socialist state--and issued proclamations and gave speeches to that effect, explicitly cautioning people about the possibility of the government violating the freedom it was supposed to secure. Marx was not impressed, and consequently mocked him openly. Engels was perhaps the only man to escape the eventual polemical wrath of Marx, saving himself from such a fate possibly because he simply agreed with whatever Marx said, and indulged him in most everything else.Still, what comes across most forcefully is the life of a man steeped in ideas, and interested in the fundamental, radical underpinnings of society as a whole. Marx is often enough considered a genius of the highest calibre, with impeccable literary credentials to back it up. It is this attention to minute detail, and his incredible analysis of society (or rather, the historical 'movement', if you will, of human relationships which reciprocally interact with the concrete, material conditions of their existence) that makes this praise seem a bit understated.This singular fact--Marx as a man of ideas, and the fact of the practical consequences of his ideas--is touched upon in a self-conscious bit of irony by Berlin. For Marx explained that it isn't ideas that do anything, really, but are, instead, the consequences of material conditions, these conditions being fundamental. And yet it was the writings of Marx that sparked several re

The philosophical side of this book might be a strong support for the idea that philosophy was in bad shape when Nietzsche found it. The political side of the book ought to establish that it was no wonder. Before I bought this book, I had a copy of THE POVERTY OF PHILOSOPHY by Karl Marx, which was written when Nietzsche was quite young. It was an attack on the thoroughly political view of economics which had been adopted by Proudhon. According to Berlin, "Marx was convinced that Proudhon was constitutionally incapable of grasping the truth; that, despite an undoubted gift for telling phrases, he was a fundamentally stupid man; the fact that he was brave and fanatically honest, and attracted a growing body of devoted followers, only made him and his fantasies more dangerous;" (Berlin, p. 87). In a move that is sure to remind historians of how often Communists turned against others who thought that they were on the same side, Marx's book attacked the roots of Proudhon's system in Chapter 2, The Metaphysics of Political Economy, with his usual summary of Hegel. "As to those who are not acquainted with Hegelian language, we would say to them in the sacramental formula, affirmation, negation, and negation of the negation. . . . Instead of the ordinary individual, with his ordinary manner of speaking and thinking, we have nothing but this ordinary manner, pure and simple, minus the individual." (Marx, p. 115).Berlin is capable of providing summaries of the issues, even admitting that "Marx took immense trouble to demonstrate that Proudhon was totally incapable of abstract thought, a fact which he vainly attempted to conceal by a use of pseudo-Hegelian terminology. Marx accused Proudhon of radically misunderstanding the Hegelian categories by naively interpreting the dialectical conflict as a simple struggle between good and evil, which leads to the fallacy that all that is needed is to remove the evil, and the good will remain. This is the very height of superficiality: to call this or that side of the dialectical conflict good or bad is a sign of unhistorical subjectivism out of place in serious social analysis." (Berlin, pp. 85-86).The current clash of civilizations might be considered as stupid as anything that Marx analyzed in Proudhon's system, by those who are sure that philosophy is a style adopted by the good side, while anyone who has adopted the politics of mounting destructiveness has all the faults which the free world has always attributed to communism. Plenty of poisons have entered this contest in the last 155 years, since Karl Marx tried to side with the rising class while arguing against their unexamined notions of good and evil, but philosophies have been as powerless on this kind of question as Nietzsche might be considered absurd for attempting to encompass powerful ideas. People who can't relate to this book must lack an appreciation for something that philosophers always wanted, even in the days of the pre-Platonics.

This is simply the best Marx biography out there bar none. It isn't really in the 'biography' genre because Berlin focusses on Marx's ideas more than on the details of his life. Berlin shines in that he's very familiar with the now rare and unavailable writings of dissident English economists and French and German Socialists that Marx based his thought on, as well as the standard philosophical influences like Hegel. As a philosopher he's able to comprehend Marx and his thought as existing within the philosophic tradition, not somehow disconnected from it, and because of this Berlin is able to give a fresh, relatively unbiased, exposition of Marx himself-no dogma required. Beyond tracing Marx's philosophy the book is great because Berlin has reconstructed a sort of timeline of Marx's life itself, which was full of moves, changes in careers and changes in affiliation with different political groups. Through this, from discussing the intellectual environment Marx grew up in to cataloging the ups and downs of his philosophy, the real Marx comes through. It would be invaluable just for the historical material alone. Marx emerges not as the Soviet Union would want him to be, or as sympathetic hard line Marxists might, but as he really was philosophically and historically for his time. Buy it now!