Marxism and Morality

Steven Lukes, somewhat well-known popular philosophical author and also editor of the series "Marxist introductions", addresses perhaps one of the most difficult issues in the Marxist tradition: the problem of Marxism and ethics. According to Lukes, the book is intended as "a contribution to socialist free-thinking", and in this case the contribution consists of making clear what the problem of moral blindness in Marxism is, what effect it has had on the various people who have discussed issues of morality within Marxism, and how Marxism cannot avoid a better elucidation of these issues if it is to be at all convincing. Lukes is very critical but in my view deservedly so - even the most superficial glance at the history of socialist politics will make clear the degree to which the problem of ethics in politics is in particular need of urgent resolution. Lukes uses mostly the texts of Marx and Engels themselves, in all their contradictions, to posit what he calls the paradox of morality in Marxism: namely that on the one hand the goal of socialism is to be a supremely ethical one, based on the perfectionist and optimist conception of liberty inherent in Marxism, and that on the other hand every ethical theory and issue is downplayed or ridiculed by Marx and Engels as "so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush so many bourgeois interests". Neither Marx nor Engels were at all consistent in their views on ethics, as Lukes shows, and even the question whether their condemnation of capitalism is or is not one with an ethical component is insoluble due to the contradictions in their texts. The middle part of the book is really a sideline, in which Lukes establishes exactly what this conception of liberty is in Marxism, to show the aim of the movement to have the aforementioned high ethical level. He does this quite well, emphasising the way in which morality provides a problem even here, because it is never clear how the collectivist view of society and the Aristotelian view of human development are to be reconciled in actual policy in the future, leading most Marxists to shelve questions about the future society altogether as premature and utopian. This in turn causes many people to wonder why the sacrifices they are expected to make in the here and now for this future society are worth it, and how they know that they are worth it. The meat of the problem in modern Marxism, as real political movement, is discussed by Lukes by way of assessing the various views of fellow travellers and former fellow travellers on the horrors of Stalinism. The major problem of Marxism is shown to be that of the means-ends relation, and how and when 'revolutionary violence' and similar things can be justified. Brecht, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Koestler, Trotsky and Lukács all provide different perspectives on this problem, most of them even changing their own views (usually towards a more liberal position) during their lives. This discussion is very inte