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Marx and Rights
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 April 2010
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It is often either assumed or argued that political liberalism respects rights, while Marxism does not. In fact, many believe that the omission of rights in communism counts decisively against the viability of Karl Marx's social philosophy. Is there room for rights in Marx's social philosophy?
This paper examines Allen E. Buchanan's interpretation of Marx's critique of rights. Contrary to Buchanan's view, I shall argue that Marx's critique of rights is limited rather than comprehensive in scope. I shall also set forth part of a foundation of a Marxian theory of rights.
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- Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , Summer 1994 , pp. 377 - 390
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- Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1994
References
Notes
1 Buchanan, Allen E., Marx and Justice: The Radical Critique of Liberalism (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield, 1982), pp. 50–85Google Scholar.
2 Peffer, R. G., in Marxism, Morality, and Social Justice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 324–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar , holds the view, considered and rejected by Buchanan, that Marx rejects rights as such in On the Jewish Question (1843) but condemns only “bourgeois” rights in Critique of the Gotha Program (1875). The implication here seems to be that Marx may have toned down his critique of rights over the years.
Note that Peffer's interpretation of Marx on rights is similar to Buchanan's in insisting that Marx criticizes rights as such in On the Jewish Question. However, their respective views differ when it comes to the matter of whether or not Marx criticizes only bourgeois rights. For Buchanan denies what Peffer affirms, namely, that Marx criticizes only bourgeois rights in his later work.
Others who agree that what Marx says about rights is essentially negative and that he sets forth a general critique of rights include Feinberg, Joel, “In Defense of Moral Rights,” in his Freedom and Fulfillment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992)Google Scholar , and John Tomasi, who attributes to Marx the claims that “Rights are conflict notions.… rights are no more essential to healthy human groupings than band-aids are to healthy human bodies” (Tomasi, John, “Individual Rights and Community Virtues,” Ethics, 101 [1991], p. 521)CrossRefGoogle Scholar . Also see Nickel, James W., Making Sense of Human Rights (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987), pp. 116–17Google Scholar , for a view of Marx and rights similar to Buchanan's.
3 Buchanan, , Marx and Justice, p. 60Google Scholar.
4 Ibid., p. 61.
5 Ibid., p. 62. Nickel argues that Marx claims that the “rights of man” are egoistic i n three ways. First, they perpetuate an egoistic mentality. Second, they encourage rightholders to decide issues that affect others purely on the basis of their private interests. Third, they divide people so that the development of community is thwarted. See James W. Nickel, “Marxism and Human Rights,” unpublished paper, 42nd Annual Northwest Conference on Philosophy, University of Oregon, Eugene, 1990.
6 Ibid., p. 63.
7 Ibid., p. 64.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid., p. 64–65.
13 Ibid., p. 64.
14 Ibid., p. 64–65.
15 Ibid., p. 65.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid., p. 65.
18 See Ibid., pp. 66–67.
19 Ibid., p. 68.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid.
22 See Karl Marx: Selected Writings, edited by McLellan, D. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 568–69Google Scholar.
23 1 am grateful to an anonymous reviewer of Dialogue for the distinctions set out in this paragraph.
24 Unless, of course, it can be shown that Marx holds such a position.
25 Buchanan, , Marx and Justice, pp. 166–67Google Scholar.
26 Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 183–92Google Scholar.
27 Feinberg, Joel, Rights, Justice, and the Bounds of Liberty (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), p. 156CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
28 It does not follow, however, that there may be no other reasons why Marx might hold either the Rights Egoism Thesis or the Rights Nihilism Thesis, or both!
29 Below I argue that certain claims Marx does make seem to imply that there will be room for both individual and collective rights in communism, but the right o t the private ownership of the means of production is not one of them.
30 Buchanan, , Marx and Justice, p. 64Google Scholar.
31 Ibid.
32 Marx, Karl, Critique of the Gotha Program, in The Marx-Engels Reader, edited by Tucker, R. C., 2nd ed., (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978), p. 531Google Scholar.
33 Marx, , Critique of the Gotha Program, p. 531Google Scholar.
34 “Conceptions of rights will not play a major motivational role in the revolutionary transition from capitalism to communism” (Buchanan, , Marx and Justice, p. 162)Google Scholar.
35 However, not every right is respected by Marx. Implied in Marx's condemnation of the private ownership of the means of production is that such a right is condemned by Marx. Further consideration might reveal other rights that are implicitly condemned by Marx.
36 Waldron, Jeremy, Introduction, in Theories of Rights, edited by Waldron, Jeremy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 1–2Google Scholar.
37 “Political atomism” is defined as the view that society is “in some sense constituted by individuals for the fulfillment of ends which were primarily individual,” and includes the notion that rights play a central part in the justification of political structures and action. See Taylor, Charles, Philosophical Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), Vol. 2, p. 187Google Scholar.
38 Waldron, , Theories of Rights, p. 152Google Scholar.
39 Raz, Joseph, “Right-Based Moralities,” in Utility and Rights, edited by Frey, R. G. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), pp. 46, 59Google Scholar.
40 Marx, Karl, Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft), translated by Nicolas, Martin (London: Allen Lane with New Left Review, 1973), p. 705Google Scholar.
41 Husami, Ziyad I., “Marx on Distributive Justice,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 8 (1978): 27–64Google Scholar . Husami argues that two principles of justice may plausibly be extracted from Marx's writings. The first is a principle of equal treatment. The second is one of rewards according to labour. Since capitalism violates the labor exchange between capitalists and workers, it thereby violates the principle of rewards according to labour. Since capitalism violates a principle of justice, it is unjust. For a critique of Husami's argument, see Wood, Allen W., “Marx on Right and Justice: A Reply to Husami,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 8 (1979): 267–95Google Scholar.
42 This Marxian notion of exploitation is borrowed from Buchanan, , Marx and Justice, p. 39Google Scholar.
43 I borrow this Marxian notion of alienation from Buchanan, , Marx and Justice, p. 43Google Scholar.
44 Ibid., p. 48.
45 Ibid., p. 49.
46 There is room for a fuller treatment as to how certain rights have a place in Marxism. One might strive toward creating and developing a Marxian theory of rights, one that is not logically excluded from the core of Marx's philosophy. A Marxian theory of rights would need to do at least the following: (i) explicate the nature and value of rights in communism (and explain how rights might differ in scope, content, etc., in a capitalist régime); (ii) provide a moral, social and political grounding for rights of various sorts; (iii) set forth the conditions under which a rightholder has a right in communism; (iv) give an account of the conditions under which rights “trump” others when rights conflict in communism.
47 I am very grateful to Joel Feinberg, Allen Buchanan and Paul Menzel for their incisive comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I also thank an anonymous reviewer of Dialogue both for the distinctions introduced in the third section of the essay and for help in setting out my arguments more clearly.