Reclaiming Marx: Principles of Justice as a Critical Foundation in Moral Realism

Marx, in exemplary exposition of his irreconcilable opposition to rigid and reified formulations, wrote in Theories of Surplus Value, in a clearly humanistic and dialectical vein, that

Man himself is the basis of his material production, as of any other production that he carries on. All circumstances, therefore, which affect man, the subject of production, more or less modify all his functions and activities, and therefore too his functions and activities as the creator of material wealth, of commodities. In this respect it can in fact be shown that all human relations and functions, however and in whatever form they may appear, influence material production and have a more or less decisive influence upon it.[1]

Of course, human beings at the more abstract level of Marx`s analysis make their appearance on stage not as individuals living out the full wealth of their human connections in this sense, but rather as the personifications of definite classes, from which the general theoretical understanding of an entire social system is derived. At all times Marx`s method emphasized the “historicity of concepts” – even at the most abstract level of analysis. Real history was the final arbiter for questions of theory: If Marx`s analysis of capitalist society in its pure form is his greatest achievement, it was not because this theory transcends history, but rather because it abstracts from everything but the most essential elements in the capitalist historical process. Hence, Marx`s achievement in this respect was his discovery of the essence of capitalism in the capitalist`s desire to accumulate at any cost to society as a whole. For Marx, basing his analysis on an abstract concept of the capitalist as an accumulator, “the driving motive and determining purpose of capitalist production is the self-valorization of capital to the greatest possible extent, i.e., the greatest possible production of surplus-value, hence the greatest possible exploitation of labor-power by the capitalist.”[2]

It is this understanding of the motive-force of capitalism that forms the modus operandi for the main arguments of this essay: What are the rational bases for, and in what manner could they serve to promulgate, Marxian principles of justice? It is taken as the cornerstone of our argument that Marx had condemned capitalism as unjust;[3] and that Marx`s economic critique was fundamentally based on a concept of humankind, i.e.: An analysis not based on an ideological concept of humankind, but rather supposes a scientific conception of human nature, empirically verifiable, as being a social and economic entity with physical, spiritual, and intellectual needs that must be satisfied.[4] If humans were pure spirits, Marx could not have written Capital.

Ex hypothesis, this approach will essentially focus on two considerations.[5] Firstly, in order to enunciate the fundamentals, and, thus, applicability, of the notion of justice to a (putative) ‘communist society,’ an analysis of the issue of Marxist attitude towards justice will be addressed by considering the logic of Marx`s core concepts: The idea that human needs and capacities develop historically in relation to the development of the forces of production. Secondly, if a conception of justice is proven to be integral as per the logic of historical materialism, then is there a rational foundation for this purportedly ‘just society,’ or is it chimerical?

II

It is essential that we quote at length from the well-known paragraph of Marx`s 1859 Preface:

In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of their development, the existing material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production, or – what is but a legal expression for the same thing – with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Thus begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed.[6]

The entire passage, with its suggestion of definite sites and structures,[7] is an architectural metaphor – an economic foundation on which rests a political and legal superstructure.[8] It is worth noting, therefore, that Marx made no attempt to exclude cultural factors from his understanding of “the economic structure of society.” Thus he referred in Capital to “relations of production” and “forms of intercourse” (the latter relating broadly to the realm of inter-subjective communication) as interconnected and inseparable elements in the social constitution of human practice.[9]

Furthermore, the opening quotation from Marx`s Theories of Surplus Value may shed some light on the perceived continual historical process of formation and transformation of human needs in the course of productive activity: the satisfying of our present needs is necessarily curtailed by our limited understanding of how these needs may conflict with each other, owing to the very process of their evolving development. A notion of justice therefore becomes necessary in order to resolve potential disputes. Moreover, what is needed is some notion of needs in which self-realization and community do not appear as two independent standards, but rather constitute a single complex conception of the good. This will then facilitate our attempt to adequately explain how the primary values of self-realization and community are interconnected (cf. the first of the two considerations enunciated at the end of section I).

It thus follows that people, according to Marx, not only have different needs in different historical epochs but also that needs develop organically with human activity and, in historical terms, expand in conjunction with the development of the forces of production (the development of human capacities to command the forces of nature) and in turn provide further impetus for this development: “the satisfaction of the first need, the action of satisfying, and the instrument of satisfaction which has been acquired, lead to new needs; and this creation of new needs is the first historical act.”[10]

Let us now move on to addressing the question concerning the basis upon which the distribution of labor between the different individual members of a modern society is effected. The question may best be resolved if one could invoke a distribution of capacities corresponding to the requirements of production for social need. However, needs and capacities change and evolve: new capacities develop through our activity, new inventions arouse latent capacities, new possibilities for enjoyment propose new needs. But needs and capacities are related to production, albeit this connection does not necessarily indicate a process of evolution between the two that is harmonious and proportionate. How would we then address the problematic of the distribution of labor? Members of a modern society are putatively multi-faceted individuals, i.e.: they possess the capability and willingness to apply themselves in numerous productive activities, thereby enabling themselves to move from one realm of production to another. And what underlies the basis of the need of those individuals to work in order to satisfy the needs of society are: community and self-realization.

The first is that the needs of the community are taken as fundamental in determining the distribution of labor: individuals seemingly exercise deep-seated, almost natural, altruism. One is then bound to deduce that individuals would exhibit indifference to the nature of the work they perform; this situation is, however, akin to the relations of capitalist machine industry as diagnosed by Marx.[11] Accordingly, if the needs of the community are taken as fundamental in determining the distribution of labor, then a (putative) communist society functions analogously to capitalism: This is hardly what Marx had in mind. Therefore, the notion that the satisfaction of working to meet social needs derives from a sense of “serving the people” rather than from the intrinsic nature of the activities performed does not square too well with Marx`s putative characterization of communist society members: individuals possessing autonomous needs for self-activity and self-realization. This is not to infer that those members would be indifferent to the needs of the community; merely that they are interested in the full exercise of their capacities. Moreover, acknowledging, as Marx would, that the means of material production (i.e. means of self-realization) are a prerequisite for the (unfettered) engagement of human creative capacities, to wholly satisfy the needs for productive labor would strain resources (of even a communist society of abundance, as it were). Thereupon, the unfettered development of the productive forces could serve to supply a resolution of potential conflicts between the needs for self-realization; however, this development seemingly, but not necessarily, entails the concentration of the means of production and a corresponding increase in the resources consumed in productive activity – thereby further complicating the potential for disputes.[12] And as a consequence, growth of the forces of production, to whatever scale, would not necessarily ensure the dissolution of the problem of distributing the means of self-realization. In conclusion to this argument, it need clearly be enunciated that the aforesaid does not imply the impossibility of harmonizing social needs; rather their character and the requisite means for self-realization – owing to the very fact that needs are individually and historically transformed in the course of human activity – cannot precisely be sketched out in advance.

Thus, in formulating an all-rounded explication to the first consideration posed at the end of section I, it follows that the logic of the Marxian idea of historical development of human needs redounds to the conclusion that it is beyond the realm of possibility the construction of a society in which individual and social needs, as well as the means of satisfying them, are known. Implied in the aforesaid is that potential disagreements as to the distribution of resources cannot be ruled out; and, thus, some principles of justice are needed, even in a supposed communist society, to provide for the resolution of such disputes.[13] With that thought, we move to address the second consideration posed hereinbefore, viz.: Since a conception of justice has proven integral to the logic of historical materialism, then is there a rational foundation for this purportedly ‘just society,’ or is it chimerical?

III

Capitalist exploitation, in Marxist vernacular, principally emanates from the fact that workers are, owing to their state of propertylessness, constrained to sell their labor power to capitalists, who own all means of production. Workers, while keeping only part of what they produce, are thus forced to yield the remainder to the capitalists (the surplus product) for no return. That is to say: 1. Workers are at the short end of an unequal distribution of the means of production; 2. They are subject to the directives of their capitalist employers; and 3. They are forced to yield surplus product to those capitalists.[14] As enunciated above, it is a principal premise of this essay that Marx regarded capitalist exploitation as unjust; what we are about to probe is where Marx thought that the injustice of capitalist exploitation lay. Jerry Cohen[15] offers an eloquent philosophical reasoning in response to the aforementioned, the gist of which will be given below.[16]

[B]oth, that the extraction is unjust because it reflects an unjust distribution and that the asset distribution is unjust because it generates that unjust extraction... [T]he correct things to say about exploitation in Marxism are as follows. First, forced extraction of a surplus is wrong because of what it is, and not because it inherits the wrong of something else. Second, on our reasonable assumption that the sole purpose of means of production is to make product, a distribution of means of production is unjust only if and because it enables an unjust transfer of product. Finally [ ] the fact that the transfer of product is unjust when and because it is enabled by maldistribution of (this time) means of production does not make the maldistribution normatively fundamental. To think so is to confuse causal and normative fundamentality.

A transfer of product is unjust if and only if it occurs for the wrong reason. If an unreciprocated product transfer reflects nothing but different (unmanipulated) preferences in a straightforward way, the transfer is not unjust. But it is unjust when and because it is caused by an unequal asset endowment, which is unjust because it induces a wrongful, because forced, and not, for example, preference-based, flow. So we can say both that the extraction is unjust because it comes from an unequal (and therefore unjust) asset distribution, and that the latter is unjust because it generates an unjust extraction. The flow is unjust because it reflects an unjust division of resources which is unjust because it tends to produce precisely such a flow.[17]

The above is useful for the purpose of clarifying, consolidating, and analyzing the crux of the concepts contributing to recognizing the rational values in the critique of just society, and whether a society can exist beyond justice. I shall move on now to a reading of Marx`s views on justice, notwithstanding their exiguity, particularly his well known Critique of the Gotha Programme. Marx challenged the notion of “distributive justice” from three distinct, albeit interconnected, standpoints: 1. That the mode of distribution is embedded in, and dependent on, the mode of production. 2. The notion of “just distribution” is a little more than a figure of speech, a pithy reference to a new criterion of distribution. 3. Genuine Marxist production and distribution will operate with a criterion beyond justice. While addressing the general issue of justice, a close affiliation, or dissociation, with the aforementioned will critically be made.

Marx`s first standpoint may, in accordance with his own thoughts, be expanded upon, in current lexicon, as follows: Any, even a relative, equalization of income and wages is illusory under the conditions of a capitalist mode of production. He suggestively asks: “What is a ‘fair distribution’?” and “Do not the bourgeois assert the present-day distribution is ‘fair’? And is it not, in fact, the only ‘fair’ distribution on the basis of the present-day mode of production?”[18] It is apparent therein that Marx is principally dealing within the formal and political spheres of the concepts of justice – not the ethical dimension per se. Distribution, ex hypothesi, is just if the rules of distribution operative in a social cluster are applied to each and every member of the cluster. However, Marx`s axiomatic statement that distribution depends on production, and the further statement which derives from this, i.e., just distribution is defined, however not exclusively, by production, are both already within the realm of the political concept of distributive justice. But to argue that Marx had viewed production to be the sole criterion of just distribution would not only be wrong, but in pellucid contravention of what he pronounced elsewhere.[19] Therefore, one need be particularly careful not to elide an important connotation, viz.: ‘distributive justice’ cannot be analyzed as a separate case of justice, since distribution is always embedded in the sociopolitical reproduction of society as a whole. Thus, along with the mode of production, and not solely relying on it, the dominant values of a society can provide further norms and criteria that may apply to all and sundry within a society: In totality, they can provide a criterion (or criteria) of justice, which may differ from the rules of commodity production.

Furthermore, Marx, in his criticism of the authors of The Gotha Programme, unequivocated that “equal rights” were a “right to inequality” since they simply served to equalize unequals. In light of the aforesaid, the first stage of communism would still bear the birth mark of the offspring of capitalism.[20] Following on with Marx`s train of thoughts that the Programme authors` emphasis was (wrongly, as he perceived it) on distribution rather than production, is highlighted by calls for the return to the workers, with equal rights as stated above, of the undiminished proceeds of their labor.[21] Marx`s view regarding distribution vis-à-vis production, in essence, forms his idea of the perceived communist society. Let us examine it in more detail.

Marx`s objection to what was enunciated by the Gotha Programme stems from the perception that the total product of communist society must avail the means for the continuation and expansion of production and for provision against accidents and natural calamities before consumption could be assured. He thus asserted the need for further deductions from the social product to cover the costs of administration, necessary provision of the needs for education, health services, etc., and such matters as maintenance for those unable to work. In addition, Marx argued that, in a communist society, where products are not subject to exchange and “individual labour no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of the total labour,” the phrase “proceeds of labour” will have lost its meaning:[22] An expression, par excellence, of the problematic of the distribution of means of consumption amongst individual producers in “a communist society ... as it has developed on its own foundations,” where those individuals “receive back from society – after the deductions have been made – exactly what [they give] to it ... The same amount of labour which [they have] given to society in one form [they receive] back in another.” Marx further notes that this principle is the same as that governing the exchange of commodities “as far as this is exchange of equal values” and hence, “while the principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads ... equal right here is in principle – bourgeois right, ... still constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation.”[23] What does this say? Marx`s communist vision is hampered by the realization of the labor theory of value in the early days of communist society, which is well away from embodying a Marxian conception of justice. The following excerpt sheds further light on the limitations of bourgeois right:

The right of the producer is proportional to the labour they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labour.

But ... equal right is unequal right for unequal labour. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment and thus productive capacity as natural privileges. It is, therefore, a right of inequality in its content, like every right. Right by its very nature can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard in so far as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only, for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else is ignored. Further, one worker is married, another not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labour, and hence an equal share in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right instead of being equal would have to be unequal.[24]

Does the above passage not indicate that justice, as an application of an equal standard, is by its very nature inadequate to overcome the bourgeois limitations of the first phase of communist society? The answer is a resounding yes. Moreover, it is implicitly suggested that a society in which endowments of individuals effectively function as a standard in ranking them as human beings is profoundly defective. This underlies Marx`s paradoxical view that individuals are unequal inasmuch as they are different individuals, and that equality of condition appears as the promise and measure of formal equality. Posed as thus, it seems that the question of equality or inequality of human beings is an artefact of class society: Marx`s bold, far-sighted realism envisaged a society wherein individual differences of endowment cease to make a fundamental difference. Rather they elaborate a multiplicity of standards of excellence; and, moreover, while believing that “a classless society should not combine collective control over the conditions of production with sheer moral arbitrariness in the distribution of welfare,” he upheld “the principle of collective control over resources with the clear expectation that its implementation will have a certain kind of further distributive consequence and will not have a certain other kind of distributive consequence for the enjoyment of basic human goods.”[25] Such a society, Marx believed, would develop so as to see the liberation of the individual from “an enslaving subordination to the division of labour” and, therewith, the suppression of “the antithesis between mental and physical labour;” the transformation of labor from a mere means to the satisfaction of other needs into “life`s prime want;” the all-round development of the individual and a corresponding flowering of the productive forces and “all the springs of co-operative wealth.” Only with the growth of these tendencies “can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banner: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!”[26]

IV

So what, if any, is “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!” a principle of? It is clearly a principle of distributive justice, “even if its attainment is envisaged together with the death of the state.”[27] Norman Geras, with precision and eloquence, enunciates the essence of the principle; let us excerpt at length:

Marx retains a notion of rights even for the higher phase of communism ... The general rule, indeed, marked down for this higher stage is the fulfilment of individual needs, and the right that it generalizes a right, amongst other things, to the means of personal development or self-realization. Its complement (expressed in the first half of the famous slogan) is that each person makes an effort commensurate with her or his abilities, in taking on a share of the common tasks. If they succeed, these standards, in making good the defects of the principle they supplant – which, sensitive only to the magnitude of labour contribution, gives out larger rewards to greater capabilities and talents – this is not because they are free of either the generality or the prescriptive force characteristic of rights. It is only because Marx obviously regards need and effort as morally more appropriate, in a word fairer, criteria of distribution than individual endowment... The element of plain good fortune in the possession of great or exceptional abilities he clearly does not see as meriting any larger reward than is inherent in the very exercise and enjoyment of them. That Marx himself thinks of the needs principle as less formalistic, or more concrete, than the one it supplants, more exactly attuned, morally speaking, to the specific individuality of each person, does not for all that undo its generality as a normative principle.[28]

Does it not follow, then, that the aforementioned principle is, indeed, integral to Marx`s notion of a just society? And is not this principle clearly a standard of equality? The answer to both questions have to be in the affirmative, particularly in light of another passage, this time in The German Ideology, which criticizes the view that the “possession” and “enjoyment” of each could correspond to his/her “labour”:

But one of the most vital principles of communism, a principle which distinguishes it from all reactionary socialism, is ... that differences of brain and of intellectual ability do not imply any differences whatsoever in the nature of the stomach and of physical needs; therefore the false tenet, based upon existing circumstances, “to each according to his abilities”, must be changed, in so far as it relates to enjoyment in its narrower sense, into the tenet, “to each according to his need”; in other words, a different form of activity, of labour, does not justify inequality, confers no privileges in respect of possession and enjoyment.[29]

Marx`s notion of communist society is one in which human needs, and particularly needs of individual self-realization, flourish and expand: He refers to “a mode of production in which the worker exists to satisfy the need of the existing values for valorization, as opposed to the inverse situation, in which objective wealth is there to satisfy the worker`s own need for development.[30] Thus, his characterization of communist society as “an association in which the free development of each is the condition of the free development of all”[31] is all-encompassing and must therefore be understood in no minimalist sense.

V

The historical materialist conception of the transformation of human needs applies to communist society no less than to any other. It also implies that even such a society will need principles of justice, sui generis. Sections I and II offered a reading that identifies the applicability of the notion of justice to the current critique, and presented the relevance of a notion of justice via a combinatorial approach of self-realization and community in a conception of human nature. But did this analysis offer a blueprint for a set of principles that could (or would) operate in such a society? Beyond a shadow of a doubt, it did not: A colossal task beyond the purview of this essay. But, while keeping the latter obviously as a goal in sight, it was indicated how the difficulty of specifying the relation between the primary Marxist values of self-realization and community may be resolved, and thus successfully employed, where a theory of justice might fit in the general structure of Marxist evaluative discourse. The remaining sections attested to the eminence of a rational foundation, deeply grounded in the logic of historical materialism in setting ‘guide lines’ for establishing the nature and the limits of variation of Marxist ideas and practices of justice by accounting for social cohesion in an advanced industrial society through an intricate nexus of relational interdependence between primary values (viz.: needs, self-realization and community) unwaveringly resting upon a conception of the nature of social needs.