What did Karl Marx have in common with the philosophers of the enlightenment?
The Age of Enlightenment refers to a period of time in Western culture and philosophy where reason was advocated as the best and surest way to obtain the truth. The Enlightenment centers around many philosophers, statesman, and scientist of the eighteenth century and Karl Marx was not one of those philosophers as he is decidedly a nineteenth century philosopher and while it appears that he is influenced by such philosophers as Immanuel Kant, David Hume and most importantly Adam Smith and Georg Wilhelm Friederich Hegel, and with the exception of Hegel, all the other aforementioned philosophers are linked to the Age of Enlightenment. The primary ideas produced and promulgated by those of the Enlightened age were those of freedom and natural rights and common law. These ideas and principles were a radical departure from past and present ideas of government that included theocracy, oligarchy, aristocracy, and the Divine Right doctrine. The idea, that all men were free to defend themselves, their families and their property finally found its audience because of the philosophers linked to the Age of Enlightenment. It was by reason that Rene Descartes asserted that “I think, therefore I am” and it was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe who boldly claimed that there is genius in boldness and that whatever we can imagine we can achieve. It was Thomas Jefferson who declared that all people had the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness and Benjamin Franklin who warned that those willing to sacrifice liberty for security are worthy of neither. These are the thoughts that come from from the Age of Reason, the Age of Enlightenment. Karl Marx has little in common with these philosophers and even though he was quite clearly influenced by Adam Smith who wrote the Wealth of Nations and is considered the “father of Capitalism”, Marx quite clearly rejects Smiths claim that people left alone to govern themselves is the best action for the market place and economies. Marx is no believer in every ones right to own property, and ownership of property is an idea found with in the works of those thinkers linked to the Enlightened Age. The idea that Marx was somehow linked to the Age of Enlightenment is a fallacy and probably has the popularity it does today because so many people consider Marx an intellectual and it is fair to assume that the philosophers of the Age of Reason were intellectuals as well and this might be something that Marx would have in common with the philosophers of the Enlightened Age if Marx were indeed an intellectual. An intellectual is one who uses their intellect to obtain truth. Developed or chiefly guided by the intellect rather than by emotion or experience. Marx’s doctrine of communism is not guided by intellect but rather by emotion and experience. The Communist Manifesto offers little in the way of facts or supposition and relies heavily upon emotion. “Workers of the World Unite!” Das Kapital is a bloated tribute to illogic and irrationality. Marx is no economist and understands little about the value of production and those who produce and when Marx offers advice on how to turn a capitalist society into a communist society he suggests it cant be done unless the currency is undermined first because you just can’t beat a one on one situation. What is meant by one on one situation is freedom. They are free to buy his product or not, he is free to sell them that product or not, that is a one on one situation. Marx, quite correctly admits that that situation, which is pure unfettered capitalism is better than what he offers and the only way that the workers of the world can obtain what Marx offers is by first rigging the system so that it appears as if capitalism doesn’t work, so the workers must undermine the currency, make money useless, watch inflation rise, what stagflation, watch recessions and high unemployment, by God when will the workers of the world finally unite?
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Marx offers the world a stateless society by way of a gargantuan state created to implement his ideas and then some how obediently go away. It’s hard to see enlightenment in a man who actually believes you can create an oppressive state that will gladly go away once everyone has been granted the form of equality Marx offers. Its hard to see the enlightenment in the idea that people must be oppressed before they can be truly free. What Marx offers is a from of “legal plunder”. Plunder is plunder no matter what the cause, the means do not justify the end, and if big wig capitalists plunder they are plunderers and if governments engage in wealth redistribution then they too are plunderers. If Marx was a fan of freedom at all it is freedom by way of subjection which isn’t freedom at all. It is sad that while Adam Smith is dismissed as naive for his assertion that an “unseen hand” will guide the market place while this man Karl Marx is linked to the Age of Enlightenment brought to us by thinkers such as Smith and others. Few people today know nothing or little at all about Adam Smith and the same is actually true about Karl Marx. In the end, Marx is more famous than Adam Smith but the mantle of intellectualism granted Marx is undeserved and has done great damage to intellectualism across the world.