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Marxism and Ethical Socialism

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Marxism and Ethical Socialism REVISTA DE INVESTIGACIÓN FILOSÓFICA Y TEORÍA SOCIAL Dialektika Marxism and Ethical Socialism El Marxismo y el Socialismo Ético Recibido: 26/02/2020 Renzo Llorente 1* Aceptado: 02/05/2020 1* Division of Humanities, Saint Louis University, Madrid, España. Email: [email protected] ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000‐0003‐0017‐0213 Para Citar: Llorente, R. (2020). El marxismo y el socialismo ético. Dialektika: Revista De Investigación Filosófica Y Teoría Social, 2(4), 47-56. Recuperado a partir de https://journal.dialektika.org/ojs/index.php/logos/article/view/23 Resumen: Quizá el legado más notable del llamado marxismo Abstract: One of the principal legacies of analytical Marxism analítico sea la tesis, defendida por algunos destacados has been a moralization of Marxism, for some of the most representantes de esta corriente filosófica, según la cual las influential analytical Marxists came to endorse the view that razones que impulsan a Marx y al marxismo a condenar el the Marxist condemnation of capitalism and defense of socialism ultimately derive from normative ethical SSAYS capitalismo y defender el socialismo son, en el fondo, de una E naturaleza moral. Si asumimos esta interpretación de Marx y considerations. If we accept this new interpretation of Marx del marxismo, nos veremos obligados a reconsiderar la and Marxism, with its emphasis on the moral foundations of relación entre el marxismo y otra tradición socialista para la Marxist doctrine, we are forced to reconsider the relationship cual los valores morales también son fundamentales, a saber, between Marxism and another socialist tradition for which el llamado “socialismo ético”. Si al reconsiderar esta relación moral commitments are also fundamental, namely ethical dejamos de lado algunas ideas falsas, si bien muy extendidas, socialism. If our reconsideration of this relationship avoids con respecto a la naturaleza del socialismo ético (tales como common misconceptions about ethical socialism (such as the la creencia de que implica una política reformista o el idea that it implies reformism, or that it is identical to supuesto de que sea idéntico al “socialismo utópico”), “utopian socialism”), we find that the dichotomy between descubrimos que la dicotomía entre el socialismo ético y el ethical socialism and Marxist socialism proves untenable, at socialismo marxista resulta insostenible, al menos en los least in the terms in which it has usually been formulated. términos en los que ha sido planteado hasta ahora. Palabras clave: Marxismo; socialismo ético; Roy Edgley; Keywords: Marxism; ethical socialism; Roy Edgley; utopian socialismo utópico; Norman Geras. socialism; Norman Geras. 47 MARXISM AND ETHICAL SOCIALISM. MAYO-AGOSTO. (2020). Vol. 2 (4), pp. 47 - 56. REVISTA DE INVESTIGACIÓN FILOSÓFICA Y TEORÍA SOCIAL Dialektika INTRODUCTION ethical socialism becomes untenable. That this conclusion is here seems to be little doubt that the principal legacy of unavoidable, without being the least bit undesirable (at least analytical Marxism—leaving aside the wholly negative from a Marxist perspective), is the claim that I set out to contribution, as it were, resulting from the analytical T defend in the remainder of this paper. Marxists’ vigorous criticism and dismissal of many basic Marxist theses—has been an unabashed moralization of My essay has five sections, apart from the introduction. I Marxism.1 That is to say, few would deny that, so far as the begin by briefly reviewing the various meanings and uses of interpretation of Marx and Marxism are concerned, the most the term “ethical socialism” and also provide the definition notable, lasting effect of this movement has been an of ethical socialism that I shall be using. The following section insistence on, and vindication of, the normative moral of the paper then canvasses five common misconceptions, or dimensions of Marxist doctrine. This is evident in many of unwarranted assumptions, regarding ethical socialism. In the contributions to specific debates on the moral status of SSAYS section three of the paper, I argue that if we employ the Marx’s thought, as well as in a number of the texts that aim E definition of ethical socialism that I have proposed, avoid the at a broader, more synthetic and systematic analysis of Marx errors discussed in section two and accept the view that and the Marxist tradition. A good example of the latter is Marxism condemns capitalism and advocates socialism furnished by Jon Elster’s conclusion to his Making Sense of partly (or entirely) on moral grounds, then the dichotomy Marx (1985), which vividly evokes the legacy to which I am between ethical socialism and Marxist socialism proves referring: untenable, at least in the terms in which it has usually been It is not possible today, morally or intellectually, to be a formulated. In this section, I also discuss two claims often Marxist in the traditional sense. ... But...I believe it is still used in support of the standard counterposition of ethical possible to be a Marxist in a rather different sense of the socialism and Marxism. The fourth section of the essay term. I find that most of the views that I hold to be true and important, I can trace back to Marx. This includes briefly addresses an objection, advanced by some Marxists, to methodology, substantive theories and, above all, an interpretation of Marxism that makes normative moral values. The critique of exploitation and alienation commitments central to, and the foundation of, the Marxist remains central (p. 531; emphasis in the original). outlook. The paper then concludes with some reflections on Yet, while most commentators would probably accept the the implications of adopting the interpretation of Marxism above characterization of analytical Marxism’s legacy, few that foregrounds the doctrine’s moral dimension. have considered what is, to my mind, an obvious and I important implication of this development, namely, that it What, exactly, is “ethical socialism”?3 Given the frequency tends to decisively undermine the distinction—long with which this term has appeared in Marxist literature, it is accepted by the vast majority of Marxists—between Marxist natural to assume that the term has a fairly determinate socialism and ethical socialism.2 In other words, to the extent meaning. In fact, the term “ethical socialism”—which was that we endorse this moralization of Marxism, the familiar not current in Marx’s time and, to my knowledge, was not claim that Marxist socialism is fundamentally opposed to employed by Marx and Engels themselves — has been, and 1 I borrow the concept of a “moralized Marxism” from Kai Nielsen 3 Given the aims of this essay, I do not think it necessary to offer a (1989), p. 272. precise definition of socialism. But I would argue that Tom Bottomore is correct in characterizing socialism, in very general 2 For a study that does examine some aspects of this development, terms, as “a social order in which there is the maximum feasible yet without analyzing the nature of ethical socialism, see Roberts equality of access, for all human beings, to economic resources, to (1996), chapter 7. knowledge, and to political power, and the minimum possible domination exercised by any individual or social group over any others” (as cited in Self, 1993, p. 343). Llorente, R. (2020). El marxismo y el socialismo ético. Dialektika: Revista De Investigación Filosófica Y Teoría Social, 2(4), 48 47-56. Recuperado a partir de https://journal.dialektika.org/ojs/index.php/logos/article/view/23 REVISTA DE INVESTIGACIÓN FILOSÓFICA Y TEORÍA SOCIAL Dialektika continues to be, used to designate a number of different, conception of ethical socialism? Or rather: Does it entail sometimes quite divergent, theoretical and political anything that a Marxist should necessarily object to? positions. For example, the term “ethical socialism” is sometimes used as a rough synonym for what Marxists have II conventionally referred to as “utopian socialism,” that is, the emancipatory projects developed by Owen, Saint-Simon, and As it turns out, much of the antipathy that Marxists feel Fourier. Then again, “ethical socialism” sometimes refers to toward ethical socialism would seem to derive from a number Eduard Bernstein’s “revisionist” version of Marxism of unjustified beliefs about the concept of ethical socialism, developed at the end of the nineteenth century. (Indeed, the unjustified, at any rate, if we proceed from Edgley’s term apparently first gained currency as a result of the definition. What are some of these beliefs? debates and polemics occasioned by Bernstein’s work.) At First of all, there is a not uncommon tendency to believe that the same time, the term “ethical socialism” is also often used ethical socialism denotes much the same thing as “utopian to identify the early twentieth-century movement in socialism.” In other words, Marxists tend to conflate ethical philosophy that sought to fashion a kind of neo-Kantian and utopian socialism6 or to assimilate the former to the Marxism. Finally, the phrase “ethical socialism” is also latter. Yet there is, in fact, a scant justification for such a sometimes used to characterize or evoke the politics belief, as becomes clear if we recall the defining features of associated with a tradition within British socialism, the best- utopian socialism. Gareth Stedman Jones (1983) summarizes known exponent of which was doubtless R. H. Tawney.4 these features as follows: first, the ambition to construct a It should be clear, even from this extremely brief summary, new science of human nature; secondly, a focus on the that the term “ethical socialism” has been used quite broadly. moral/ideological sphere as the determining basis of all other But this is hardly surprising, considering that writers who aspects of human behavior; third, the ambition to make this avail themselves of the term seldom take the trouble to define sphere the object of an exact science which will resolve the it.
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