You would be hard pressed to find two more influential political philosophers in the post-enlightenment era than Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx. Kant radically transformed the way we understand the world, considered by many scholars to be among the most influential philosophers in the western tradition, along with the likes of Plato and Aristotle.[1] His three critical masterpieces reformed the way we consider metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, and morality. In these works, Kant explains that although the world as we theoretically perceive it is causally deterministic, the world as-it-is has the possibility of real freedom.[2] Therefore, via the practical use of reason, which guides our actions, we can have a real and meaningful relationship with the world. These metaphysical and moral foundations form the basis for Kant’s political insights. Kant’s political philosophy argues that the use of reason is what sets human beings apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. The sum of individuals, and their public use of reason is what creates society, and it is the process by which humanity progresses. This leads Kant to argue for a political system that maximises the free and public use of reason while facilitating social cooperation; what in effect we would associate today with liberalism.
Marx’s insights, on the other hand, begin with a historical and materialist perspective, focusing on the objective material relations that constitute human existence. From this foundation, Marx naturally focuses on how the relations between individuals comprise the sum of society, and how those relations if estranged inhibit the expression of the human condition. For Marx, humanity is defined by their creative and industrious capacities. He is primarily focused on how and what human beings do.[3] Due to this view of human nature, Marx believed that only when the main antagonisms in the relations between human beings and their world are removed can humanity express itself most fully. He argues that the primary material estrangement of relations between people is socio-economic in its origin, stemming from the ownership over the means of production.[4] Private ownership over the means of production ultimately alienates humanity from itself, limiting its full expression. Therefore, Marx argues that only when private ownership over the means of production is eliminated, and a communist state set up, will humanity be able to actualize itself.
Marx’s view of human nature is ultimately sociological, where society is merely the sum of interrelations between individuals. On the other hand, Kant sees society as the sum of individuals themselves. Although both believe that humanity can only be truly understood as a social whole, their fundamental difference in regard to the importance of the individual ultimately leads them to very different conclusions about the ideal political structure for human flourishing: Marx merely orienting towards group levels of analysis, while Kant incorporates the individual. I will argue that since Kant’s political philosophy is more comprehensive, incorporating the individual into his diagnosis of human nature, Kant’s political prescriptions are more accurate and helpful than Marx’s for answering questions of how a society can live a good life.
Before comparing the philosopher's political theories, we must understand each. First, let’s look at Kant. In order to appreciate his liberal political prescriptions, we must unpack both his methodology as well as his theoretical foundations. Kant is considered by many scholars to be the last philosopher of the enlightenment period, who ushered in the modern world through his transformational philosophy. In the first of his three critical masterpieces, the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant argues for the boundaries of metaphysical knowledge by synthesising the traditions of rationalism and empiricism. He suggested in the work that all of our knowledge, given to us via sense perception and transformed via our cognition, are mere phenomenological appearances rather than the things-in-themselves that are contained in the noumenal world.[5] Via this transcendental distinction between the world of phenomena that we perceive, like natural laws, and the world of things-in-themselves, Kant was able to make room for the possibility of God, the immortality of the soul, and freedom of the will.[6] For, although through our cognition and perception of the world, it seems that all things in the natural world obey a deterministic cause and effect sequence, the reality of the noumenal world or things-in-themselves maintains the possibility of freedom, and therefore for real personal agency as well as moral weight for our actions. This transcendental metaphysical distinction that Kant makes, as he put it, “[limited] knowledge in order to make room for faith.”[7] Kant’s political philosophy is grounded on metaphysical foundations that justify the importance of individual agency, and the moral weight of their independent actions.
As a natural extension of Kant’s metaphysical and moral foundations, he believed that the ideal political structure was one that would facilitate the individual's public use of reason. Just as it is the individual's use of reason in their own life that should guide their actions, the public use of reason, with other individuals in a society should guide the actions and progress of the society as a whole. In his essay What is Enlightenment?, he affirms this claim by saying that “Nothing is required for this enlightenment, however, except freedom . . . namely, the freedom to use reason publicly in all matters.”[8] It’s the free and public use of our rational faculties, entailing both freedom of thought and freedom of speech, that facilitates progress socially and allows humans to live a good life.
Kant isn’t naive about human nature, however. He recognizes that humanity is complex. We are not perfectly rational actors; we still have animalistic urges. As Kant writes, “men proceed neither merely instinctually . . . nor yet according to a fixed plan, like rational citizens.”[9] Humanity’s development is not purely rational, but also tempered by our natural instincts. These instincts for our purposes can be subdivided into two categories: the individualist instincts, and social instincts. The individualistic instincts “wanting everything to go according to his own desires” while through his social instincts “[man] recognizes himself to be more than the development of his natural capacities.”[10] Humanity is both driven by our selfish motivations, while only able to fully actualize through social cooperation.
In fact, it is the combination of these competing instincts that facilitates human progress. Individuals themselves cannot actualize without each other. As Kant writes, "individual man would have to live excessively long . . . to make complete use of all his natural capacities”.[11] Humanity can only progress through the development of society. This development is facilitated by the struggle between the individuals themselves, and their society. It is in this antagonism between individualistic impulses that motivate progress and social impulses that facilitate cooperation and long-term development that explains human progress for Kant, all guided by humanity's practical use of reason.
The antagonisms between the individual and social nature of human beings, and their rational resolution, instantiates that the ideal political organisation must be one that maximises individual agency, while also maximising social cooperation. For the individuals are the motivating engine, and primary unit of rational actions for humanity, but individuals can only actualize themselves in cooperation with each other. Furthermore, humanity can only develop through generations of societal development. Since Kant identifies these features as ontological foundations for understanding humanity, he prescribes a rules-based society which facilitates freedoms while constraining the greedy individualistic impulses of individuals to facilitate social cooperation; what we would today associate with as liberalism.
Kant not only outlines that a rules-based system would be best for nations domestically, but he also concludes that these principles are necessary for the development of humanity on the international stage as well, and the whole of the human race. Only when nation-states recognize themselves as sovereign individuals that should strive for international cooperation between themselves for their own selfish development will humanity be able to fully flourish.[12] This for Kant is the teleological, universal end of human development: a cosmopolitan state. A century before any League of Nations would be instituted by the victors of World War 1, Kant imagined the need for a rules-based international system to facilitate cooperation. This cooperation would come from the rational, practical intentions of sovereign, independent, nation states recognizing the net benefits from social cooperation between themselves, rather than continuing a selfish, power-based system that perpetuates war.
Therefore, one can see that for Kant human nature is grounded in metaphysical insights which afford human actions real moral weight and individual agency, being guided by humanity's ability to use reason. This practical use of reason, however, is tempered by our individualistic and social instincts, the unsocial sociability requirement for development. These antagonisms guide reason to make the practical development of a rules-based society to both motivate and guide development in a progressive fashion. These prescriptions for a liberal, rules-based society, should not only be instantiated on the domestic level within nations, but would inevitably be instituted on the international stage as well, as sovereign states, just as sovereign individuals, recognize the benefits of social cooperation versus its individualist, selfish opposite in either authoritarianism or anarchy. And so, Kant concludes his comprehensive political philosophy with a teleological end of history in the cosmopolitan state of international relations, a liberal world order.
Marx in contrast to Kant does not begin with metaphysical or moral foundations for his inquiry into human nature, and what political organisation is best suited based on that nature. Instead, Marx’s methodology is scientifically oriented rather than a more traditional philosophical inquiry. Marx focuses on objective and empirical understandings of humanity by analysing historical development through a materialist framework.[13] In this historical materialist methodology, Marx focuses on economic systems as the primary feature which undergirds human development. This view creates a merely sociological understanding of humanity and politics, rather than a comprehensive metaphysical, moral, and psychological understanding as that of Kant. Moreover, Marx specifically identifies the economic relations between members of a society to be the most important feature of a society, rather than the sum of individuals themselves.
Due to his materialist ontological perspective, Marx isolates the economic base of human societies to be the primary starting point for understanding humanity and its political developments. This economic base includes 1) the factors and means of production, and 2) the relations of production. The first component — the factors and means of production — include human labour, raw materials like wood, ores, water, etc., and tools, like machinery, and infrastructure.[14] These factors and means of production are the primary units of economic productivity, while the relations of production inform and shape the social dynamics of economic activity. The relations of production include co-worker and manager-worker dynamics, as well as relations between workers and the objects of their labour.[15] Crucially, the relations of production, assuming there is an extent of private ownership over the means of production, creates an antagonistic class relation between the bourgeois (owners) and the proletariat (workers). As Marx states, it is “antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism, but of one arising from the social conditions of life of the individuals”, which stems from the relations of production in the society.[16]
We’ll return to that dynamic in a moment, as it is crucial in Marx’s understanding of human nature, but to complete his historical materialist account of humanity, we must briefly mention how the economic base instantiates the social superstructure. The superstructure, as Marx calls it, is the “sum of total of these economic relations . . . the real foundations, on which rise a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.”[17] Sociologically, all aspects of humanity and their societies are encapsulated within the superstructure: culture, politics, morality, religion, art. In essence, the superstructure is the political consequence of the economic base. Therefore, an economic base with estranged relations between the workers, their work, and the owner class creates an antagonistic superstructure. Whether it is the culture, art, religion, or politics, the tensions from the antagonism in the economic base are represented in the superstructure. Moreover, the superstructure serves the bourgeois class, and their grip on power over the means of production since they set the terms and conditions for the relations of production as the owners over the means of production. This historical materialist understanding of humanity inevitably shapes Marx’s analysis of humanity through a sociological lens, with very little importance given to individuals' contribution in the makeup of humanities development.
For Marx it is the socio-economic conditions that shape human consciousness, with individuals' independent cognition having very little to do in relation to the way their consciousness develops. It’s all very much a top-down analysis of human behaviour, in contrast to Kant’s recognition of both top down and bottom-up forces.
However, due to his traditional philosophical training which focused on thinkers such as Aristotle and Hegel, Marx had concern for human subjectivity, despite not giving it credit within his view of political development.[18] For Marx, humanity is defined by their creative and industrious capacities. But, in line with his materialistic worldview, it is not their creative thoughts and intentions that define the human spirit, but instead their actions and creations in the material world. Human beings for Marx are distinct from animals due to their desire for ornate architecture rather than crude shelter, delicately cooked foods rather than raw sustenance, and beautiful artworks to express themselves rather than undeveloped lesser forms of communication. As Marx says, “As individuals express their life, so they are. What they are, therefore, coincides with their production, both what they produce and with how they produce.”[19] Humanity is defined by our industrious and creative capacities, which are only actualized in the way that we interact and relate to the material world. This is where it is important to recognize how the relations between human beings within the means of production affects the development and actualization of humanity for Marx.
As mentioned previously, Marx points out that historically the relations of production have been estranged due to the private ownership over the means of production. This private ownership over the means of production creates a distinction between those who own the means of production, and those who merely work within the means of production, but do not own the products of their labour. Instead, they are compensated in other ways, like wages in a capitalist society. This is all part of how Marx says humanity becomes alienated through antagonistic means of production where one group of people have power and dominion over the economic base of a society.[20] In capitalist societies, it is a manifestation of private property.
This alienation not only extends to the proletariat being estranged from their work due to not owning the products/objects of their labour, but affects much more in human consciousness. Marx argues that this alienation happens in four ways, (1) alienation from the objects of their labour, (2) alienation from their own labour, (3) alienation from themselves, and finally (4) alienation from each other.[21] The objects of production (1), as well as the labour itself (2), become commodities in the society. The result of this objectification of labour and its products leads to the labourers feeling distant and estranged from themselves (3) since it is what we do and how we do it that defines our consciousness for Marx. The treatment of workers as commodities also alienates people from each other (4), and arguably the natural world at large. Labour becomes only a means to an end — food, shelter, and other products of sustenance or perhaps some modicum of entertainment — but not an end in itself. It becomes the alienation of humanity from itself, all due to the commodification of what fundamentally makes us human — our work and relationship with the material world.
The primary source of these antagonisms according to Marx in a capitalist society was the presupposition of private property.[22] Marx believed that it was a mistake to assume that private property was a necessary foundation for economic functions. Instead, he believed that if it were eliminated in favour of public ownership over the means of production, then a communist society would take shape. As Marx’s lifelong collaborator, Frederick Engels wrote in the predecessor to The Communist Manifesto, The Principles of Communism “the abolition of private property is, doubtless, the shortest and most significant way to characterize the [communist] revolution.”[23] Through the socialisation of the means of production, Marx and Engels thought that an egalitarian society would form since the primary antagonism for human relations would have been eliminated. In order to institute such social changes, Marx and Engels also advocated for revolutionary actions, which could even be justifiably violent, in order to create the utopian political order.[24] This political system would enable humanity to finally actualize itself. As he writes “In place of the old bourgeois society . . . we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”[25] This political system would not be contained to merely national state boundaries, but instead, since it was a consequence of class antagonisms that alienate humanity, it would develop into an international movement as workers would awaken to their oppression under systems that perpetuate private ownership.[26] The proletariat would rise as a class to institute revolutionary change, emancipating humanity to finally actualize itself through communitarian relations between individuals. Human history and progress have teleological ends for Marx, with a truly humane age, marked by the elimination of estranged relations of human beings with themselves, each other, their objects of production, and the world at large.
As we can see, there are multiple similarities between both thinkers as products of the age of Enlightenment. Both Kant and Marx begin with foundations of attempting to understand human nature, especially on a sociological level, in order to make political analysis and prescriptions. For Kant, human nature is fundamentally tied to our individual agency and ability to use reason which instantiates a rules-based liberal society that allows for the free and public use of practical reason. For Marx, human nature is fundamentally about the way that humans relate to their objective material world, and each other. Humans are creative and industrious creatures that express their true subjective nature through what they do and how they do it. Therefore, for Marx this view of human nature instantiates a communistic society where the material relations between human beings and their objective world are not antagonistic, but instead facilitate the full expression of human subjectivity.
Both thinkers are also intimately interested in attempting to emancipate humanity from whatever their diagnosis presents as the primary social ailment for human prosperity and progress. Kant argues that human beings' selfish, individualistic tendencies, while motivating social progress, also in some cases inhibit it. Instead of individuals recognizing the benefits from mutual cooperation, they sometimes greedily attempt to maintain authority through coercion which stifles the free use of reason to challenge orthodox opinions.[27] Thus, Kant believes that the primary social ailment which limits human progress is dogmatic authoritative structures, maintained by individuals in power for personal gain, which stop the free and public use of reason to guide human development. Marx also wants to emancipate humanity and facilitate progress, but he finds the primary social ailment to be not in any kind of individualistic instincts of self-preservation or complacency like Kant, but instead in the antagonisms prevalent in economic systems that create an owner class versus a worker class. The key function which creates this antagonism for the relations of human beings of course being the presupposition of private property in capitalist systems.
Interestingly, however, despite their differences in what the social ailment for political systems might be, both agree that social power plays an important role when attempting to understand politics. Both agree that a sociological perspective of humanity is necessary to diagnose obstacles to human progress, and for developing any solutions.
However, this is where the two thinkers depart. Kant fundamentally recognizes that humanity must be understood on the individual level of analysis as well as a sociological level. For Kant, humanity is the sum of individuals in a society, and as the sum of individuals, he maintains that each person's public use of reason is necessary for the overall social development of the species. He is also clear that this reason-based progress happens through a process of trial and error, via the individuals that comprise the society. As Kant remarks “all man’s talents are gradually developed . . . through progressive enlightenment.”[28] This progressive enlightenment of humanity happens through reason-based trial and error, where each individual who comprises society is taken to be a sovereign agent whose individual cognition and intentions which guide their actions manifest the sociological whole. These political insights are founded on metaphysical and moral foundations via Kant’s extensive philosophical inquiries.
Marx on the other hand overlooks individuals in favour for the relations that manifest society. As Marx writes “Society does not consist of individuals, but express the sum of interrelations.”[29] Marx only analysed individuals as units in a society, and how they relate with each other and their objective material world when establishing both his sociological analysis of human behaviour as well as his political diagnosis and prescriptions. Marx completely undermines human subjectivity as merely being a consequence of material relations, for “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.”[30] Despite Marx’s focus on human subjectivity via his analysis of humane alienation created by antagonistic relations of production, Marx overlooks individual human beings, and their agency as having any real effect on social development. Instead, his analysis is only a group-oriented description of humanity.
The perspective that each takes — Kant’s focus on individuals, and reason, Marx’s focus on group relations, and material/economic relations — has immense consequences on what political organisation they believe to be best to facilitate human progress. Marx’s communist prescription — while romantic in sentiment, and potent as far as highlighting unfair group dynamics, as well as insightful about humanity’s relations with the material world — ultimately fail due to their overly simplistic analysis of human nature. It completely overlooks the human soul; something Kant takes very seriously as evidenced through his Critical works to justify God, the soul, and free will. Communism presupposes that the fundamental feature of society is the sum of relations between individuals and their material world. This analysis completely leaves out the individual's cognition, reason, and actions from being of any substantial consequence for political development. Marx assumes that power structures without material antagonisms would produce a harmonious society based on free association;[31] however, he overlooks individual greed and their selfish use of power, as well as individuals’ sovereignty as rational, duty-bound agents. Through the various communist experiments throughout the twentieth century, this presupposition that forms the foundation of communism has been shown to be false. Regardless of country, dictatorships on behalf of the proletariat inevitably become controlled by authoritarian regimes which instantiate communal values by force, not free association.
By contrast, Kant’s political prescription of a rules-based liberal society, that facilitates both individual’s free, public use of reason while constraining individualistic impulses that destabilise society, and instead facilitate social cooperation, stem from a far more robust and complete analysis of human nature. Kant grounds his political prescriptions within metaphysical foundations that justify morality via freedom of the will, highlighting the importance of the practical use of our rational faculties. Therefore, when attempting to answer questions regarding human development, Kant maintains the individual's sovereign agency as primary, as well as their ability and, in fact, duty to use reason for guiding their actions as either good or bad, right or wrong: moral. This belief in the individual, while also recognizing humans to be a social animal, requiring a sociological level of analysis to fully comprehend, makes Kant’s political theory a much more comprehensive and complete description of how humans act politically, and how they should best organise to live good lives.
Perhaps the strongest evidence for this argument of Marxism versus Kantian political philosophy is how history has unfolded over the previous century. While both philosophers have had an immense impact on debates regarding politics, one would be hard pressed to argue that Marx’s philosophy has caused more good than harm. Based on a book published by Harvard University Press, throughout the various communist regimes that ruled in the twentieth century, over 100 million people perished due to Marx’s political prescription.[32] Although some argue that these regimes were not a true representation of communism, instead being interpretations via Stalin, Lenin, or Mao, it’s hard not to lay the blame at least in part at Marx’s feet. His Communist Manifesto after all does not have concrete descriptions of how the society should be set up, but in his work he does justify violence and dictatorships in order to institute the communist utopia.[33] [34]
While Marx’s prescriptions entailed the deaths of millions, Kant’s have facilitated the rules-based international order that we currently have. Although realist cynics argue that the liberal international order is merely a set of institutions that benefit the powerful states within the international system, it can also be argued that the order has facilitated peace between great powers.[35] Furthermore, although liberalism has many issues, no other political prescription has enabled the emancipation of so many minorities, or created so much material prosperity through capitalism. Although there are many flaws and inconsistencies within liberalism which require critique and reform, liberalism has facilitated the highest degree of enlightened progress. As Kant argues, the development of humanity is not perfect, but guided by the free and public use of reason, humanity can correct errors to continue its development.
Due to Kant’s emphasis on the role that individuals play in society, and his more comprehensive account of human nature, Kant's political prescriptions are superior to Marx's. Marx takes an overly simplistic view on human nature, chalking society up to merely be the sum of relations between individuals. Although Marx is very insightful regarding the antagonisms that are created due to estranged relations of productions stemming from the presupposition of private property in capitalist societies, his prescription of communism is not a good one. It only focuses on the relations that comprise the society, and therefore it leaves the door open to the innumerable ways the individuals affect a society. Conversely, Kant’s prescription is robust and much more complete because he not only justifies why moral actions matter metaphysically, but this also explains why individuals' use of practical reason is so important for societal development. Kant does not presume the complexity of human nature, he merely asserts that reason is what distinguishes us from animals, and that the free and public use of reason is what creates progress. Although Kant’s political philosophy still has internal tensions, is has done a better job than Marxism at diagnosing human nature and how that nature naturally develops politically, as evidenced by the twentieth century.
Footnotes
[1] R. Lanier Anderson, “Transcendental Idealism as Formal Idealism,” European Journal of Philosophy 30, no. 3 (2022): p. 14.
[2] A. C. Grayling, The History of Philosophy, p.262.
[3] Karl Marx, “The German Ideology: Part 1” in The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. Robert C. Tucker, p. 150.
[4] Ibid, “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,”, p. 70-71.
[5] James O'Shea, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: An Introduction and Interpretation, p. 28.
[6] R. Lanier Anderson, “Transcendental Idealism as Formal Idealism,” European Journal of Philosophy 30, no. 3 (2022): p. 14
[7] Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, ed. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (‘limited’ is used in place of ‘I had to deny’), p. 117. (B xxx)
[8] Ibid, “An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?,” p. 42.
[9] Ibid, “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent,” p. 29.
[10] Ibid, “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent,” p. 32.
[11] Ibid, p. 30.
[12] Ibid, “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent,” p. 38.
[13] A. C. Grayling, The History of Philosophy, p. 312.
[14] Derek Ford, “The Base-Superstructure: A Model for Analysis and Action,” Liberation School – Revolutionary Marxism for a New Generation of Fighters, October 3, 2022.
[15] Karl Marx, “Marx on the History of His Opinions” in The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. Robert C. Tucker, p. 4.
[16] Ibid, p. 5.
[17] Ibid, p. 4.
[18] Robert C. Tucker, Introduction to “To Make the World Philosophical.” in The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. Robert C. Tucker, p. 9.
[19] Karl Marx, “The German Ideology: Part 1”, p. 150.
[20] Ibid, “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,” p. 70.
[21] Ibid, p. 75-77.
[22] Ibid, p. 70.
[23] Frederick Engels, “The Principles of Communism,” trans. Paul Sweezy, Marxists.org, 2005, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, “The Communist Manifesto”, p. 491.
[26] Ibid, p. 500.
[27] Immanuel Kant, “An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?,” p. 41.
[28] Ibid, “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent,” p. 41.
[29] Karl Marx, “The Grundrisse”, p. 247.
[30] Ibid, “Marx on the History of His Opinions (Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy),”p. 4.
[31] Ibid, “After the Revolution: Marx Debates Bakunin,” 546.
[32] Courtois Stéphane and Mark Kramer, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, p. 4.
[33] Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, “The Communist Manifesto”, p. 500. Mentions forcible overthrow. p. 220
[34] Ibid, “Class Struggle and Mode of Production,” p. 220. Mentions Proletarian Dictatorship after overthrow of the bourgeois government.
[35] Christopher J. Fettweis, “Unipolarity, Hegemony, and the New Peace,” Security Studies 26, no. 3 (August 2017): pp. 423.
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