What Marx Really Said

The principle of the division of labor does not operate automatically. While different persons can have different occupations or expertise of potential benefit to all, the benefit is not guaranteed. Each person involved must still make sure that he gets the best available information about where the best goods and services may be acquired.

All of this holds for the principle as it applies to the realm of the intellect. We cannot all be scholars in all fields; nor can everyone study all the important people who have contributed to the field in which one wishes to make some creative advance. So we need to find out who can best tell us what is most important about some set of ideas.

Although I have read a good deal of Marx and Engles, I have always been interested mainly in their philosophical writings. I wanted to know what are the philosophical underpinnings of Marxism, not so much what Marx believed in the area of economics, world history or the future of the working class. True, with Marx, as with most systematic thinkers, the entire position is more of a spider’s web than an edifice, so it isn’t always clear just what is basic to the viewpoint as a whole. It is in that area that others may teach us most.

Everyone concerned with political problems will have occasion to face Marx’s ideas. And everyone concerned with political problems needs a clear guide to Marx’s thought. H. B. Acton’s book What Marx Really Said is one of the best available to gain a concise but very well-balanced account of Marx’s views. Acton moves from a consideration of the origins of Marxism through chapters on Marxist materialism, historical materialism, profit and exploitation, revolution, the state and the communist ideal, to a conclusion that may surprise some: that for Marx, “social revolution by the working class under the correct leadership was the aim to which everything else was subordinated.”

In the process, through these several stages, the reader is offered a clear account of Marxism, one that is well supported by quotations and historical sketches, helpful to Marx’s ideas where Marx himself is cumbersome and even riddled through with pitfalls. Acton’s writing is fresh, without any of the contortions that one generally finds in commentaries on Marx, and far more honest than what one finds on most bookshelves today. The emphasis is not on Marx’s “early manuscripts,” papers that Marx himself never saw through publication, but on Marxism as a whole.

H. B. Acton is one of those writers whom I respect—I reviewed his more recent book The Morals of Markets some months ago for BFL. There are a few points in his interpretation of Marx which I would criticize in a more detailed discussion—e.g. that Marx was in fact analyzing laissezfaire capitalism and the claim he makes in his conclusion that “individualistic atheism was Marx’s starting-point, the background to all he strove to attain.” But these are complicated, somewhat cursory statements in the work, hardly worth concern. Certainly they do not mar the excellent exposition of Marx’s ideas which the book contains.

One piece of advice which I often give my students is that although obviously they won’t have time to answer all the questions that pop into their minds while confronting some issue, they will do well to refrain from concluding that they cannot be answered simply because they do not choose to go after the answer. Instead, they would do better to decline forming conclusions on the topic at hand. Accordingly, I might simply say here that while Marx is not among the most important thinkers in human history (where truth, goodness or beauty are concerned), he is significant enough that we should not be misinformed about him. If you must offer judgements on Marx, but do not choose to do the research yourself, Acton’s book is among the best short, clear and eminently accurate introductions you could read. It is good enough to rely on—and we do need to find reliable information to make the many choices which can benefit us in all aspects of our lives.

Reviewed by Tibor R. Machan / Political Philosophy (148 Pages, Indexed) / BFL Price $1.95