In reflecting on my “sermon” yesterday (Republican Virtue and the Unchained Prometheus: The Crossroads of Moral Restraint and the Iron Cage of Rationality), I thought it necessary to present a critique of Karl Marx’s observation regarding the production of ideas and the relation of the means of production, a subject about which I have written many times. In approaching this matter, I have quoted favorably part of a passage from his 1845 The German Ideology, which establishes an essential truth, one I still find compelling:
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class that has the means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence, of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess, among other things, consciousness and, therefore, think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.
However, Marx immediately follows this with an example that gets to the heart of the problem with communist thinking, that of reductionism: “For instance, in an age and in a country where royal power, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie are contending for mastery and where, therefore, mastery is shared, the doctrine of the separation of powers proves to be the dominant idea and is expressed as an ‘eternal law.’” In this example, the reader is to accept that the principle of separation of powers is an ideology that disguises ruling class power by projecting the principle as a universal one rather than an emergent or practical doctrine that prevents the domination of any one party in a reasonable system checked by ethical ideals that may, in fact, be rooted in human nature (Marx has a tortured relationship with human nature, as readers will soon see). In the case of ideals that elevate liberty above tyranny, such as those of a free republic, separation of powers may not be ideological deception but rather an arrangement that preserves liberty for all by constraining both the tyranny of the majority and rule by the minority of the opulent, and by giving a voice to the people.
Let’s allow Marx to continue for a moment longer:
If now in considering the course of history we detach the ideas of the ruling class from the ruling class itself and attribute to them an independent existence, if we confine ourselves to saying that these or those ideas were dominant at a given time, without bothering ourselves about the conditions of production the producers of these ideas, if we thus ignore the individuals and world conditions which are the source of the ideas, we can say, for instance, that during the time that the aristocracy was dominant, the concepts honor, loyalty, etc. were dominant, during the dominance of the bourgeoisie the concepts freedom, equality, etc. The ruling class itself, on the whole, imagines this to be so. This conception of history, which is common to all historians, particularly since the eighteenth century, will necessarily come up against the phenomenon that increasingly abstract ideas hold sway, i.e., ideas which increasingly take on the form of universality. For each new class which puts itself in the place of one ruling before it, is compelled, merely in order to carry through its aim, to represent its interest as the common interest of all the members of society, that is, expressed in ideal form: it has to give its ideas the form of universality, and represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones.
The reader might suspect here that Marx talks himself out of his own position, since it is the ideals of duty, freedom, equality, and so forth, ideals that represent the common interests of all members of society, that come to hold sway in development and thus limit the actions of the ruling class. Is that not a good thing? Should we not recognize this before rejecting the separation of powers and putting our fate into the hands of the masses (direct democracy, i.e., majoritarianism) or a vanguard that claims to represent the popular interests with no checks on its power (i.e., the dictatorship of the proletariat)? Rejecting these ideals as inverted projections of aristocratic and bourgeois power risks abandoning them to mob rule or to the channeling of those passions by a new aristocracy for its own ends, whether in the form of a communist or corporate (read fascist) master, rather than grasping that some arrangements allow human nature to find its expression in just social arrangements in free and open relations—such as those identified in yesterday’s essay.
Marx’s claim that the ruling class in every era (except the original one, which I will come to) controls not only the material foundations of society but also its intellectual life has long been regarded as one of his most penetrating insights. Again, I have quoted the useful part of his formulation several times on this platform. I do find it useful, especially with the emergence of the corporate state and technocratic rule under late capitalism. But in light of what I have just presented, revisiting that formulation becomes a necessity; I cannot just leave that “out there.” Marx’s assertion that “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas” precludes the possibility that the ideas that it manufactures serve other interests beyond those of the ruling class. To be sure, ideas are ultimately expressions of underlying material relationships, but these relationships are determined by really-existing human beings; dominant moral or political concepts are not merely notions articulating and justifying the interests of the class that rules. While Marx’s argument rightly underscores the intimate connection between power and the circulation of ideas, Marx extends the claim in a way that exposes the limitations of his framework, ultimately undermining his attempt to reduce political ideals to mere instruments of class domination.
One might object that The German Ideology was an immature work. Marx was, after all, only 27 years old. But the formulation Marx sets down here informs decades of his work. He repeats in so many words the formulation in the Preface to his 1859 Introduction to a Critique of Political Economy: “In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political, and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.” This is a solid critique of idealism, but what about human nature? Is it possible that social consciousness is, at least to some degree, rooted in the anthropology of our species?
Marx’s own example of the separation of powers in The German Ideology illustrates the problem. He argues that in a society where the aristocracy, bourgeoisie, and monarchy compete for power, the separation of powers becomes the prevailing doctrine, presented as an “eternal law,” though it merely reflects the accommodation among ruling groups. In this reading, the principle of divided government is not a constitutional innovation grounded in moral or practical insight but a veil concealing shared domination. This interpretation ignores why such principles emerge in the first place: not as disguises or distortions but as carefully crafted mechanisms that prevent precisely the kinds of domination that Marx suggests they hide.
Consider the American Republic. In a republic committed to preserving liberty, the separation of powers operates as a check on both the tyranny of the majority and the concentration of authority in the hands of the wealthy. It is not ideological mystification but a structural arrangement that protects the freedom of all by limiting the capacity of any faction to rule unchecked—the opposite of what is desired by the corporate state represented by the Democratic Party and those elements of the Republican establishment that oppose the return to constitutional principle. (Speaking of young men, Alexander Hamilton, one of the principal designers of federalism, was not much older than Marx when he penned 51 of the Federalist Papers’ 85 installments that helped secure the Constitution’s ratification in 1788.)
The tension in Marx’s account becomes sharper as he goes on. He notes that historians often speak of different ages as being governed by different dominant ideals—again, honor under aristocracy, equality and freedom under the bourgeoisie—and he insists that these are merely the ruling class projecting its own interests in universal form. Yet he also describes the way such ideals assume an increasingly abstract and universal character, appealing to members of all classes. What explains this? The stupidity of the common man? Perhaps. Marx does portray this as a necessary tactic of every new ruling class: its interests must be presented as the interests of all, and its concepts must appear as universally valid principles. But in characterizing the process this way, Marx acknowledges that these ideals take on an authority that exceeds the narrow interests of any particular group. Moreover, by reducing these to class power (as he does in the 1959 Preface), he precludes the possibility that these ideas may exist in human nature, finding their expression in social arrangements appropriate to that nature. Could it be that concepts such as duty, equality, liberty, and constitutional restraint resonate across social boundaries not because they serve a ruling class, but because they articulate widely felt moral intuitions and fundamental features of human social life?
I need to bring into the discussion Marx’s concept of “species-being” (Gattungswesen) presented in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. His conception of human nature provides a critical lens through which to evaluate his account of ruling ideas. Here, for Marx, humans are essentially creative and social beings whose nature is realized through conscious, productive activity shared with others. Labor is not merely a means of survival but a vehicle for self-expression and the fulfillment of human potential (echoes of John Locke). Yet in The German Ideology, he reduces moral and political ideals to instruments of class domination, leaving little room to consider how these ideals might genuinely facilitate the realization of species-being. Principles such as equality and liberty, and their elevation through constitutional government (or their expression under the original conditions of primitive communism, i.e., hunter and gatherer societies), do more than conceal or obscure ruling-class interests—they create social conditions under which humans can exercise their inherent capacities for cooperation, creativity, and rational deliberation.
Viewed through the lens of species-being, then, universal ideals may be understood not merely as ideological projections but as giving rise to structures that enable humans to develop and express their essential nature. Thus, Marx’s framework contains the seeds of a tension (not unexpected in the dialectical working out of opposing ideas if we are to be charitable): if human nature is cooperative and creative, i.e., social in a uniquely human way, some moral and political ideals must have real normative force, independent of ruling-class interests, because they sustain the conditions necessary for human flourishing. How would our species otherwise have survived for hundreds of thousands of years of its existence? Surely, we can assume that such conditions are to some significant extent universal; we are, after all, all members of the same species. Given this, does it now follow that some conditions facilitate the expression of that nature, while other conditions corrupt and suppress it?
There is a normative contradiction in Marx’s theory: Marx denies that universal moral ideals possess genuine validity, yet he relies on a universal moral horizon—human emancipation rooted in a conception of species-being—to condemn class domination. This view is even more problematic given the fact of individual differentiation across a range of attributes (Marx does not deny the Darwinian conception of natural history, nor should he). It follows from the stubborn truth of human differences that, with the complexification of social ecology over time, driven by technological innovation, itself an expression of man’s creativity, social segmentation is an inevitable development. It was his colleague, Frederich Engels, in part relying on Marx’s notes concerning Lewis Henry Morgan’s 1877 Ancient Society, who made this very argument in explaining the emergence of social class in his 1884 The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. To put this another way, Marx treats all universals as ideological illusions while simultaneously appealing to a universal to ground his critique: again, the original conditions of humanity, primitive communism, the condition before the segmentation of human society.
Secondly, there is a historical contradiction: Marx claims that ruling ideas exist to reinforce ruling-class power, but the very political institutions he dismisses as ideological—bills of rights, checks on authority, constitutions, representative assemblies—have, uncorrupted by ideology and money-power, functioned precisely to limit the power of elites, thus creating the grounds for equality before the law, which Marx cannot easily dismiss as an ideological prop. Although he attempts to reduce formal equality and all the rest of it to ideological tools of ruling class power, these institutions have constrained monarchs, curbed aristocratic privilege, and held economic elites accountable to broader publics. Their effect and purpose have been to redistribute power, not conceal it—first civil rights, then political rights, and finally social rights (as T.H. Marshall showed in his seminal 1949 essay “Citizenship and Social Class”). Marx’s framework cannot account for such developments without mischaracterizing them.
What Marx misses—or conveniently skirts—is that many political ideals and institutions endure not because they mystify domination but because they successfully channel enduring features of human nature, which, I argue in this previous essay, are realized through Protestantism. Marx says as much in one of his earliest works. I have discussed this matter before, but it takes on new significance for me considering what I am grappling with in these essays. In “On the Jewish Question,” published in 1844, Marx contrasts what he calls “theoretical Christianity” with “practical Judaism” to illustrate his concern with the relationship between ideas and material life. Anticipating Max Weber, Marx characterizes theoretical Christianity as a religion of abstract, universal principles, emphasizing contemplation and moral ideals rather than concrete human needs or social relations (see Anticipating Weber: Revisiting Marx and the “Jewish Question”). Practical Judaism, in contrast, is oriented toward everyday life, the world of commerce, property, and sensuous (sinnlich) social activity. Yet, as Weber suggests, Protestantism permits Christians to pursue the worldly pursuits Judaism valorizes within moral constraints that emerge from a cultural system that cannot be reduced to material relations.
By drawing this distinction, Marx argues that genuine human liberation requires attention to material and social conditions, not just abstract legal or moral principles. My reaction to this observation now is: of course. But more must be said; for human beings, made aware of their individuality, their creative productive power, desire liberty, resent arbitrary power, respond to principles of equality and fairness, and seek institutions that distribute authority in ways that protect against abuses. Their individuality is an a priori condition unrealized by millennia of subjection.
A communist would find individualism a barrier to the project to reconstruct society along collectivist lines, since he would have to suppose that individuality is not a product of a constrained human nature, as Thomas Sowell puts it, constraints imposed not by subjection but by natural history, but rather an infinitely malleable nature, which is to say no nature at all. Yet constitutional structures such as the separation of powers survive because they work for all, not because they allow one group to exploit and oppress the other; they bind rulers and ruled alike, limit the sway of passion and unbridled self-interest, and make room for the exercise of reason regulated by civic responsibility and deliberation, which are simultaneously self-interested and solidarity-building. These practices reflect insights into human nature that transcend class interest, and they represent achievements in political thought that Marx’s reductionist framework cannot—or dare not—fully acknowledge.
I will, of course, defend Marx’s desire for a more equitable social result. He saw collectivism as a means to greater individual liberty; with exclusive control over the productive means of production, the people would be a liberty to produce for themselves. It may very well be the case that the emerging automated society will, if the people demand it, free all from necessary labor (if they don’t, then neofeudalism and administrative management is likely mankind’s fate). But, in the end, and it pains me to admit this, Marx hobbles his own argument. By reducing ideals such as equality, liberty, and the rule of law to ideological projections, he obscures the fact that these ideals—again, uncorrupted by ideology and money-power—serve as constraints on the very powers he believes they rationalize.
Marx recognizes that universal principles come to dominate political discourse, yet he cannot explain their force without conceding, however obscuring that concession in a barrage of verbiage, that they speak to genuine human concerns. Thus, in opposition to his point, the universalization of such ideas does not merely disguise class rule—it limits it. In the final analysis, the most coherent conclusion is not Marx’s explicit one, but the one he tries to avoid: that certain political ideals and constitutional forms are not tools of domination but the means by which free people secure just social relations against domination in the first place.
This is why we must reject the claim that the desire for more equitable social arrangements is the exclusive domain of those advocating social justice. Might more just social arrangements be achieved by pushing even further the liberal ideals that have emancipated over the centuries and across the planet billions of human beings from communism, fascism, monarchy, and primitive religion? The question answers itself. We certainly don’t need to wonder what will happen to democracy and liberty under communist rule. Humanity already tried that. With terrible results.
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I want to append to this essay a few kind words about Karl Marx, since it may seem that I am abandoning him, especially in light of my recent alignment with populist politics, where so many resist appreciating the man’s contributions to the scientific study of economics and history. I have argued before that Marxian thought—not his political project, but his contribution to anthropology and sociology—ought to serve as a foundational paradigm for the social sciences, including the study of history. In Marx and Darwin: Pioneers of Scientific Inquiry in Social and Natural History, I clarify that when I say I identify as a Marxist, I mean it in the same way one might say they identify as a Darwinist. In the annals of intellectual history, Marx is to social history what Darwin is to natural history.
In Marxist but not Socialist, I elaborate on this point by citing Christopher Hitchens’ remark during a 2006 town hall in Pennsylvania: “I am no longer a socialist, but I still am a Marxist.” Hitchens explained that he remained impressed by Marxism’s analytical rigor and historical insight—its capacity to illuminate the deep structures and internal contradictions of capitalist society, and to reveal the underlying causes of inequality and social unrest. He was particularly drawn to Marxism’s emphasis on economic justice: its vision of a society in which opportunities and resources are more equitably distributed and the needs of the many take precedence over the privileges of the few. (See also Why I am not a Socialist.)
Hitchens, of course, began his political life as a committed socialist, deeply involved with the International Socialists, a Trotskyist organization. Over time, he became disillusioned with socialism as a workable political project. By the 1990s and 2000s, he believed that much of what passed for socialism had degenerated into a form of corrupt populism, and he no longer regarded the international working-class movement he had once envisioned as a plausible engine of global change. This growing disappointment led him to step back from socialism as a political goal. He also came to see capitalism as a far more revolutionary force for good; in his estimation, the bourgeois revolution still had unfinished business.
After 9/11, Hitchens aligned himself with certain strands of neoconservative foreign policy. This shift reflected his deep loathing of clerical fascism, particularly in its contemporary Islamic form. He came to view the struggle against Islam and other totalitarian movements as a moral imperative. This stance placed him at odds with much of the left (this would be even more true today), even though he remained steadfast in his defense of liberal, secular values against what he perceived as existential threats. Throughout all this, he upheld his commitments to civil liberties and human rights. (Then again, today’s left can hardly be counted upon to defend liberal, secular values, civil liberties, and all the rest of it. Indeed, the New Left appears to be very much against these Old Left ideas.)
Despite these political shifts, Hitchens continued to describe himself as a Marxist—intellectually, if not politically. It is in this sense that I echo his formulation: Marxist, but not socialist. What he sought to preserve in Marxism is the same thing I aim to preserve: the method, specifically, the materialist conception of history. This approach holds that economic and material forces—rather than ideals or metaphysical motivations—ultimately drive the development of human societies. No Geist is unfolding the world toward a teleological end. Like Hitchens, I still regard Marx’s analytical framework as an effective tool for understanding historical dynamics and the transformative power of capitalism, even as I reject socialist politics in practice.
freedom and reason 