Marx’s Critique of Hegel and Feuerbach: Materialism and Alienation
Critique of Hegel’s Idealism
For Hegel, “all that is rational is real and what is real is rational.” Reality is therefore a rational nature, reducible to the idea, giving primacy to the subject over the object. Marx argues that knowledge is not only theoretical but also practical (praxis). Reality is not the idea but matter (naturaleza). Outside of nature, there is nothing; thus, higher beings are imaginations.
Criticism of Feuerbach
Marx’s historical materialism critiques Feuerbach’s mechanical materialism for its limitations: it cannot conceive of the world as a process, as matter subject to historical development. For Feuerbach, movement always produces the same results, and he considers man as a practical being.
Historical Materialism
Historical materialism interprets history through the material world. Human history is determined not by the spirit (Hegel) but by the economic relations of production (Marx). History is a dialectical process, a series of contradictions in the economic structure, manifested in class struggle. The motor of history is the contradiction between productive forces and production relations. There is a relationship between the infrastructure (productive forces and relations of production) and the superstructure (ideas shaping social conscience). History aims at the disappearance of classes and the establishment of communism.
Dialectical Materialism
Dialectical materialism views material reality as dynamic and self-moving, subject to the laws of dialectics. For Hegel, reality is the idea, a dynamic contradiction that leads to alienation. Hegel’s dialectic has three moments: The idea is “in itself” (what is), antithesis (the idea goes out of itself), and synthesis (the idea is reunited with itself). Alienation is necessary for understanding and synthesis.
Marx’s Theory of Alienation
Marx identified three types of alienation:
- Religion: Man projects his qualities onto God, becoming alienated. Realization that God is a projection leads to the denial of God and overcoming alienation.
- Socio-economic: Man is dominated by selfish interests and is a political instrument of the ruling class.
- Economic: Rooted in the capitalist system, it is the basis of other alienations. Work is the essence of human nature, through which man manifests in the products of his work. If there is no reunion, the worker is alienated, attributing their qualities to another being.
Alienation occurs at two levels:
- The relationship of the worker to the product of their work: Considering the products as separate from oneself leads to self-distancing.
- The act of work itself: The worker sells their labor, becoming an instrument of another.
The concept of surplus value explains how the employer grows richer while the worker grows poorer: the worker produces a surplus that goes to the entrepreneur. For Marx, ideologies are distortions of reality. Alienations and ideologies will disappear with classes in a communist society. Man is the supreme value, an end in himself, and this brings freedom, condemning slavery such as alienation. Man is dynamic, in constant development. Man transforms reality through praxis. Marx’s humanism is ethical, atheist, materialist, economic, community-oriented, and scientifically revolutionary.