Rawls J. Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy

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2. The point of Marx’s labor theory of value can perhaps be brought

out as follows. Consider the objection to Marx’s view that says that just as

Marx attributes the total output to labor, we can, if we like, attribute the to-

tal output to capital, or to land, and conclude that capital, or land, is ex-

ploited.

In this case, land or capital, whichever we pick, produces more

than is necessary to reproduce itself and so it yields a surplus. If, as factors

of production, capital, land, and labor are to be viewed as perfectly sym-

metrical, we can indeed do this. Marx would consider it a formal trick: his

point, as I have said, is that capital, land, on the one hand, and labor, on the

other, are not to be viewed symmetrically.

Rather, he thinks that human labor is the sole factor of production that

is relevant from a social point of view in considering the justice of eco-

nomic institutions. This being so, pure proﬁt, interest, and rent, as returns

of pure ownership, are to be attributed to labor. These returns are viewed

as paid out of the product of surplus labor, and they are equal to the total

value produced by labor minus the amount that is consumed by labor itself.

Thus, I take Marx to say that when we step back from the various

modes of production that have existed historically, and which will exist, we

must of course recognize that capital and land are productive. But from the

point of view of the members of society, as they might consider together

these modes of production, the only relevant social resource is their com-

bined labor. What concerns them is how social and economic institutions

are to be organized so that they can cooperate on fair terms and use their

combined labor effectively with the forces of nature in ways to be decided

by society as a whole. I think this idea underlies Marx’s vision of a society

of freely associated workers. See Capital, Vol. I, Chapter 1, §4 (Tucker,

p. 327), where Marx says: “The life-process of society, which is based on the

process of material production, does not strip off its mystical veil until it is

treated as production by freely associated men, and is consciously regulated

by them in accordance with a settled plan. This, however, demands for soci-

ety a certain material ground-work or set of conditions of existence which

in their turn are the spontaneous product of a long and painful process of

development.”

3. I believe that Marx takes for granted the idea that people’s combined

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His Conception of Right and Justice

16. See the Generalized Commodity Exploitation Theorem, as proved in John

Roemer’s Value, Exploitation, and Class (New York: Horwood, 1986), in §3.2.

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labor is the only relevant social resource. For him, this basic point of view is

obvious; and so, for him the basic idea of the labor theory of value is like-

wise obvious. A capital or a land theory of value that says that capital or

land is exploited is simply frivolous. A society does hold and has control

over certain productive natural resources; but from the point of view of the

members of society in their social relations, the relevant resource they have

as human beings is simply their labor and how they can best use it in accor-

dance with a plan settled upon openly and democratically. This we will dis-

cuss in the next lecture.

Marx supposes, then, that all members of society equally have a claim,

resting on justice, to full access to and the use of society’s means of produc-

tion and natural resources. The basic question is how those means are to be

effectively used, the work shared and commodities goods produced, and

the rest. Therefore, for him pure economic rent of property ownership is

unjust because it in effect denies just claims to access and use, and any sys-

tem instituting such rent is a system of domination and exploitation. And

this is why he describes capitalists’ appropriation of the product of surplus

labor by such terms as robbery and embezzlement, forced labor and theft.

4. We have seen that Marx in Capital does not deny that capitalism as an

economic and social mode of production has a fundamental historical role.

It is the enormous achievement of capitalism to build up the means of pro-

duction and to make possible the communist society of the future. That is

the historical role of capitalism as a system of domination and exploitation.

One aim of Capital is to explain this historical role and to describe the his-

torical process by which it has been accomplished.

But in Marx’s day, capitalism has already fulﬁlled its historical role, and

another aim of Marx’s Capital is to hasten its passing. Marx thinks that once

we understand how capitalism works, we will recognize it as a system of

exploitation—a system in which labor is made to work for a certain period

of time in exchange for nothing (unpaid labor). We will see it as a system

based on concealed theft. He assumes that we all implicitly accept the fun-

damental idea that labor is the only socially relevant resource as we all to-

gether, as a society, face nature. He assumes also that all of us should fairly

share in doing the work of society and have an equal access to and use of

its means of production and natural resources. This is why he rejects the le-

gitimacy of private property in the means of production in its distributive

role as inconsistent with basic justice.

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I conclude by reminding you that I have not commented on whether

Marx’s various ideas about the justice and the injustice of capitalism are re-

ally consistent. Can we say that the basis on which he seems to say that cap-

italism is not unjust is consistent with his describing it as a system of forced

labor and concealed theft? Is it consistent with his idea that human labor is

the only relevant factor of production from a social point of view, and that

all members of society equally have claim to have access to and to be able

to use society’s means of production and natural resources? I think Marx’s

various ideas about justice can be understood so as to be consistent with

one another, and I begin with this in the next lecture.

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His Conception of Right and Justice

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His Ideal: A Society of Freely Associated Producers

§1. Are Marx’s Ideas about Justice Consistent?

1. In the last lecture I discussed three things:

(a) Passages in which Marx may appear to say that capitalism is just, or

at least not unjust.

(b) Passages in which Marx says things that imply that capitalism is un-

just, e.g. by characterizing the appropriation of surplus value with such ex-

pressions as “forced labor,” “embezzlement, “concealed theft.”

marginal productivity theory of distribution as justifying the resulting dis-

tribution under capitalism; after which I suggested that Marx thought that:

(i) the total of human labor of society is the only relevant factor of

production from a social point of view—from our point of view:

the point of view of all the members of society as freely associ-

ated producers. And:

(ii) all members of society—all freely associated producers—equally

have a claim to have access to and use society’s means of produc-

tion and natural resources.

2. While the various things Marx says about justice may appear contra-

dictory, I think they can be made consistent as follows:

(a) In regard to the passages in which Marx may appear to say that cap-

italism is just (by the conception of justice adequate to it in its historical

period), we say that he is describing the ideological consciousness of cap-

italist societies and the juridical conception of justice expressed by the legal

system of a capitalist social order. When Marx says that a certain juridical

conception of justice is adequate to capitalism and is appropriately adapted

to its operating requirements, he does not mean to endorse this conception

of justice. He is commenting on the juridical conception of justice ade-

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quate to capitalism: on how this conception of justice works and its social

role; and on the way it shapes ideas about justice held by capitalists and

workers alike.

(b) If this interpretation of Marx’s view of the juridical conception of

justice is correct, then his ideas of justice are consistent. We simply say that

in describing capitalist appropriation of surplus labor by such terms as

“forced labor,” “embezzlement,” and “concealed theft,” he is expressing his

own convictions. He implies that capitalist appropriation is unjust, but he

doesn’t expressly say so in so many words, and may not be aware of the full

implications of what he says.

of production from a social point of view, and the further claim that all

equally have a claim to access and use of society’s means of production and

natural resources, let’s say the following:

(i) This is the conception of justice that underlies Marx’s describing

capitalist appropriation as robbery, embezzlement, and the rest,

since private property in the means of production violates that

equal claim. Moreover,

(ii) This conception of justice is not relative to historical conditions

in the way that the different juridical conceptions of justice were

adequate to slavery in the ancient world, or to the feudalism of

the medieval world, or are adequate to capitalism in the modern

world. These conceptions are each relative to historical condi-

tions and are adequate only in their particular historical period.

In the same terms Marx condemns all these modes of production

and their associated juridical conceptions of justice. The idea that

human labor is the only relevant factor of production always

holds, and so he rejects all the social forms of prehistory

as at

bottom unjust in the light of this standard.

(iii) The fact that a society of freely associated producers cannot be

realized under all historical conditions, and must wait for cap-

italism to build up the means of production and the accompany-

ing technological know-how, does not make the ideal of such a

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A Society of Freely Associated Producers

1. Marx speaks of the historical process leading up to capitalism (that of divorcing the

producer from the means of production) as the “pre-historic stage of capitalism” (Capital,

Vol. I, Tucker, pp. 714f ); and of all the processes leading to his desired end stage of a soci-

ety of freely associated producers as, simply, “prehistory.”

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society a relativist one. It simply means that Marx’s own political

conception of justice with its related ideals can only be fully real-

ized under certain conditions; but this is true of all conceptions

and ideals.

(iv) By contrast, the juridical conceptions of justice adequate to slav-

ery, feudalism, and capitalism are never valid. Rather, they serve

an essential historical and instrumental purpose during a certain

period of time. At best the societies to whose modes of produc-

tion they are adequate can be excused or mitigated, but only in-

sofar as they are necessary stages on the way to a society of

freely associated producers at the end of prehistory.

§2. Why Marx Does Not Discuss Ideas of Justice Explicitly

1. It is nevertheless puzzling that, if Marx’s ideas about justice are con-

sistent, he did not discuss them at least enough to remove the ambiguities

as to what he believed. Of course, as I have said, he seems never to have

thought systematically about justice and regarded many other topics as far

more urgent. But there seem to have been other reasons that moved him. I

mention several.

(a) One reason is that he opposed the utopian socialists. This connects

with Marx’s saying: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in

various ways; the point, however, is to change it” (Thesis XI on Feuerbach,

Tucker, 145; Marx’s italics). This connects also with Marx’s effort in Capital

to discern the “laws of motion” of capitalism and to ﬁgure out how it really

worked, so that when historical conditions were ripe we would know how

to act in a realistically informed way.

(b) A second reason for his not discussing his ideas of justice is that

Marx opposes reformism and the tendency to focus on issues of distributive

justice, that is, on the distribution of income and wealth and on raising

wages, as narrowly conceived. Of course, he was not opposed to raising

wages as such, and he urges workers to continue their struggle with cap-

italists to raise them. But he felt they should do so as part of their efforts to

further the economic reconstruction of society. In a lecture given in Lon-

don in 1865 to the General Council of the First International, he says: “In-

stead of the conservative motto, ‘A fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work,’ they

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[the workers] ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watch-

word: ‘Abolition of the wages system.’”

of the working class to realize its aims. The underdeveloped condition of

that class, and the economic circumstances necessary for its emancipation,

made it impossible for the utopian socialists to develop a realistic theoretical

conception of the conditions required for the successful achievement of

these aims. Instead, these writers suppose that there is some new social sci-

ence based on a conception of the future that will enable them to create

the necessary conditions for emancipation by personal intervention from

above, or by moral persuasion. The utopian socialists do not regard the

working class as the agent of its own emancipation, as Marx thinks it must

be. Rather, they regard the working class simply as the most suffering class.

It is not regarded, as Marx regards it, as politically active and as moved by

the imperative needs of its social and class situation.

(d) A further point is this: the early phase which the utopian socialists

represent is marked by an anarchy of thought and by many diverse concep-

tions of an ideal future society. This state of anarchy is entirely natural in

view of the highly personal and non-historical nature of these doctrines.

They are, after all, blueprints for an imagined future, and not the outcome

of a realistic theoretical analysis of existing political and economic condi-

tions. These blueprints, Marx thought, were drawn up in ignorance of what

he calls the “laws of motion of capitalism,” which laws will bring about in

due course the conditions necessary for the complete abolition of classes.

In Marx’s view, the anarchism of conceptions of the future to be found in

the utopian socialists can only be overcome by an accurate theoretical un-

derstanding of present circumstances and of what is possible: such an un-

derstanding will make clear what is to be done.

(e) Another objection Marx had to the utopian socialists is that, in his

view, they were attached to their own personal conceptions of the future,

and since they thought they could impose these conceptions on society

from above, or by moral persuasion, they believed that class struggle and

revolutionary action are unnecessary. They sought to appeal to “humanity”

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2. Marx, Value, Price and Proﬁt (New York: International Publishers, 1935), Ch. XIV,

p. 61. [Fifth paragraph from the end.]

3. Cf. Marx, Selected Writings, ed. David McLellan, 2nd ed., p. 149 (Oxford: Oxford Uni-

versity Press, 2000), from Holy Family.

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as deeper and more basic than class. For this reason Marx thought they

failed to grasp the class basis of capitalism and the depth of the transforma-

tion required to overcome it. From Marx’s standpoint, the utopian socialists

are reactionaries in the sense that their doctrines lead them to oppose the

only realistic path to emancipation, namely, revolutionary struggle and the

organization of the working class as a political force.

Marx believed, then, that the utopian socialists proceeded contrary to

the correct procedure, namely, as he said in an early article, that of develop-

ing: “new principles to the world out of its own principles. We do not say

to the world: ‘Stop ﬁghting; your struggle is of no account. We want to

shout the true slogan of the struggle at you.’ (Rather) We only show the

world what it is ﬁghting for, and consciousness is something that the world

must acquire, like it or not.”

Marx’s (explicit) aim, then, is to show the

world—that is, the working class as the developing and increasingly active

political force—what it is, and not what it ought to be, ﬁghting for. Marx

aims to do this by explaining to the working class the meaning of its own

experiences and actions in the present historical situation. He wants to elu-

cidate the role that the working class must assume in its own emancipation.

Thus, one aim of Capital is to spell out the laws of motion of capitalism as

a social system so that the working class’s understanding of its situation

and of its historical role can have a realistic scientiﬁc basis, as opposed to

personal and moral conceptions of the future espoused by doctrinaire vi-

sionaries.

(f ) A ﬁnal consideration is this: Marx is suspicious of mere talk about

moral ideals, especially those of justice and liberty, equality and fraternity.

He is suspicious of people with ostensibly idealistic reasons for supporting

socialism. He thinks that the criticisms of capitalism made on the basis of

these ideals are likely to be non-historical and to misunderstand the social

and economic conditions necessary to improve matters even from the point

of view of these ideals. For example, we are likely to think that justice in

distribution can be improved more or less independent from the relations

of production. This tempts us to look for the best account of distributive

justice to guide us in doing this. But distribution is not independent from

the relations of production, which are, Marx thinks, fundamental.

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4. Tucker, Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd ed., pp. 14f, “Letter to Arnold Ruge,” Deutsch-

Französicher Jahrbucher, 1844; see also Marx, Selected Writings, ed. McLellan, 2nd ed.,

pp. 44–45.

5. On this see Section I of the Critique of the Gotha Program.

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Marx also thinks that in general, and leaving aside many individual ex-

ceptions, the ties of class interests (in a society divided into classes) are too

strong. Unless we actually cast our lot with the working class, and join in its

struggle and suffer its fate, we are not reliable allies of that class. Consider-

ations of right and justice cannot usually be relied upon to move us that

much. In Marx’s view, we are normally moved by our more imperative

needs, and in a class society these needs are shaped mainly by our class po-

sition. Not to recognize this is self-delusion.

To conclude: Marx might have been moved by many reasons for not

saying in so many words that capitalism is unjust. But none of the reasons

are such as to prevent him from having ideas of justice and sincerely think-

ing within himself that capitalism is unjust.

§3. Disappearance of Ideological Consciousness

1. I am now going to discuss what, in Critique of the Gotha Program,

Marx thinks of as the ﬁrst stage of communism, and later will take up a few

questions about the second stage of full communism next time. I use the

designation “a society of freely associated producers” to refer to Marx’s

ideal society, a designation he uses often in Capital. How can we brieﬂy de-

scribe it?

Perhaps in the following way: a society of freely associated producers

has two stages: a socialist stage and a stage of full communism. Each stage

answers to the following two-part description, each part of which I shall

discuss in some detail.

First, a society of freely associated producers is a society in which ideo-

logical consciousness has disappeared. Its members understand their social

world and have no illusions about how it works. Moreover, because ideo-

logical consciousness has disappeared, they have no delusions about their

role in society, nor do they need such delusions.

Second, a society of freely associated producers is a society in which

there is neither alienation nor exploitation.

One might question whether the ﬁrst stage, socialism, satisﬁes these re-

quirements to a sufﬁcient degree. For our limited aims here, I assume that

it does.

2. I begin with the ﬁrst of these requirements. For Marx ideological

consciousness is false consciousness of a certain kind. To have an ideology

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in Marx’s sense is not merely to have a philosophy or a scheme of political

principles and values, as the term “ideology” is often used today. Unhappily,

the term has been abused and has lost the original, deﬁnite sense Marx gave

it. For him an ideology was not merely false, but its falsehood serves a

deﬁnite sociological or psychological role in maintaining society as a social

system.

In Marx’s sense, there are two kinds of ideological consciousness: illu-

sions and delusions. As for illusions, they are real in that with fully normal

powers of perception and inference we are taken in by the surface appear-

ances of things. Similarly, we are taken in by the surface appearances of in-

stitutions and fail to see what is really happening beneath that surface.

One’s beliefs are false because one is fooled by the semblances that are in-

deed deceptive. These cases are analogous to optical illusions.

In Capital, Vol. I, Chapter 1: §4, Marx discusses at length how, by focus-

ing on the relative prices of commodities and ﬁxing on the relation be-

tween prices and objects, we fail to see the signiﬁcance of the fact that com-

modities are produced by human labor and that prices express a social

relation among producers. A clearer and simpler example is what Marx says

about how the wage system conceals the ratio of necessary labor to surplus

labor, as opposed to the clarity of the feudal system with the serf’s surplus

labor open to view (Capital, Vol. 1, Tucker, p. 365). There is nothing in

how wages are paid that alerts workers to the amount paid for necessary

and for surplus labor. Workers are probably not aware of the difference in

any case.

It is in part because of these illusions that Marx thinks we need an

economic theory—in particular the labor theory of value—to penetrate

beneath the misleading and deceptive surface appearances of capitalist insti-

tutions. He says: “All science would be superﬂuous if the outward appear-

ance and the essence of things directly coincided.” Capital, III, Chapter

XLVIII: §3 (New York: International Publishers, 1967), p. 817.

In the society of freely associated producers the form of appearances

and the essence of things in politics and economy do directly coincide. This

is because society’s economic activities are carried out in accordance with

an economic plan publicly decided upon in accordance with democratic

procedures. I will come back to this.

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6. See the calculations in Duncan Foley, Understanding Capital: Marx’s Economic Theory

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986), p. 46.

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