Marxism and Secular Faith

Richard J. Arneson

American Political Science Review, 1985, vol. 79, issue 3, 627-640

Abstract: It has been argued by Mancur Olson and others that Karl Marx's theory of revolution is logically defective in that front its premises one cannot draw Marx's conclusion that workers will unite to revolt against capitalism. Workers who might wish for large social changes are confronted with a collective action problem that Marx fails to appreciate—so runs the criticism. The critics are assuming that Marx is reasoning from a Hobbesian premise to the effect that insofar as they are rational, individuals act always to fulfill narrowly self-interested goals. This article denies the assumption. In particular it is urged that to make sense of Marx's optimistic hopes about the likely outcome of successful majoritarian working-class revolution, one must attribute to him a secular faith that most people are disposed to play fair with others. This disposition is relatively weak and only sporadically effective in determining behavior, but in the right revolutionary circumstances, Marx hopes, it might play a considerably greater role in this respect. (A circumstance on which Marx places great weight is material abundance.) Being optimistic about the future, Marx cannot be as cynical about human motivation in the present as commentators often take him to be.

Date: 1985
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