Saying Marxism isn’t about morality or excludes morality
isn’t meant to say Marxists are immoral or amoral. It’s sort like,
computer science doesn’t talk about morality, but that doesn’t make
computer science immoral, or software developers amoral. They’re just
separate topics.
Marxism is meant to treat socioeconomic development as a material
science. Biology and chemistry can inform doctors on how to make
medicine and what medicine to prescribe people. But biology and
chemistry themselves do not prescribe anything. Prescriptions require
some sort of stated end goal, which is subjective.
Stalin says something similar in Economic Problems of Socialism in the
USSR, where he points out that political economy is the study of
objective laws of social development which are outside of the control of
the government, that the government’s policies are not equivalent to
political economy as a science but are prescriptions informed by the
science.
This is what Marx had to say on the subject.
Communists do not oppose egoism to selflessness or selflessness to
egoism, nor do they express this contradiction theoretically either in
its sentimental or in its highflown ideological form; they rather
demonstrate its material source, with which it disappears of itself. The
Communists do not preach morality at all.
They do not put to people the moral demand: love one another, do not
be egoists, etc.; on the contrary, they are very well aware that
egoism, just as much selflessness, is in definite circumstances a
necessary form of the self-assertion of individuals. Hence, the
Communists by no means want to do away with the “private individual” for
the sake of the “general”, selfless man. That is a statement of the
imagination.
—Marx, The German Ideology
In some sense, you can argue there is a Marxist morality, but not from
the perspective of subjective prescriptions, but merely an attempt to
explain an objective origin to already existing morality. Such as, the
origin of liberal viewpoints, which are heavily steeped in morality,
clearly emanate from the capitalist mode of production. One could also
argue a socialist society would produce a different kind of morality,
but this would not be a prescription but would have to be demonstrated
with evidence.
I don’t think there is any reason to try and force morality or ethics
into Marxism. Marxism does not need to be some all-encompassing
worldview. It’s fine to get your beliefs and views from other sources. I
am influenced by many writers, many of whom are not Marxist. I don’t
get all my ideas from one source, I don’t feel a need to somehow make
Marxism all-encompassing.
morality has never been easy to disentangle from history because everyone interfaces with material changes around them through a lens colored by superstructure. that means that in the application of marxism it’s always been impossible to keep them at arms length, and it’s counterproductive to try. e.g. here’s rosa
Thus, injustice by itself is certainly not an argument with which to overthrow reactionary institutions. If, however, there is a feeling of injustice in large segments of society – says Friedrich Engels, the co-founder of scientific socialism – it is always a sure sign that the economic bases of the society have shifted considerably, that the present conditions contradict the march of development. The present forceful movement of millions of proletarian women who consider their lack of political rights a crying wrong is such an infallible sign, a sign that the social bases of the reigning system are rotten and that its days are numbered.
or lenin
You have to build up a communist society. In many respects half of the work has been done. The old order has been destroyed, just as it deserved, it has been turned into a heap of ruins, just as it deserved. The ground has been cleared, and on this ground the younger communist generation must build a communist society. …
The entire purpose of training, educating and teaching the youth of today should be to imbue them with communist ethics.
But is there such a thing as communist ethics? Is there such a thing as communist morality? Of course, there is.
or marx himself
Shame is a kind of anger turned in on itself. And if a whole nation were to feel ashamed it would be like a lion recoiling in order to spring.
later marx would be alarmed by this subjectivity and try to set at least his historical method on transhistorical footing, but marxism is more than philosophers interpreting the world; in fact as praxis it aims to repair “the complete rift between books and practical life”
so I see at least a couple of pieces which frustrate attempts to put marxism into a little economic box:
nobody is really a material interest maximizing robot, making moral sensibilities a key aspect of class struggle
marxism acknowledges and celebrates the human drive for progressive change and expects the proletariat to finally seize “real possibilities of human freedom and happiness” (which necessarily includes building a communist culture that encompasses all spheres of social life)
lastly just to touch on your stalin quote, check out mao’s review of that book, he calls stalin’s blindness on this issue “almost altogether wrong”
aimixin talks about morality and Marxism:
morality has never been easy to disentangle from history because everyone interfaces with material changes around them through a lens colored by superstructure. that means that in the application of marxism it’s always been impossible to keep them at arms length, and it’s counterproductive to try. e.g. here’s rosa
or lenin
or marx himself
later marx would be alarmed by this subjectivity and try to set at least his historical method on transhistorical footing, but marxism is more than philosophers interpreting the world; in fact as praxis it aims to repair “the complete rift between books and practical life”
so I see at least a couple of pieces which frustrate attempts to put marxism into a little economic box:
lastly just to touch on your stalin quote, check out mao’s review of that book, he calls stalin’s blindness on this issue “almost altogether wrong”