Marx vs Marx

Karl Marx remains one of the most significant philosophers of the 19^th century, exerting an influence that continues to shape the global political landscape, particularly through his critiques of society and economics. His seminal work, The Manifesto of the Communist Party (Marx & Engels, 1848), established the foundational framework for communism, an ideology that informed the development of massive state systems, most notably the Soviet Union and China. Yet, while the ideology itself has proven remarkably robust, nearly all communist states eventually collapsed or transformed into structures that no longer align with original Marxist principles. In a previous analysis, The Problem of Communism, Emre Şentürk highlighted the fundamental issues the ideology faces when translated into state practice. This paper takes a different approach.

While most critiques focus on actually existing socialism, the bureaucratic state form of communism (hereinafter: real-communism), it is important to examine the dialectical shifts of its founder, Marx, to truly grasp his vision for a communist future. As a state form, communism required a rigid, practical structure to function as a framework for governance. Conversely, as a philosopher, Marx was driven to constantly refine and perfect his theories, leading to significant shifts in his dialectic that, at times, challenged his own fundamental worldview. This analysis explores that evolution by contrasting the flaws of real-communism with the emerging concept of degrowth communism, highlighting how this new concept potentially serves as a normative pillar from which theories could emerge and build, rather than the absolute and instrumental nature of real-communism.

Theoretical Flaws of Real-Communism

Like all philosophical ideas, the theories of communism are highly debated, even among its followers. For the subject of this analysis, we are going to focus on the historical materialism in combination with Marx’s teleological view of history and the eurocentric bias that complements this deterministic perspective. According to several modern Marxist philosophers, who try to adapt Marx’s ideas into today’s reality, understanding this shift in his dialectical, moving away from a linear path of progression to a more complex set of thoughts that rather provides a fundamental basis for a multilinear understanding of history, acknowledging that different cultures may forge their own paths toward progression.

Historical Materialism

The dialectic of the young Marx was highly imprinted by Hegel, whose own dialectical framework is constructed upon the triad of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Hegel thereby observes history and society through a deterministic lens, envisioning a final liberation of humanity by embedding this realisation within the framework of the state. Marx translated this teleological framework from Hegel by shifting the locus of historical change from the evolution of the spirit to the development of material conditions. While Hegel saw the state as the ultimate realisation of freedom, Marx reconfigured this teleological endpoint as the liberation of humanity through the transcendence of class struggle, resulting in a classless society. In this context, historical materialism is the methodological approach that argues that the material conditions of a society’s mode of production, its technology, resources and labour, fundamentally determine its social structure, political institutions and legal systems. Following the dialectic, Marx categorised capitalist development as a necessary preliminary stage before a society could reach the next stage, a communist society. This deterministic perspective is further compounded by a distinct eurocentric bias. Early historical materialism implicitly framed the Western European path, specifically the transition from feudalism to industrial capitalism, as a universal blueprint for human progress. By assuming that all societies must undergo the same stages of capital accumulation and technological acceleration to become ready for communism, this framework inadvertently validated a productivist logic. It suggested that the primary flaw of capitalism lay not in its industrial essence, but merely in its mode of distribution.

Productivist Logic

The aforementioned dialectic strengthens the assumption that material progress is the essential prerequisite for human liberation. While real-communism did not aim for the same surplus-driven production as capitalism, the underlying mode of production remained fundamentally unchanged. The means of production were embraced as tools to establish a material standard intended to foster a fairer society through redistribution. This explains why Marx, for instance, welcomed the revolutionary ambitions of the Russian population; in his view, while capitalist traits were introducing material progress and advanced means of production, a society solely synchronised with capitalist logic had not yet fully formed. The hope was to utilise existing capitalist means without inevitably lapsing into a capitalist social structure. However, this approach fails to alter the fundamental tenets of the capitalist ethos: the dominion over nature, viewing it merely as a resource to be shaped, the persistence of alienated labour and the techno-optimist belief that technological advancement is a panacea for all societal problems. These are precisely the aspects Marx critiqued in his later years.

On the other hand, socialist states, particularly the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, found themselves in a direct systemic competition with capitalist societies. In this geopolitical struggle, it became vital not only to keep pace in a constant race for expansion but also to prove normatively that communism could overtake capitalism without mimicking it. This reveals an inherent compulsion to increase production. Such a dynamic demands acceleration, innovation and an increase in reach. This logic of escalation necessitates a progressive availability of resources; everything must be available. The societal status quo can only be maintained through dynamic stabilisation, that is, through the constant expansion of production. This manifests profoundly at the individual level. Although communism was promised as a ‘humanism through socialism’, the worker within this mechanism becomes merely another cog in the machine, required to function just to keep the system alive. For the individual, the world-view shifts into that of a downward-moving escalator: standing still is equated with social death. Ultimately, this results in a state-capitalist system that fails to establish Marx’s normative ideals. Communism is not possible when a society finds itself in a logic of escalation.

A Shift in Marx’s Dialectic

The failures of real-communism were not merely political; they were rooted in a theoretical inability to uphold Marx’s core normative ideals, primarily due to the aforementioned logic of productivism. Yet, Marx himself recognised the unsustainability of such a social construct during his own lifetime. In the years following the publication of Capital (Volume I), he focused on refining his dialectic, a project he could not complete, but which is documented in a vast collection of late notebooks and excerpts. In these final years, Marx’s research underwent a profound shift. He turned his attention toward pre-capitalist, non-European societies and deepened his engagement with the natural sciences to further investigate the “metabolic rift” he had diagnosed in his youth. This dual preoccupation led him to question the Hegelian dialectic; he realised that the determinism of a progressive, ever-escalating society was fundamentally a eurocentric bias that viewed non-European developments as “degraded” or “backward”. While he still used terms like “barbaric” or “semi-barbaric” in the earlier drafts of Capital, his tone in the later excerpts shifted toward a more nuanced and appreciative view of non-European social structures. Simultaneously, his scientific studies solidified his understanding of the metabolic rift. He moved beyond seeing alienation solely from a human perspective, as a loss of resonance due to changed modes of production, and began to view the degradation of nature as an independent, objective catastrophe. For the older Marx, the capitalist means of production were no longer seen simply as a distribution problem. Instead, he concluded that technological progress aimed at total dominion over nature was inherently fatal. He realised that technological solutions do not heal the rift with nature, but merely displace it, creating a cycle of new problems that require further technological intervention, leading to an endless spiral of ecological displacement.

Marx increasingly recognised the concept of biophysical finitude. He abandoned the Promethean illusion that human production could expand indefinitely, acknowledging instead that society is bound to finite natural resources. To stop instrumentalising nature and instead recognise ourselves as part of it necessitates a normative shift away from material possession toward a different orientation of life. Marx acknowledges that scarcity is an inherent reality that cannot be simply engineered away through endless production and redistribution. He further admits that labour, including unpleasant but necessary tasks, will always remain a part of human existence. However, he argues that by reducing the time spent in material production, society can redirect its focus toward a different kind of wealth. Since Marx’s normative framework still views labour as an integral part of the human essence, he argues that reducing the time dedicated to industrial output allows individuals to utilise their time to realise their full human potential. This is precisely what he envisions when he critiques “the universal objectification as total alienation” and “the tearing down of all definite, one-sided purposes as the sacrifice of the self-purpose to a completely external purpose”. In this context, the external purpose is the logic of escalation, while the self-purpose represents the untapped potential of the individual. Marx identifies these as cultural and natural riches, forms of wealth that a society can produce and cultivate infinitely without depleting the planet. In this transition, the eurocentric bias finally dissolves; Marx suggests that this form of communism allows every society to develop according to its own unique conditions, without a deterministic output or a pre-defined, universal goal. This autonomy marks the definitive break from the linear path of progress, setting the stage for a degrowth-oriented communism.

Degrowth Communism

Degrowth Communism, within the scope of this analysis, envisions a social structure modelled after these old-Marxian insights. It offers a variant of post-capitalist society that seeks to achieve its ideals by consciously scaling down production, a radical departure from the growth-oriented paradigms of the past. While a full conceptualisation of degrowth communism is beyond the scope of this essay, our focus remains on the specific points where it aligns with the shifted Marxian dialectic.

Unlike real-communism, which failed to fulfil its normative promises to the individual, but even further were instrumentalising such ideals as motivational tools for state-led production, degrowth communism establishes a foundation to heal the metabolic rift on both a human and ecological level. Having already explored the alienation of the individual and the evolution of Marx’s dialectic, we can now bridge these concepts through the lens of resonance. By prioritising the self-efficacy of human potential over the external purpose of economic expansion, degrowth communism dismantles the logic of escalation that rendered both nature and the worker mute. It replaces the downward-moving escalator of dynamic stabilisation with a stable, qualitative state that allows for a resonant relationship with the world. In this framework, the reduction of material output is not a loss, but allows a society to move collectively to a new stage. Setting the focus on this direction also invalidates the common critique that communism merely rewards idleness. By reorienting society toward self-actualisation, labour is no longer viewed as a sacrificial burden to be minimised or avoided, but as a primary venue for human flourishing. When the goal shifts from quantitative accumulation to the qualitative expansion of one’s own potential, the distinction between work and leisure dissolves into a purposeful engagement with the world, making the capitalist obsession with meritocratic incentives obsolete. Analysing communism through this lens provides a framework that allows societies to develop naturally into a new stage, rather than enforcing revolutions or class fights. It is a normative foundation that visualises how a post-capitalistic society could develop.

However, this normative reorientation is not merely a philosophical preference; it is an ecological necessity driven by the inherent limits of the current system, ultimately highlighting Marx’s shifting dialectic. The capitalist logic of development seeks to bypass these limits through technological innovation, creating a false sense of security. Marx’s late studies anticipate what modern ecology describes as the Jevons Paradox or environmental displacement. He perceived that within a growth-oriented framework, technological efficiency does not lead to a reduction in resource consumption; rather, it merely displaces the metabolic rift to different geographical or systemic levels. Every technological fix creates new requirements for further growth, leading to a perpetual cycle of technological displacement. This cycle ensures that as long as the logic of escalation remains intact, no amount of green technology can heal the rift. Thus, the only viable normative solution lies in a radical departure from the obsession with output, leading toward the necessity of a degrowth-oriented communism that prioritises ecological stability over the expansion of capital.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, the shift in Marx’s dialectic is not only significant for the theory of communism itself but also provides vital conceptual foundations for the design of a post-capitalist society. For the communist discourse, this evolution is crucial because it demonstrates that the instrumentalised versions of the 20^th century were not the final word. It is not only contemporary Marxists, who must necessarily distance themselves from the systemic failures of real communism, who have advanced these ideas, Marx himself recognised that his work was incomplete during his lifetime. While this does not negate the historical failure of communist states, it highlights that the concepts and ideas suggested by those attempts are far from being the only, or the definitive, interpretations of his vision.

In the broader debate on post-capitalist societies, the concept of degrowth communism is particularly compelling because it serves as a perfect complement to other post-capitalistic frameworks. Through this synthesis, it becomes possible to refine specific concepts and provide a robust theoretical foundation for future developments. By consistently integrating theories such as resonance or the realisation of subjective special traits (the self-purpose) into the discourse, they evolve into integral pillars of post-capitalist theory. As these theories gain traction within both scientific and social spheres, they do not merely exist as abstract ideas; they become catalysts for systemic transformation. When a paradigm shift occurs in our collective understanding, it provides the necessary normative pressure to dismantle the logic of escalation and pave the way for radical, structural reforms toward a sustainable and resonant future.