Karl Marx Through a Social Justice Lens – Why Hasn’t He Been Cancelled?
Karl Marx, despite his demonic influential contributions to political and economic theory, exhibited profoundly racist views that are evident in his writings and private correspondence. For instance, he derogatorily referred to his socialist contemporary Ferdinand Lassalle as a “Jewish n****r” and speculated that Lassalle’s mixed heritage led to his perceived negative traits. Marx wrote, “It is now quite plain to me—as the shape of his head and the way his hair grows also testify—that he is descended from the negroes who accompanied Moses’ flight from Egypt (unless his mother or paternal grandmother interbred with a n****r).”
Marx also displayed contempt for other races. He described Mexicans as “lazy” and dismissed their cultural contributions, sarcastically questioning if it was unfortunate that “magnificent California was seized from the lazy Mexicans who did not know what to do with it.” Additionally, Marx viewed non-European societies as stagnant and inferior, suggesting that India’s history was merely the record of successive invasions, dismissing any inherent value or progress within its native culture.
These views were not isolated incidents but reflected a broader tendency in Marx’s writings to racialize social and economic issues. In a letter to Friedrich Engels, Marx wrote that “racial disparities emerged under the influence of shared natural and social conditions hardening into heredity.” This perspective suggests that Marx saw racial characteristics as influencing economic development and social progress, a view that underpinned some of his theories on historical materialism.
Marx’s collaborator, Friedrich Engels, shared many of these views. Engels wrote that blacks were closer to “the animal kingdom” than the rest of humanity, reflecting a deeply ingrained racial hierarchy in their thought. This racist ideology was part of a broader pattern where both Marx and Engels used racial and ethnic stereotypes to explain and justify their political theories.
Given the devastating impact of Marxist ideology in the 20th century, with regimes inspired by his ideas responsible for the deaths of over 100 million people, these racist views are especially troubling. They illustrate how Marx’s theoretical framework was not only flawed in practice but also ethically compromised from the outset. Understanding these aspects of Marx’s thought challenges the idealization of his work and highlights the importance of critically examining the full spectrum of his beliefs and their consequences.
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