Karl Kautsky

ethics and Marxism

Tony Burns

pp. 15-50

in: Lawrence Wilde (ed), Marxism's ethical thinkers, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2001

Abstract

Karl Kautsky (1854–1938) is a rare figure in the history of Marxism in that he is one of the few Marxist theoreticians to have written a full-length work specifically devoted to ethical questions. Kautsky's Ethics and the Materialist Conception of History (first published in 1906) is not by any means a great work. More than one commentator has observed that it contains a number of logical inconsistencies and demonstrates an apparent inability on the part of its author to deal systematically with complex philosophical issues. Sebastiano Timpanaro has argued that it is obvious that this 'short work is anything but a masterpiece, and that it does not at all provide a definitive basis for a Marxist ethics". Nevertheless, as Steven Lukes has pointed out, Kautsky's book continues to be the "only sustained treatment of these questions in the classical Marxist canon". Despite the logical inconsistencies which it contains, therefore, it is of considerable interest for anyone who is interested in the subject of Marxism and ethics. It is also of interest because despite the fact that it is, as Lezsek Kolakowski has observed, one of Kautsky's most important works, it has been largely neglected by those who have written about Kautsky and his ideas. For example, it is not even mentioned by Salvadori and Steenson in their recent books on Kautsky's role in the history of Marxism.

Cited authors

Marx Karl

Lukes Steven

Kautsky Karl