Philosophy 16

“None of the so-called rights of man, therefore, go […] beyond man as a member of civil society […].”

Quote: Karl Marx (1843-1844): On the Jewish Question. Karl Marx, Frederick Engels: Collected Works, Vol. 3, 1843-1844, p. 185. Picture: By John Jabez Edwin Mayal - International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Public Domain, Wikimedia, Creative Commons.

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a social theorist, philosopher and economist and is considered an important theorist of the workers' movement.

In "On the Jewish Question", Marx deals with the struggle of Jews for equal rights in modern society. He interprets liberal human rights as defensive rights intended to protect against state encroachment or conflict. In this respect, from Marx's point of view, they implicitly assume a primarily hostile relationship between people and are an expression of the bourgeois social order characterized by competitive relationships. Human rights thereby cement such a society instead of helping to overcome it. Against liberal human rights that conceale economic exploitation, Marx therefore advocated their abolition. Both the workers' movement and anti-colonial liberation movements refer to Marx's critique.

*Stephen Brown (2003): The problem with Marx on rights. Journal of Human Rights, 2(4), 517–522. *David McLellan (2006): Karl Marx. A Biography. London: Papermac.

1843