The Concept Of Justice In Marx

Equality and justice are always shaped as the most important political values inthe political and philosophical discourse of modernity. What is justice? Throughout thehistorical evolutions of western justice idea, the thinkers have put forward various justiceparadigms and have constructed various justice theories. As the main term in western politicaltheory, justice was also expounded by Marx and Engels. In recent years, people haveconducted numerous studies in terms of Marx’s justice theory. Especially western Marxistshave carried out a controversy about Marx and Justice for more than30years concerningwhether Marx condemned the capitalism as unjust, among which the primary conclusion isthat justice theory exists in Marx and justice is the judgment of fact(Wood); or justice isinterpreted as a kind of criteria of value(Hasami); another view is that justice ismulti-dimensional and should be viewed dialectically(Kai Nielsen). They demonstrated theirown views by quoting Marx’s books, but we should remember that Marxist philosophybrought about the philosophical revolution in the history of philosophy. And the justice theoryhe had constructed was divergent from his concept of justice of liberalism. Obviously it is notenough to elaborate the true meaning of Marx’s justice only from its positive side. Aftercomparing with the concept of justice of liberalism, we could clearly show the principles ofMarx’s justice and the way that Marx defended it. When discussing justice, Marx explored therule of the historical development from the objective condition(like material interests) point ofview, which opened up possible paths for overcoming the rootlessness of value standardsadvocated by the capitalist class. But we should also avoid making historical reading aboutMarx’s theory of justice as there are some moral pursuits implied in Marx’s worksthat we cannot overlook.