Marxism is an economic and social system based upon the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism is the system of socialism of which the dominant feature is public ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange.
Marxist ethics proceeds out of Marxist theology, philosophy, economics, and history. According to George Brenkert, from the Marxist point of view, the society should be based on the motto "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" which stems the idea of equality, which will bring together all people, who thus work together for the benefit of the society to which they all belong. Ethics are the primal cause of the proletarian revolution, and serve as the guiding force in the realization of a communist society. Howard Selsam has explained that Marxists ethics determines what is right or wrong by what is best for this evolution. If the bourgeois class hinders either biological or social evolution of the classless society, even nature dictates the removal of that class.
When pursuing Marxist ethics, revolution is the most efficient means for creating a society without class distinctions. According to Marxists, revolution is unavoidable and it is the only way to overthrow the bourgeoisie and lift up the proletariat. They perceive this forcible overthrow as morally right. It is right because it destroys hindrances to a communist society. By Marx’s definition, our social and economic status is always changing according to the laws of the dialectic, so our ideas about morality must also be in a state of continual change. It is biological and social evolution that determines morality.
Many critics claim that Marxism deals very little with the ethics and some state ethics in Marxism are non-existent. They describe Marxist ethics as “each act is considered ethically good if it assists the flow of history toward a communist end. Killing, raping, stealing, and lying are not outside the boundaries of communist morality if they help produce the classless communist society.”
Marxists retort the claims of critics by positioning the class struggle to be not peaceful just as the struggle for survival in nature is not peaceful. According to Marxists, nature accumulates the good and disposes of the bad and they go with ‘survival of the fittest’. And the ‘fit’ is defined by them are the contributors of foundation of communist society and the ‘unfit’ are the members of social institutions used by the exploiting class to suppress the exploited class such as Church. Marxists judge the results, not the methods.
In the perspective of Marxist ethics, media should not be owned by the bourgeoisie but there should be equal ownership of all class of people. When the media is owned by the bourgeoisie, they can disseminate the information that is in convenience to them and thus the proletariats can be easily exploited by the exploiting class. When the media ownership is equal, only then, the content of the media can serve in the favor of the general public and not only the elites.
Works cited
Definition, Marx. "Marxist Ethics." Worldviews - AllAboutWorldview.org. Web. 10 June 2010.
Somerville, John. "Marxist Ethics, Determinism, and Freedom." JSTOR. International Phenomenological Society, Sept. 1967. Web. 06 June 2010.
"What Is Marxism." Philosophy - AllAboutPhilosophy.org. Web. 06 June 2010.
Hodges, Donald C. "Marxist Ethics And Ethical Theory." Socialist Register, Vol 1. Web. 04 June 2010.
Miller, Richard W. "Capitalism and Marxism : A Companion to Applied Ethics : Blackwell Reference Online." Blackwell Reference Online. Web. 12 July 2010.
