Idea sprawiedliwości w myśli Karola Marksa
The idea of justice in Marx’s thought

Summary/Abstract: From the perspective of the history of ideas the output of Karl Marx poses a very difficult object of research. Though Marx himself made the issue of social justice a central aspect of his scientific praxis, the idea of “justice” itself seems to be paradoxically rather insignificant in his work. Nevertheless, no other philosophical conception has initiated such a number of social and political movements that eagerly tried to overcome the injustice of the capitalistic system and thereby radically change the fundamental processes of sociation. On the basis of the thoughts of non-Marxist Ralf Dahrendorf I will try to show that Marx’s conception of historical materialism itself contains two ideas of justice: first a “relative” idea of justice, which Marx criticized for being a functional superstructure of the capitalistic system – and the second is an “absolute” idea of justice, which Marx did not articulate directly but which can be understood on the basis of his work as a target of the social revolution. However, in Marx’s work this “absolute” idea of justice is not a utopian one, but it poses a materialistic potential of the capitalistic system that is still waiting for its realization.

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