Marx,the Modern World,and the Problem of Social Regulation

Abstract

The article discusses the idea of modern society which Marx presented in his critique of political economy. According to Marx, modern society is born in the mode of capitalism but will only be actualised in its full wealth when capitalism is thrown over in favour of communism The problem with Marx's conceptual strategy, however, is that he only discusses man as human species, in this way identifying the human individual with the species being. Accordingly, he assumes that all social antagonisms will come to an end if the capital relation is broken and a transfer into communism takes place. In this way, his conception of a modern, non-capitalist society remains an abstract, aesthetically descriptive vision. On the basis of Marx's later works, although overstepping its limits, it is however, possible to present an experimental construction of a modern, non-capitalist, dual society, where the social synthesis is no longer dominated by the principle of self-valorisation of capital, but a 'democratic discussion of needs'.