In what follows, I present an interpretation of Marx’s vision of the good society that is based on the following three claims:

1. A good society is one that enables its members to flourish.

2. Self-realization in work is a vital component of human flourishing.

3. Self-realization in work consists in realizing oneself (exercising, developing, and manifesting one’s essential human powers) through providing others with the goods and services they need to pursue their flourishing (a vital component of which is their self-realization).

Points 1 and 2 are commonplace in the literature on Marx. Even commentators who argue that Marx’s writings do not contain a moral critique of capitalism agree that Marx had a commitment to human flourishing that underpins his condemnation of capitalism and endorsement of communism. And most commentators agree that Marx saw self-realization in work as a vital component of human flourishing. The primary contribution of this argument consists in its interpretation of 3, Marx’s view of self-realization in work.

Drawing especially on the concluding passage of Marx’s 1844 text the “Comments on James Mill, Éléments D’économie Politique” in which Marx describes people as “producing as human beings,” I develop an interpretation of Marx’s view of self-realization in work that emphasizes its social and other-regarding character. According to this interpretation, people do not realize themselves merely by exercising and developing their essential powers; they realize themselves by exercising and developing those powers in work that simultaneously provides others with the goods and services they need to flourish.

Since people realize themselves by promoting the flourishing and self-realization of others, I call this “the mutual self-realization interpretation of Marx’s vision of the good society,” or the “mutualist interpretation” for short.

In developing the mutualist interpretation, I hope to challenge and ultimately supplant the prevailing interpretation of Marx’s vision of the good society, which has been articulated by Jon Elster and G. A. Cohen. This interpretation is influential: when Anglophone political philosophers criticize and dismiss Marx’s views on the good society, they tend to rely on Elster’s and Cohen’s interpretative work. By providing an alternative interpretation, my aim is to undermine the foundation upon which many of these criticisms are based and reestablish Marxism as a live option for contemporary political philosophy.

Elster and Cohen agree that the good society for Marx is one that promotes human flourishing, and that self-realization in work is a vital component of that flourishing. However, they interpret self-realization in work in a different, more individualistic way. Specifically, on their interpretation, self-realization in work consists in the full and free development of the powers of the individual and does not have to involve satisfying the needs of others. On this view, other people are necessary for self-realization, since we need others’ goods and services to pursue our self-realization. But they are only necessary contingently, as a mere means for our individual goals (the full and free development of our powers). They are not necessary constitutively, as a core component of our self-realization.

I call the Elster–Cohen interpretation “the parallel self-realization interpretation of Marx’s vision of the good society” or the “parallelist interpretation” for short. Like the concept of parallel play in infants, people in the parallelist interpretation achieve self-realization alongside others: the interpretation is social in this sense. However, it is only social in a very weak sense, because doing things for others is not a constitutive component of the individual’s self-realization. It follows that if people could get what they need to pursue their self-realization without producing for each other — suppose God were to rain manna from heaven — nothing would be lost. By contrast, on the mutualist interpretation, self-realization in work constitutively involves realizing oneself through providing others with the goods and services they need to pursue their flourishing. If God were to rain manna from heaven, self-realization in work would be undermined.

I show how the mutualist interpretation provides a very different, and, to my mind, significantly more appealing, account of the good society. More precisely, where the parallelist interpretation commits Marx to a starkly individualistic vision of the good society, which involves an abolition of the division of labor, limitless abundance, and a society in which working for others is eliminated altogether, the mutualist interpretation commits Marx to a solidaristic vision of the good society, which involves a radical reorganization (but not abolition) of the division of labor, modest (but not limitless) abundance, and a position that defends the centrality of working for others to human flourishing. Where the parallelist interpretation leaves Marx vulnerable to serious objections, the mutualist interpretation provides the basis for an appealing view of how we might live together.

In Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defense, Cohen says the following about the interpretation of Marx that he develops in that book:

The presentation respects two constraints: on the one hand, what Marx wrote, and, on the other, those standards of clarity and rigor which distinguish twentieth-century analytical philosophy. The aim is to construct a tenable theory of history which is in broad accord with what Marx said on the subject.

Thus, Cohen’s aim is not simply exegesis but to reconstruct a “tenable” version of Marx’s theory. As Cohen says, such a view must be in “broad accord” with the texts; otherwise, it would not be Marx’s theory of history. Yet since Marx was a “restless and creative thinker who produced many ideas in many directions,” decisions must be made about which of those ideas to develop, and in what direction. Cohen’s interpretation of Marx’s theory of history does just that, defending a technologically determinist theory of history that is in “broad accord” with the texts, though perhaps not with everything that Marx wrote on the subject.

I follow Cohen’s lead. I aim to develop a tenable account of the good society that is consistent with Marx’s pronouncements on the subject. I argue that the mutualist interpretation is better than the parallelist interpretation according to these criteria, criteria that Cohen and Elster themselves accept. The mutualist interpretation is more consistent with the texts and more tenable as an account of the good society than the parallelist interpretation.

Although I criticize two of the founding figures of analytical Marxism, I do not, unlike Vanessa Wills’s recent book on Marx and ethics, make a critique of analytical Marxism as such. I argue that the parallelist interpretation is not the best interpretation of Marx’s view. I do not argue that analytical Marxism — understood as a variety of Marxism that is distinguished “from certain classical forms of Marxism by its openness to analytical methods, its critical attitude to certain substantive Marxist claims, its acknowledgement of its own normative commitments, and its assertion of the need for socialist design” — is defective as such, perhaps on the grounds that an analytical approach is inconsistent with Marxism’s dialectical methodology. While Elster and Cohen get things wrong, I do not think the flaws are inherent in the analytical approach they take.

On the contrary, I am convinced that analytical Marxism’s emphasis on precision, conceptual clarity, detailed argumentation, openness to non-Marxist thought, and “commitment without reverence” to Marx’s texts makes it an especially valuable approach to this subject. I hope to vindicate this judgment and help revive analytical Marxism as a research program.