The Instauration of the New Man of Marxism: A Critique

Abstract

Beyond the purview of religious teachings, I find the Marxian conception of the New Man the most intriguing one in the whole secular world. Is it chimerical to hope for the coming of this New Man, I ask myself? Is Marx the vaunt‐courier of this ideal really naive and the New Man nothing other than the last straw he could grasp, considering his philippics against capitalism and his traduction of Christianity? Was the New Man his only hope? The votaries of the free enterprise system have rejected him out of hand. Are the beaux esprits of Marxian doctrine no less naive than Karl Marx himself, clinging as they do to this fantastic belief? I would like here today briefly to review the Marxian concept of the instauration, the founding, the advent of the New Man, to examine its possibilities. Most of the authorities to whom I shall here have recourse are sons of France, forbidding me therefore from denying the French connection.

Citation

O'Brien, J.C. (1987), "The Instauration of the New Man of Marxism: A Critique", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 14 No. 3/4/5, pp. 22-32. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb014043