A Marxist Theory of Justice?

Abstract Some recent Marxologists (notably Allen Buchanan, Richard Miller and Allen Wood) have denied that the idea of justice can play any significant role within Marxist thought. This article maintains, on the contrary, that the very logic of historical materialism, notably the concept of the historical development of human needs, necessitates a concept of justice even in the higher phase of communism. Furthermore, the “anti-juridical” interpretation of Marx fails to provide an adequate account of the connection between the communist values of self-realization and community. It therefore obscures the concerns addressed by a notion of justice. The early Marx's concept of species-being ( Gattungswesen ) expresses the relation between self-realization and community in historical terms. Thus it provides an appropriate context for a Marxist theory of justice.