Anthropological Solidarity in Early Marx

Abstract

This essay outlines a picture of solidarity that can be extracted from early writings by Karl Marx and that fulfills criteria of solidarity by thinkers like Ashley Taylor. Marx’s partially neo-Aristotelian picture of solidarity is shown to differ crucially from the phenomenological account of David Wiggins in the analytic tradition of moral philosophy, and from the account by Andrea Sangiovanni in the liberal tradition of political philosophy. After presenting some of Marx’s arguments that capitalism thwarts the realization of solidarity, the essay concludes with modest practical suggestions for promoting its realization in contemporary open societies.