ABSTRACT

Marxism constitutes perhaps the nineteenth century's most powerful secular vision of man's capacity for self-transformation through social action. Marx's self-proclaimed aim was not to understand or interpret the world, but to change it. The nineteenth century was primarily the century of the middle classes, associated with a political and economic system which, despite sporadic revolutionary outbursts, in general guaranteed their hegemony. Marx, outraged by the deprivation imposed on the workers by laissez-faire economic policies, sought, through an understanding

of the dynamics of social change, to reveal the inevitability of the emancipation of the oppressed classes. He thus devised a systematic way of thinking about man in society which implied both descriptive and prescriptive elements. In effect he postulated that man in his essential being transcended his current existence and through revolutionary action could liberate himself from the alienation which was currently his lot. More than any of the other theorists considered in this book, Marx's social analysis enabled him to recognise the centrality of industrial organisation and technology in the life of his times. Under the economic system large-scale industry entailed, men were thwarted and psychologically crippled. His aim was their emancipation.