ABSTRACT
ALTHOUGH the only works that can accurately be called “Marxist” are Marx’s own and the ones he wrote in collaboration with Engels, the question occurs whether there are two Marxisms or one. On the one hand, much has been made of the fundamental difference in orientation in the writings of the young and the later Marx. Scholars believe they have discovered divergent political commitments and corresponding models of social reality, which distinguish “original” from “mature” Marxism. On the other hand, the current fashion among those who argue for the unity of Marx’s thought is to interpret his later works in terms of his earlier ones. A superficially plausible argument has been made for the view that Marx in his later works used the terms “oppression” and “exploitation” for specialized political and economic instances of “alienation,” the analysis of alienation continuing to be his principal concern despite his abandonment of this term.1
