An analysis of the Marxist perspective on religion

However, how exactly does religion “dull the pain of oppression”?  Marx says that there are four main ways that it does this.  One is that it promises a paradise of eternal bliss in “life after death”.  Therefore, the oppressed learn to just deal with their circumstances on Earth as they believe that in a short time they will be rewarded with equality in heaven.  Another is that many religions make a virtue out of the suffering produced by oppression.  An example of this in Hinduism where it is taught that you must accept what comes to you during this life as it is only Karma; bad things that happen to you are in consequence of your previous wrong doings.  Therefore, the oppressed come to accept their current state as either just punishment or a way of making them more holy.  Thirdly, religion can offer the hope of supernatural intervention to solve problems on Earth.  Therefore, you come to religion to seek help to bring you out of your current state of oppression.  Finally, religion often justifies the social order.  It helps to maintain the “status quo”.  An example of this can be found in the Christian Bible where one reads that God sets up rulers and takes them down and you are morally obligated to obey what laws they set up as they have been, in a sense, set up by God.

As can be seen, these four reasons can be manipulated by the social upper class for their own benefit.  However, Marx was quick to rule out any conspiratorial beliefs.  The emergence of religious beliefs is not something “dreamt up” by a ruling class to justify their power and domination; rather they arise out of the oppression felt by the proletariats.  The proletariats create God.  Marx believed “man makes religion, religion does not make man.” This is similar to the ideas of Ludwig Andreas Feurbach.  He said that the ideas of religion are produced because they are dissatisfied in their practical lives; therefore they need to believe in the “fantasy” of religion.  Religion is an “expression of alienation”.  Unlike Marx, however, he did not believe that freedom would be achieved by the abolition of Capitalist society, but rather through the realisation of human destiny.  As stated before, the oppressed seek in religion what they are denied in this world.  However, as religion is an ideological framework it has the potential to be seized upon by the more powerful in society to justify their actions.

This brings me to the first weakness in Marx’s theory.  If we take that religion arises to help the oppressed endure the pain of oppression and that religion is merely an ideological framework to create an illusory happiness we are presented with a problem.  How then do we explain the practice of religion by those in the upper classes?  If religion really is related to exploitation and oppression within society, then there is no need for them to practice religion as they would have no need to “dull the pain of oppression”.  Furthermore, if religion really is the form of propaganda that seeks to hide the reality of exploitation and oppression within society then it seems ridiculous to suppose the bourgeoisie would believe their own propaganda.

These two points can be quickly countered by stating that the ruling class are religious simply because by perpetrating the system they can directly control the behaviour of the working class.  Marx, however, aimed to avoid this conspiratorial approach.  He explained this apparent contradiction in his theory with the concept of alienation.

For Marx, the most important activity in any society was work.  This was the way in which society was organized to solve the problems associated with physical survival.  In order to work, people have to co-operate.  They have to engage in an explicitly social activity that involves people working together to produce commodities.  Therefore, work becomes not just a means of producing commodities, but by working together people gain satisfaction not just from the act of producing goods but also from the fact of people working together to support each other.  This helps to affirm the social bonds between them as human beings.

Production of commodities on a co-operative basis therefore has two main benefits.  It binds people together on the basis of mutual economic need.  Society needs to work together to ensure the survival of the species.  Also, it binds people on the basis of mutual political need.  By co-operating in this way we get satisfaction from knowing that the work we do benefits others.  We consider ourselves a valued and necessary member of society.  Thus, the economic and political systems are seen to be mutually related and dependent.  The economic system produces political relationships.  This Marx felt was perfectly expressed in Communism.

A problem arises, however, when economy and politics are separated, as in a Capitalist society.  In Capitalist societies commodity fetishism is prevalent.  People within a capitalist society find that their lives are organised through the medium of commodities.  They trade their labour-power for another commodity, money.  This then in turn is traded for another commodity.  The co-operative social nature of society is destroyed by the abstraction of commodities as “use-value” (the usefulness of a commodity) is separated from “exchange-value” (the marketplace value of a commodity).   This is what Marx defines as “fetishism”.  As a result of this “fetishism” producers and consumers have no conscious agreement to provide for each other, or even direct human contact.  People no longer produce things for the benefits they bring to themselves and others; rather, a specific social class reaps the major benefit from the production process.  Furthermore, by breaking this natural relationship between the economic and political systems, a severe social problem is created.  The main mechanism for the integration of individuals into society is destroyed.

As a result of this commodity fetishism, people begin to feel alienated.  Within a Capitalist society people still need to feel that they are a valued and useful member of society.  The separation of the natural linkage of the economy and politics means that some other way of creating a sense of belonging has to be found.  Thus, religion is created.  Religious beliefs and practices fill the gap left by the removal of this feeling of self-worth.

It should be brought to attention that Marx was writing during the Industrial Revolution, a time of great social, political, and economical change.  People were moving from traditional fields of work at home to working in the factories of the cities, where they were closer to their employers.  The relationship between the worker and the employer changed greatly.  One could ask himself had the Communist Manifesto been written at any other time would the theory have panned out as it did?  The people weren’t any less religious before the Industrial Revolution, yet Capitalism in its truest form did not exist until this had begun.  Therefore, is it right to blame the capitalist society for the emergence of religious beliefs?  Marx could counter this with saying that alienation still existed, even though true capitalism didn’t.  There was still some separation of politics and the economy.  People produced goods for others and received monetary benefit in return.  Therefore, they still were alienated.

It must be noted that alienation, according to Marx, is not a simple psychological condition in which people feel alienated.  Rather it is where they are alienated.  When people are alienated from one another they may feel unhappy and depressed, but these are merely symptoms of the problem and not the actual cause of the feelings.  It is the separation of the economic and political systems that actually causes these feelings.  For Marx, the main cause of religious belief was not just as a drug to create an illusory happiness, but also to help people feel they belong to society.

If we take that the reason for religious belief in Capitalist society is the result of commodity fetishism which leads to alienation, then within Communist society there should be no religious belief as the economy and politics are united.  This means that there is no need for creation of other cultural forms to fill the gap left by the separation of these two systems.  With the unity of society, there is need for religion, however when we look at history we see that this is not the case.  In the time of communist Russia there was in fact an increase in Orthodoxy.  Furthermore, in many communist states, for example China, the leader is venerated to almost the status of a deity.  In China, during the lifetime of Mao Tse-tung, a personality cult endured where children were taught to love Mao and obey all of his orders.  This obviously goes against the theories of Marx that religion is not necessary where politics and economy are united.

The main fault of Marx’s theory is that he underestimates the power of religion on the masses.  People need God, even if he is simply created, as he is a model of perfect human behaviour and something to aim for.  Perhaps Marx could argue that religion is still practiced in these communist societies because communism has been manipulated by the neo-upper class as a method to control the masses; therefore the lower classes still feel oppressed and seek relief in religion.

However, one could also argue that if we accept Marx’s reasoning that religion is simply a manipulation of the

Another fault of Marx’s theory is that he assumes that religion is always used to maintain the status quo; however there are many cases where religion has been used to effect social change.  Perhaps the best example of this is the Catholic Church’s Liberation Theology.  This is where some priests believe that the Church should support the poor and act in their best interests.  It can be best summed up as “an interpretation of Christian faith through the Poor’s suffering, their struggle and hope, and a critique of society and the Catholic faith and Christianity through the eyes of the poor”.

This has been explained in recent years with the introduction of Humanistic Marxism, developed by Nicolas Poulantzas.  This theory uses the principle of relative autonomy to explain this apparent contradiction in Marx’s theory.  Poulantzas says that at certain times individuals may interpret their roles in ways that appear to challenge the dominant ideology of an institution (Catholicism in the case of Liberation Theology).  This is especially true of individuals in higher positions where their position in the power structure allows them to act with relative freedom.  However, Poulantzas pointed out that this freedom has limits.  In the case of Liberation Theology, the Catholic Church has not been welcoming of this ideological form and has tried to limit its impact.

It is important to note that Marx was as much against atheism as he was against theism.  He said that:

“Atheism, as a denial of this unreality, is no longer meaningful, for atheism is a negation of God and seeks to assert by this negation the existence of man.”

He believed that rather than using this roundabout method to prove the existence or non-existence of God that only dialectical materialism should be used.  This uses the concept of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis to explain the growth and development of humanity throughout history.  It stems from philosophical materialism which states that the only thing that truly exists is matter.  Therefore, we cannot say that God exists simply because we cannot see this matter.  Furthermore it uses the principle of dialectics, which is that both theses and antitheses should be used to arrive at a synthesis or conclusion.

As can be seen the Marxist perspective on religion is not a straight-forward one, but a complex mix of various factors.  Religion is not only the “sigh of the oppressed creature” or “the opium of the people”, it is also largely due to alienation in a Capitalist society.  It is a response to the material and economic realities of the current society; however this provides us with another problem.  If we take this to be true then we must start with the assumption that nothing else is fundamental enough to influence religion.  Furthermore, this influence is always in the direction of material and economy to religion and not religion to material and economy.  However, we know from historical evidence that this is not true.  If religion is solely caused by these realities then we should have seen the rise of Capitalism long before the rise of Protestantism as Capitalism is supposed to have caused Protestantism.  However, in history we see that the Reformation occurred in 16th century Germany where feudalism still reigned, whereas Capitalism as we know it did not come about until the 19th century.  Theologian Max Weber then went on to say that this clearly shows that religious institutions go on to create new economic realities.  Even if Weber’s theory can be proved wrong, the evidence still shows that there is apparent contradiction between Marx’s theory and the realities of life.

In conclusion, Marx’s theory rests on a series of assumptions, the main being that the only influences on religion are material and economic realities.  Perhaps Marx’s beliefs can be best summed up in the following quote:

“Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.”

As I have explained, religion is far to complex an ideological framework to be caused by such few reasons.  While it may be used to provide us with an illusory happiness to life to prevent us from having to deal with the realities of life, there is no way that we can see this is simply because we are alienated from society.  If we remove the assumptions from Marx’s theory then the theory comes apart.  If religion is not only influenced by these realities then is Capitalism really the enemy?  We cannot know the disease if we do not know all the symptoms.  Furthermore, while it might be said that alienation leads to religious belief how can we know that this is alienation from the social belonging that accompanies working together to produce commodities or from lack of religious belief in the first place.  Marx underestimates the hold that religion has on people’s lives.  While it may be logical to link religious belief to alienation from society, we must first determine what the true cause of this alienation is before blaming a particular economic system as he has done.

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