06/24/04

Karl Marx: Religion as Opium of the People

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was born on May 5, 1818 in the German city of Trier. His family was Jewish, but later converted to Protestanism in 1824 in order to avoid anti-semitic laws and persecution. For this reason among others, Marx rejected religion early on in his youth and made it absolutely clear that he was an atheist.

Karl Marx, Religion, and Economics

How do we account for religion - its origin, its development, and even its persistence in modern society? This is a question which has occupied many people in a variety of fields for quite a long time. At one point, the answers were framed in purely theological and religious terms, assuming the truth of Christian revelations and proceeding from there.

But through the 18th and 19th centuries, a more "naturalistic" approach developed. One person who attempted to examine religion from an objective, scientific perspective was Karl Marx. Marx's analysis and critique of religion is perhaps one of the most famous and most quoted by theist and atheist alike. Unfortunately, most of those doing the quoting don't really understand exactly what Marx meant.

I think that this in turn is due to not entirely understanding Marx's general theories on economics and society. Marx actually said very little about religion directly; in all of his writings, he hardly ever addresses religion in a systematic fashion, even though he touches on it frequently in books, speeches and pamphlets.  The reason is that his critique of religion forms simply one piece of his overall theory of society - thus, understanding his critique of religion requires some understanding of his critique of society in general.

According to Marx, religion is an expression of material realities and economic injustice. Thus, problems in religion are ultimately problems in society. Religion is not the disease, but merely a symptom. It is used by oppressors to make people feel better about the distress they experience due to being poor and exploited. This is the origin of his comment that religion is the "opium of the masses" - but as shall see, his thoughts are much more complex than commonly portrayed.

Marx's basic stance is that everything is always about economics. But there are flaws in his material analysis of society and thus there are consequently flaws in his critique of religion. Most disagreements with Marx and Marxism which I see seem to rely upon a superficial understanding of Marxist theories.

Karl Marx's Analysis of Religion

According to Karl Marx, religion is one of those social institutions which are dependent upon the material and economic realities in a given society. It has no independent history but is instead the creature of productive forces. As Marx wrote, "The religious world is but the reflex of the real world."

This, very simply stated, is Marx's contribution to the study and understanding of religion: religion can only be understood in relation to other social systems and the economic premises of the society in which it occurs. But Marx goes further and asserts that religion is only dependent upon economics, nothing else - so much so that the actual doctrines of the religions are almost irrelevant. This is a functionalist interpretation of religion - understanding religion is not dependent upon the content of beliefs, but what social purpose religion itself serves.

Marx's opinion of religion is simple: it is an illusion whose chief purpose is to provide reasons and excuses to keep society functioning just as it is. Just as capitalism takes our productive labor and alienates us from its value, religion also takes our qualities - our highest ideals and aspirations - and alienates us from them, projecting them onto an alien and unknowable being called a god.

*All material taken from About.com