Episode 155: Marx’s Conception of Justice and the “Ought Implies Can Principle,” Part 1

Co-hosts Andrew Kliman and Gabriel Donnelly begin a two-part discussion of Andrew’s book (in progress) focusing on the Critique of the Gotha Program. The discussion focuses on Marx’s conception of justice and the “Ought Implies Can” Principle. Andrew argues that Marx understood justice to be a matter of relations between people in a given society, which differs markedly from the modern conception of justice as a transhistorical ideal. The co-hosts discuss the basis on which he criticized different societies. Instead of declaring them “unjust” because they diverge from a transhistorical ideal, he focused on what they were actually able to do and achieve. This is a very different view than that held by activists and those on the left who push utopian viewpoints that are not actually achievable.

Andrew’s book is trying to tease out Marx’s ‘realistic outlook’ (as he called it in the Critique of the Gotha Program), which has been forgotten and overlooked by the Left. The realism of Marx, in contrast to the utopian dreamers of his age and ours is something too often understated.

We’re writing to advertise an MHI meeting on Sunday, April 12, 2026 from 1 to 3 pm Eastern Daylight Time (US/Canada). The meeting will discuss two new draft chapters of Andrew Kliman’s forthcoming book on Marx as a theorist of socialist society. The chapters focus on Marx’s key conclusion, in his Critique of the Gotha Program, that “right can never be higher than the economic structure of society.” One chapter explores what Marx meant and did not mean by that statement; the other discusses why he focused on realizing better historical possibilities rather than on realizing ideals of justice.

Andrew will give an introduction, situating the two chapters in the context of the book as a whole. Other members of MHI will give short presentations on several themes in the chapters: how the “Ought Implies Can” principle informs Marx’s thought; the difference between conceptions in which justice is internal to a particular society and conceptions in which it is an external ideal; and Marx’s conception of freedom as “unfettered self-development of every individual.”

Plus current-events segment: the co-hosts discuss the third No Kings protest in New York City.

Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective. It is co-hosted by Gabriel Donnelly and Andrew Kliman. We intend to release new episodes every two weeks. Radio Free Humanity is sponsored by MHI, but the views expressed by the hosts and guests of Radio Free Humanity are their own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of MHI.

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