In the minds of some there is a close association between existentialist philosophy and Marxist or communist politics. There is some justification for this because one of the most prominent existentialists, Jean-Paul Sartre, was also a Marxist. Nevertheless, there are a number of significant incompatibilities between existentialism and Marxism — incompatibilities which even Sartre had difficulty reconciling.
Probably the most important difference between existentialism and Marxism lies in the issue of human freedom. Both philosophies rely heavily upon entirely different conceptions of human freedom and the relationship between human choices and the larger society.
For existentialists, human freedom is regarded as radical and absolute. Existentialists generally deny that there is any fixed “human nature” which limits us in what we do and who we are. Whatever happens to us, it is a consequence of our choices and we must take responsibility for that — there is no way we can transfer that responsibility to any other agency, human or otherwise.
Marxists, on the other hand, regard human freedom as extremely limited in the context of socioeconomic conditions. Karl Marx taught that who we are and what we do are subject to social and economic forces — a type of determinism, in effect. This then allows people to “blame” things like class or capitalism for some of the “choices” they have made and the situation in which they find themselves.
Largely as a consequence of these different conceptions of human freedom, Marxists and existentialists typically have very different ideas about how people should be living their lives. On the one hand, Marxists have a utopian vision of where human society should be leading — once the repression of a class-based, capitalist society is ended, people will have more freedom and happiness.
On the other hand, existentialists reject the idea that there can be a “utopia” or that humans can live a completely fulfilled, satisfying life. Instead, they argue that the only real values in our lives are those which are produced in the context of striving and suffering. A utopia, if it could exist, would actually destroy human values and any meaning in human life.
How then are we to understand the connections between existentialism and Marxism? In fact Karl Marx was an important influence among French existentialists. Although they did not agree with his ideas about economic determinism, they did respond positively to his critiques about the ways in which socioeconomic structures were used to reduce the scope of human freedom and constrain people’s choices.
Jean-Paul Sartre did more than anyone to try and reconcile existentialism with Marxism and it is in his writing that we should look to understand more about how the two can interact. Sartre regarded Marxism as the dominant philosophy of the twentieth century and he wanted to locate existentialism within it. However, he was also very critical of how Marxism tends to treat society as an undifferentiated whole rather than dealing with people as individuals.
French existentialists believed, as did more traditional Marxists, that the elimination of capitalism and the exploitation of workers might result in a society where people would enjoy more social, political, and economic freedom to grow. They did not generally share the Marxist belief that people were actually constrained; instead, they thought that capitalism served to distract people from their actual freedom. Changing society would, then, allow people to recognize the freedom which they had all along and allow them to lead more authentic lives.
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