A Reflection Of Arendt’s Criticism On Marx’s View Of Labor

In the process of reflecting on totalitarianism,Arendt learned about Marxism,and afterwards,it became an important ideological background for her to think about reality and construct political theory.While affirming Marx’s greatness,Arendt generally held a critical attitude towards Marx’s ideas,especially directly criticized his view on labor.The problems mentioned by Arendt,such as the lack of freedom and the impossibility of liberation of workers,the invasion of labor to politics,and the confusion between labor and work,posed a challenge to Marx’s concept of labor.However,her criticism is actually a misreading of Marx’s thought.Arendt’s criticism of Marx is based on the understanding of her own concepts.On the one hand,she did not understand Marx’s ideological context,the rich content of Marx’s labor thought,the theoretical path and realistic background of the formation of Marx’s labor thought;On the other hand,she did not understand the social and historical reality and did not face up to the historical situation of ancient Greece and that changes in modern society correctly.Arendt is actually tailoring Marx’s ideas and socio-historical reality with her own understanding of concepts;such a theory cannot accurately grasp reality,and such a critique cannot be sustained.This paper is divided into four parts.The first part introduces the background of the selected topic,the significance of the study,the current status of domestic and international research,the research method and innovation points of this paper.The second part elaborates Arendt’s attention to Marx’s thought on labor.In the process of sorting out the ambiguous relationship between Marxism and totalitarianism,she entered the problem domain of reflecting on the tradition of Western political thought,and found Marx’s subversion-especially his view of labor of tradition thought.The third part analyzes and responds to Arendt’s criticism from the perspective of laborers.Starting from the slavery in ancient Greece,Arendt restricted workers to the bondage of natural necessity and criticized Marx’s view of labor confirming freedom.She did not understand Marx’s analysis of the dual relationship between man and nature and between man and man,and did not understand that labor liberation is the dual renunciation of natural necessity and historical necessity.Which is due to her problematic ideological premise.She did not understand the subjectivity of laborers facing nature and the real reason why laborers are not free in real society.The fourth part analyzes and responds to Arendt’s critique from the perspective of labor activity.Starting from the experience of ancient Greek city-states,she insisted on the dichotomy of the public and private realm and the triple division of vita activa,restricted labor activity to the private realm,accused Marx’s view of labor of leading to the invasion of labor into politics and Marx’s confusion of the distinction between labor and work,and her failure to understand the theoretical path of Marx’s philosophical-political economy critique and the realistic context of the capitalist mode of production that Marx confronted.Since Arendt does not correctly face up to the historical reality and fails to understand the historical changes in labor activity,her ideological premise is also not untenable.Arendt’s critique of Marx’s view of labor reflects the lack of a socio-historical perspective in her thought;she neither understands Marx’s emphasis on socio-historical relations nor faced up socio-historical realities correctly.Without the understanding of deep social relations between people,Arendt’s transcendental path of reconstructing political action in pursuit of freedom can only be a utopian imagination;Marx’s revolution based on reality and transforming social relations is the scientific path to freedom.