You’re making a category error. Historical materialism just doesn’t have anything to say on the subject of morality, certainly nothing so silly as that. At the end of history the universe will be dirt and dust, but I haven’t seen any Marxist who cares (though I think I did once encounter someone who concluded from this and Aristotelian teleology that morality is whatever maximizes entropy, lol.)
More generally, even if we can make reasonable claims about what Marxists’ and Christians’ effective moralities, asking whether these are the same moralities or not is a confused question, for entirely different reasons.
At the end of history the universe will be dirt and dust
You’re misreading the Marxist “end of history”. To Marx, history is the story of class struggle, and so once there are no more classes there is no more history.
You might both be confusing Marxist and Marxian thought.
Adherents of Marxian economics, particularly in academia, distinguish it from Marxism as a political ideology and sociological theory, arguing that Marx’s approach to understanding the economy is intellectually independent of his advocacy of revolutionary socialism or his support of proletarian revolution.
I’m certainly not confused, but those trying to make that distinction might be. His political and sociological theories followed directly from his economic theories—refuting the labor theory of value is really sufficient to defeat Marx entirely, or at least eliminate anything that wasn’t already said better by Hegel.
For Marx history is the process of social changes. When that process of changes reaches it’s end, you have Marx’s end of history. For Marx that’s a communist society in which all workers get equal pay and life happily ever after. Afterwards there are no social changes, therefore there’s no history.
Marx makes a prediction that this communist society will come about. Things that move the world closer to that prediction are morally good for Marx.
You’re making a category error. Historical materialism just doesn’t have anything to say on the subject of morality, certainly nothing so silly as that. At the end of history the universe will be dirt and dust, but I haven’t seen any Marxist who cares (though I think I did once encounter someone who concluded from this and Aristotelian teleology that morality is whatever maximizes entropy, lol.)
More generally, even if we can make reasonable claims about what Marxists’ and Christians’ effective moralities, asking whether these are the same moralities or not is a confused question, for entirely different reasons.
I’ve seen several compelling arguments along similar lines.
Compelling? Do you mean compelled to reject the premises or compelled to accept the conclusion?
Mostly, I was compelled to author the grandparent comment. So not very compelling.
You’re misreading the Marxist “end of history”. To Marx, history is the story of class struggle, and so once there are no more classes there is no more history.
You might both be confusing Marxist and Marxian thought.
I’m certainly not confused, but those trying to make that distinction might be. His political and sociological theories followed directly from his economic theories—refuting the labor theory of value is really sufficient to defeat Marx entirely, or at least eliminate anything that wasn’t already said better by Hegel.
OK, sorry for the superfluous advice then. I have only had a cursory glance at your discussion.
Marx burrowed the idea of history from Hegel.
For Marx history is the process of social changes. When that process of changes reaches it’s end, you have Marx’s end of history. For Marx that’s a communist society in which all workers get equal pay and life happily ever after. Afterwards there are no social changes, therefore there’s no history.
Marx makes a prediction that this communist society will come about. Things that move the world closer to that prediction are morally good for Marx.