Hans Jonas and the proposal of a Marxism without utopia: some appointments

Abstract

This article brings some comments about Hans Jonas' reading of Marxist theory. As a critic of capitalism and modern technology, Jonas directs his political analysis in order to verify whether, in a socialist state, responsibility would find the political support for its realization. Jonas, however, still identifies in Marxism several elements common to liberal democracies with a capitalistic economy, among them the ideal of progress and naive confidence in technology, which the philosopher blames for being too utopian. In this sense, we sought to highlight Jonas' arguments around the thesis that only by getting rid of this utopian ideal could Marxism serve as an appropriate scenario for the realization of a policy of responsibility. Divided into two parts, we first list the elements that Jonas sees as important in the Marxist theory, then we bring Jonas' contributions that aim to “update” Marxism, citing the fragilities of its utopia that requires our major attention, in order to inspire the construction of a political-economic organization that upholds responsibility as a principle.