Similarities between Marxism and liberalism, and their main differences

Marxism and liberalism have much more in common than usually thought. Their views on religion, secularism, gender and race equality, sexual freedoms, family relations and even ‘globalisation’ or internationalism display enormous similarities. However, their approach to dealing with these issues differ greatly, as they extremely oppose each other in a fundamental principle: individualism. Pluralism, a result of individualism, is thus not a real option, or as they would say, “solution”, for leftists. Hence, though when being in opposition they strongly advocate political freedoms and rights, once in power, the first thing they sacrifice are the same freedoms and rights they had claimed (for themselves!) as an opposition group. 

The opposition to individualism makes Marxists to look rather backwards in their search for social “solutions”, and to have a critical stance towards modernity. The “ancient” societies where everything belonged to the “community” and the individual had to follow solely the community’s interests are the leftist ideal of an egalitarian and equal society, from which the word communism derives (see e.g. Friedrich Engels’ in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, 1884). For Marxists, modernity with capitalism as its main manifestation is the source for extreme poverty and economic injustice. In contrast, liberals see the accumulation of capital and the (sub)division of labour in the capitalist production system as resulting to more wealth for all societies of the world and their individuals (see e.g. Adam Smith in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776). 

Despite all the hostilities between Marxism and liberalism, their similarities made Karl Marx to applaud capitalism. Here is an excerpt from his Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848, Chapter 1): 
 “The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part.
The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.
The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.
The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigour in the Middle Ages, which reactionaries so much admire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence. It has been the first to show what man’s activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades.
The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.” 

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