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Was Marx the only one who played a role in the formation of Marxism- didn't Malthus, Darwin, English Economics, German Philosophy, and French Socialism also play a role in it? Didn't they all have their own founders?
P. S. Remesh Chandran
Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum
Article Title Image By ..... Graphics: Adobe SP.
Was Marx the only one who played a role in the formation of Marxism- didn't Malthus, Darwin, English Economics, German Philosophy, and French Socialism also play a role in it? Didn't they all have their own founders?
P. S. Remesh Chandran
Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum
Article Title Image By ..... Graphics: Adobe SP.
One of the distinctive features of Marx's writings is that, even after so long since they were written, the political and economic analyses in them continue to attract the attention of the world. It is doubtful whether a single day has passed since then when they have not been discussed. But are there not co-authors, partners, multiple sources, derivatives and roots in that body of theory? Isn't it clear that it is ambiguous in many issues affecting man, society and the world?
Marx did not, as was the custom in his time, give much credit to the biblical theory of creation, but to Darwin's theory of evolution, and to the theory that nature itself selects the fittest for survival through competition for existence. As for Darwin's theories they were also influenced by Malthus's theories on the distribution of animal populations and the disappearance of species, which theories are still very influential not only at that time but also today. Malthus (Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) was the initiator. Malthus, Darwin, Marx was the order. With the addition of the three more sources roots fountains, of English Economics, German Philosophy, and French Socialism, Marxism emerged.
It was Malthus who laid the foundation for modern environmentalist thoughts too. The fact that Marxist thinkers all over the world were, and are, generally environmentalists too should also be considered an influence of Marxism. Whether that also came within it from Malthus is not intended to be made a matter of controversy here.
Malthus was the son of a friend of Rousseau, the eighteenth-century French philosopher who challenged the biblical doctrine that mankind was born sinful because they had eaten the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden and had learned about sex, and who promoted a new revolutionary idea: that man is born good and that it is the institutions of society and the state that make him bad. His father was also such a person, and Malthus' revolutionary writings were born out of the discussions between father and son. Although he accepted some of his ideas, Marx did not have the same respect for Malthus as he had for Darwin, and Marx had written specifically about it. As a result, later interpreters of Marx have dismissed Malthus's influence on the origins of Marxism.
Marx had also accepted as such Rousseau's argument that all the evil in society is due not to man but to the conviction of private property maintained by social institutions. This was the basis for the core of Marxism, which was that private property would disappear and be taken over entirely by the state under communism. Although communism did not come about in Russia, when Marxism was introduced, private property did disappear under the state. If this had not happened, that system of governance would still have been existing in Russia. Accepting Rousseau, accepting Darwin, and rejecting Malthus the central point in between, is the defect not in Marxism but in many later Marxist interpretations.
Why did the all-seeing, all-merciful Creator God allow such widespread sufferings in the world, both in nature and among humans, was a big question in religion and society at that time. Marx’s was a revolutionary ideology, with interpretations based on capital and capitalist exploitation, about what was the cause of this widespread sufferings and how to solve it. But Marx could not accept Malthus's answer to the same question which did not go well with his theory, and besides, there was no room for it in his theory. So he maintained a consistent distance from Malthus.
In short, Malthus’s answer limits itself to the inference that God’s contribution to man is limited to endowing him with a body and mind by forming them from soil, is forming mind from matter and giving it to him. If the mind is there, and if there is its capability of self-development through experiences and thoughts, then all the conflicts on earth can be survived. And that mind is there no matter what! Nature is full of conflicts, and hasn't all living beings, including humans, experienced it enough and have not to go with them? The internal turmoil and volcanic eruptions of the earth have not yet ended; nature has not become calm and composed, so how can humans experience a life free from suffering and pain? If there were no suffering, would anyone do any work? So how can Marx who judges man by mathematical standards accept Malthus' answer to the question of suffering? But if these thoughts had not been there, then the thought processes of the atheists Darwin and Marx would not have been there, they would not even have arisen.
Bernard Shaw also had said that Darwin, with his theory of the survival of the fittest in nature, created a vacuum where the ideas of God and religion had existed. Marx did the rest. It is through these two men that God and religion have become the most insecure in the world.
Marx did not, as was the custom in his time, give much credit to the biblical theory of creation, but to Darwin's theory of evolution, and to the theory that nature itself selects the fittest for survival through competition for existence. As for Darwin's theories they were also influenced by Malthus's theories on the distribution of animal populations and the disappearance of species, which theories are still very influential not only at that time but also today. Malthus (Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) was the initiator. Malthus, Darwin, Marx was the order. With the addition of the three more sources roots fountains, of English Economics, German Philosophy, and French Socialism, Marxism emerged.
It was Malthus who laid the foundation for modern environmentalist thoughts too. The fact that Marxist thinkers all over the world were, and are, generally environmentalists too should also be considered an influence of Marxism. Whether that also came within it from Malthus is not intended to be made a matter of controversy here.
Malthus was the son of a friend of Rousseau, the eighteenth-century French philosopher who challenged the biblical doctrine that mankind was born sinful because they had eaten the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden and had learned about sex, and who promoted a new revolutionary idea: that man is born good and that it is the institutions of society and the state that make him bad. His father was also such a person, and Malthus' revolutionary writings were born out of the discussions between father and son. Although he accepted some of his ideas, Marx did not have the same respect for Malthus as he had for Darwin, and Marx had written specifically about it. As a result, later interpreters of Marx have dismissed Malthus's influence on the origins of Marxism.
Marx had also accepted as such Rousseau's argument that all the evil in society is due not to man but to the conviction of private property maintained by social institutions. This was the basis for the core of Marxism, which was that private property would disappear and be taken over entirely by the state under communism. Although communism did not come about in Russia, when Marxism was introduced, private property did disappear under the state. If this had not happened, that system of governance would still have been existing in Russia. Accepting Rousseau, accepting Darwin, and rejecting Malthus the central point in between, is the defect not in Marxism but in many later Marxist interpretations.
Why did the all-seeing, all-merciful Creator God allow such widespread sufferings in the world, both in nature and among humans, was a big question in religion and society at that time. Marx’s was a revolutionary ideology, with interpretations based on capital and capitalist exploitation, about what was the cause of this widespread sufferings and how to solve it. But Marx could not accept Malthus's answer to the same question which did not go well with his theory, and besides, there was no room for it in his theory. So he maintained a consistent distance from Malthus.
In short, Malthus’s answer limits itself to the inference that God’s contribution to man is limited to endowing him with a body and mind by forming them from soil, is forming mind from matter and giving it to him. If the mind is there, and if there is its capability of self-development through experiences and thoughts, then all the conflicts on earth can be survived. And that mind is there no matter what! Nature is full of conflicts, and hasn't all living beings, including humans, experienced it enough and have not to go with them? The internal turmoil and volcanic eruptions of the earth have not yet ended; nature has not become calm and composed, so how can humans experience a life free from suffering and pain? If there were no suffering, would anyone do any work? So how can Marx who judges man by mathematical standards accept Malthus' answer to the question of suffering? But if these thoughts had not been there, then the thought processes of the atheists Darwin and Marx would not have been there, they would not even have arisen.
Bernard Shaw also had said that Darwin, with his theory of the survival of the fittest in nature, created a vacuum where the ideas of God and religion had existed. Marx did the rest. It is through these two men that God and religion have become the most insecure in the world.
Written on 09 October 2025 and first published on 20 January 2026
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