Marx and the problem of justice

ABSTRACT

This article outlines some recent and often contradictory interpretations of Marx's appproach to the problem of justice and attempts to show that the debate cannot be resolved exegetically. It attempts, further, to demonstrate that Marx's reflections on justice are deeply flawed and that if the emancipatory promise implied in Marx's critique of capitalism were to be realised, a political practice grounded in a more adequate account of justice – in particular justice in a post‐capitalist order – would be required. The article concludes with the claim that such an account of justice would have to be drawn from intellectual traditions other than that of Marxism itself.