Marxism defines aims from within a rejected situation, not from absolute archetypes.

Evidence

Unlike the old kind of Utopian socialism which confronted earthly order with the archetypes of Justice, Order, and Good, Marx does not consider that certain human situations are, in themselves and absolutely, preferable to others. It is the needs of people, the revolt of a class, which define aims and goals. It is from within a rejected situation, in the light of this rejection, that a new state appears as desirable; only the will of men decides; and it is on the basis of a certain individual act of rooting itself in the historical and economic world that this will thrusts itself toward the future and then chooses a perspective where such words as goal, progress, efficacy, success, failure, action, adversaries, instruments, and obstacles, have a meaning. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 13

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Shows how Marxism shares with existentialism the notion of situation and subjective value-creation.