Conceptions of freedom in Hegel, Honneth and Marx

Abstract

The present article aims to approach some aspects of the conceptions of freedom in Hegel, Honneth and Marx, intending to defend the thesis of a fundamental opposition between the first two and the last. It will be argued that, while Hegel and Honneth link the problems concerning the capitalist market economy to its failure in fulfilling its own normative promises – including, as the most important, the realization of freedom –, Marx, on the contrary, understands that precisely the rightful fulfilling of these promises guarantees the production and reproduction of the exploitation relations – and therefore of unfreedom, inequality and expropriation – that characterize the capitalist market economy. In order to justify the opposition between these conceptions, the text is organized as follows: first, we engage in an approach of the concept of freedom in Hegel, mainly in his Philosophy of Right, showing how the concept is forged from his critique to other freedom conceptions. Following, we approach Honneth’s analysis from Freedom’s Right about the existing relation between freedom and market, showing what he understands by “social freedom”. Finally, we explore some points of Marx’s critique from the Capital to a certain approach to freedom that, treated only within the scope of the “market” or the “sphere of circulation”, would prevent us from seeing how the realization of freedom would be, in an apparently contradictory manner, condition to the production of exploitation relations and of the capital-labor contradiction inherent to the characteristic dynamics of this market economy.