Ideals without Idealism

To hold an ideal is not the same as being an idealist. This distinction, though subtle, cuts to the core of a persistent confusion in political and moral debates. Ideals are orienting principles: visions of a morally better state of affairs that guide action and judgment. Idealism, by contrast, is a methodological error: the tendency to evaluate strategy and intermediate goals solely by their immediate conformity to those ideals, rather than by their capacity to realize them under actually prevailing conditions.

An idealist, in this sense, mistakes proximity for progress. Another’s ideal can contradict one’s own while pointing toward a state of affairs more conducive to it than the status quo—not only regarding its unconscious realization, but also its conscious adoption. To reject such a step outright, simply because it fails to mirror the final vision, is to engage in idealism. In practice, this hinders, rather than hastens, the realization of one’s own goals.

The distinction between ideals and idealism is sharply illustrated in Marx’s treatment of socialism and communism in his Critique of the Gotha Programme. Marx clearly regards the communist maxim—”to each according to their needs”—as superior to the socialist maxim—”to each according to their contribution.” Yet he does not demand the immediate implementation of the former, nor does he condemn demands for the latter as reactionary. Instead, he situates both within a developmental framework grounded in material and social conditions.

Marx rejects certain formulations of the program outright, most notably the claim that workers are entitled to the “undiminished proceeds of labor.” As he explains, such phrasing collapses under the conditions of any complex social reproduction, since deductions for common funds—administration, infrastructure, education, care—are inescapable prior to individual distribution. However, this slogan is best understood as a carelessly expressed demand for a distributional principle in which individuals receive shares proportional to their contribution after necessary social deductions. Marx accepts this principle as appropriate for the first phase of communist society (i.e., socialism), but explicitly characterizes it as limited:

But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society...

From a strictly amoral standpoint, the notion of an “inevitable defect” is incoherent. If the “defect” itself is inevitable, then traversing rather than avoiding it is necessarily the most materially “progressive” / accelerationist avenue. The notion of an “inevitable defect” only gains coherence relative to an external ideal. The Critique of the Gotha Programme thus stands in subtle contrast to the strictly amoral formulation Marx and Engels use in The German Ideology:

Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things.

The truth is that for Marx communism is an ideal in the materialist, orienting sense of rendering deviations from it “defects”, but not in the idealist, methodological sense of wanting to adjust reality to it without regard for real limitations. The latter would manifest precisely in a practical rejection of the socialist maxim.

Why are socialism’s defects inevitable? Marx posits that communism requires a certain level of productivity, i.e., a certain development of the productive forces. But this so-called requirement has a flip-side: It is ultimately a matter of trust. Communistic relations—where individual consumption is decoupled from individual contribution—require individuals to trust each other to contribute enough to meet each other’s needs without coercion or direct compensation. Rising productivity is merely a factor that diminishes that trust requirement over time.

Even now under capitalism, nothing strictly prevents us from enacting “communistic” relations, i.e., from decoupling individual consumption from individual contribution: We could, in principle, pool our incomes with our peers and distribute them according to need. We generally do not do so, not because of any formal barrier, but because we lack the requisite trust that others will contribute enough to ensure our own survival. This is the free-rider problem in action.

At the outset, socialism will face qualitatively the same problem. The differences to capitalism are cosmetic on the one hand and quantitative on the other. First, the relation between labor and consumption is no longer obscured by money, but made explicit through labor time accounting. Second, in the absence of exploitation, individuals receive a larger share of their contribution than under capitalism. But neither change eliminates the underlying risk of free riding. A preference for communistic relations cannot be assumed to prevail under those conditions any more than now. However, by planning production according to need and distributing goods according to labor contribution, socialism at once transcends the “anarchy of the market” and creates a framework in which cooperation is rational and transparent1.

In doing so, socialism lays the groundwork for communism—not as an imposed system, but as an emergent one. Under socialism (as under capitalism), individuals can freely associate into communistic arrangements where trust is sufficiently high. These associations can expand and merge organically as social norms shift and cooperative practices become habitual. The everyday experience of democratic collaboration under socialism plays a crucial role here. By involving individuals in collective decision-making, socialism fosters the very virtues that communism requires and capitalism systematically erodes. Trust is not a precondition magically assumed, but a social product cultivated over time.

Contemporary “communist” critiques of meritocracy and equality of opportunity fall into the same trap as idealist critiques of socialism. By choosing to interpret them in strictly capitalist terms, critics conclude that they are anti-socialist. In actuality, these ideals point towards socialism and are the organic expression of working-class self-interest at this time. What is the epitome of meritocracy if not socialism—”to each according to their contribution”?

The right of the producers is proportional to the labor they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labor. But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege.

– Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme

Let us conclude by highlighting the self-defeating logic of idealism: Any articulated ideal and resulting practical prescription can be re-framed as deficient and thus reactionary from the standpoint of a more demanding or more comprehensive ideal. Idealism therefore has an internal tendency toward infinite escalation of standards and—consequently—political paralysis.

Ideals without idealism, on the other hand, provide a different orientation. They allow us to hold fast to our ultimate aims while remaining attentive to the constraints and possibilities of the present. They require us to evaluate proposals not by their resemblance to the end state, but by their capacity to move us toward it. They’re about recognizing that the road to a better world may pass through forms that are, in themselves, imperfect—but necessary. To reject those forms in the name of purity is to remain where one stands.