Marxism, General Will , Private Property

Following Rousseau and Kant, the fundamental Practical principle of Marxism, only occasionally explicitly cited as such, is the General Will. Smith's Invisible Hand is also in that tradition, but its apparent divergence from the line is crucial to the development of Marxism. For, the respect in which it seems to diverge--that it is a Theoretical law of Nature, not a principle determining Practice, is, according to Marx-Engels, a product of the alienation that is a consequence of the privatization of property. Accordingly, the specific contribution of Marxism to the tradition is the thesis that entailed in the General Will is the elimination of exclusively private property, though a methodical exposition of that entailment, e. g. via an application of Dialectical Logic, is not presented, as it would in a distinctively Philosophical treatment.