The Open Society and Its Enemies

In light of Hegel’s intellectual impact on Karl Marx, Popper moves on to analyzing the work of this 19th-century German philosopher. His initial focus is Marx’s methodology, including Marx’s background, his view of sociology, and sociological determinism, specifically historicism in the realm of economics, class struggle, and the structure of society at large. Marx was the last philosopher to build a complex system (294). By using sociology and economic historicism, this thinker may have surpassed both Plato and Hegel despite the accuracy of his institutional analysis (341, 400). Marx believed that politics were subservient to the forces of history, which Popper calls “prophetic historicism” (341).

This tension between inaccurate historicist prophecy and accurate institutional analysis is the reason why Marx’s work impacted Popper in a paradoxical way. On the one hand, Popper argues that the Hegelian roots of Marxism are “so far the purest, the most developed and the most dangerous form of historicism” (293), making him a “false prophet.” Plato, Hegel, and Marx believed that the interests of the state supersede those of the individual. Marx’s views, however, appeared in a materialist framework (310).