Abstract

Present international politics has to tackle great problems threatening mankind’s survival, but unfortunately a common method of cooperating at their resolutions is lacking; the main hindrance is the lack of a common consciousness of past political history. This cultural crisis and the possible consequent catastrophes may be avoided only by recuperating a historical perspective which is comprehensive of the past and the new problems according to a cooperative attitude. The history of past two centuries was dominated by the birth of a radical class conflict, enhanced by Marx’s theory. I present an appraisal of Marx's theory on the basis of a new conception of the foundations of social science as constituted by two dichotomies. On them Marx's theory implicitly took the alternative choices to those of dominant economic theory of capitalism, i.e. Smith’s. At his time Marx’s theory represented a great intellectual progress manifested by its enormous relevance in the history of peoples of last two centuries. But it and the consequent world movement were not consistent with these choices, in particular the choice on kind of social progress. Moreover, Marx’ theory was ambiguous about the conflict resolution, whether in a violent way or not. Its ambiguities give reason of both the fall of the socialist societies and the catastrophic failure of Marxist movement. However, I show that both Marx’ theory and Marxist movement have prepared, for better or for worse, a new history of mankind which is of a pluralist political kind, which is sketched.