One of the weapons that Marx and Engels used to attack their adversaries consisted in their contemptuous criticism of utopianism. Nevertheless, some passages in their works seem to describe an ideal future society, thereby raising quite a few problems for those who study their thought. An outstanding case is a rather famous and quoted passage of the project which was later labelled The German Ideology, famous precisely because it seems to fit ill with the rest of their theory. In a day in communist society as outlined here, an individual might hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, and criticise after dinner at will, without becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.
This well-known passage seems to lapse into utopianism, painting a preindustrial pastoral idyll, totally at odds with the technical development of capitalist society that met, however, with the approbation of Marx and Engels (Avineri 1968, p. 231–232; Althusser 1969, p. 36–37; McLellan 1969, p. 462–463; Coby 1986; Arthur 1986, p. 137). How these bucolic occupations can serve as models for the abolition of the division of labour in «a sophisticated, industrial society» seems to remain unanswered «in this or in any other of Marx’s writings» (Avineri 1968, p. 231–2). Strangely enough, this illustration «maps pretty well» the working days Fourier outlined in his «Utopian scheme» that Marx criticized already in his manuscripts of 1844 (Arthur 1986, p. 137).T. Carver sought to put an end to debate on interpretation of this passage, arguing that it should be read with a sense of irony (Carver 1988, p…