Karl Marx, Socialism, Susan Neiman & Meister Eckhart

Today the topic of “socialism” is entering mainstream political discourse with the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America), the mayor of New York, etc. The final chapter of Susan Neiman’s important book, Call It Evil: Understanding the Trump Era, is titled “Socialism Reconsidered.”In that chapter, she invokes Albert Einstein frequently. [See DM Link]

Gen Z and Gen Alpha generations are quite at home talking about socialism in America today. So in this and two subsequent DMs (and today’s video), we will meditate on Meister Eckhart’s significant teachings on that topic.

Several years ago, I published a substantive article of 33 pages and 100 endnotes on “Meister Eckhart and Karl Marx: The Mystic as Political Theologian.”*  

I am not the only one to link Eckhart and Karl Marx. Marxist philosopher Ernest Bloch did so in his book, Atheism in Christianity, published in English in 1972. Bloch emphasizes that Eckhart demystified the economic and political facts of life for the “common people,” whom he inspired for two centuries. Thanks to him, “the mystic fog was at least not of service to the ruling class.” (Indeed, it was the ruling class that got Eckhart condemned a week after he died.)

Eckhart scholar Reiner Schürmann says: “To a healthy number of Marxists, Meister Eckhart appears as the theoretician of the class struggle in the Middle Ages.” Eckhart offers a “mysticism of the left” that rejects “the dogma of an inaccessible heaven” that downplays justice on earth in preference for the next life.

The last talk Catholic monk Thomas Merton ever gave was titled “Marxism and Monastic Perspectives.” Delivered three hours before his martyrdom (1967), Merton called German Marxist Herbert Marcuse “a kind of monastic thinker” and declared that “the whole New Testament is, in fact—and can be read by a Marxist-oriented mind—as a protest against religious alienation.” I demonstrate in my book on Merton that it was Meister Eckhart who converted him from being a dualistic monk to being a prophetic Christian.

Following are some of Eckhart’s teachings that pave the way for a mysticism of the left: A theology of realized eschatology, meaning heaven is not projected onto another time or place, but begins now within individuals and communities seeking to make justice happen. “Eternal life is now,” says Eckhart. Bloch warns that a distorted mysticism leads to “man’s alienation of himself” when human treasures get “bartered for the illusion of heaven.” Not so with Eckhart.

Eckhart insists that the spiritual journey culminates in a return to the world—not a flight from it. “In contemplation you serve only yourself, in good works you serve many people.” Instead of getting caught up in our rapturous states, he counsels that “it would be far better to withdraw from the rapture for love’s sake and serve one who is in need.” He insists that a person who has truly learned to let go and let be, can find God in everyday things and in current history.

In his Commentary on the “Our Father,” Eckhart tells us, “Bread is given to us not that we eat it alone, but that others who are indigent might be participants.” When we eat bread acquired unjustly, “we are not eating our own but another’s. For nothing that we have unjustly is ours.”

Salvation for Eckhart is a We salvation and not an I salvation. “God has been the common Savior of the entire world, and for this I am indebted to him with much more thanks than if he had saved only me.” Bloch credits Eckhart as a source for the revolutionary Anabaptists who came after him, and celebrates how for Eckhart, redemption of one is the redemption of all. “Indeed anima mea anima nostra (my soul, our soul) has seldom or ever been so highly thought of” as in Eckhart’s mysticism.

To be continued.

* Matthew Fox, Wrestling with the Prophets: Essays on Creation Spirituality and Everyday Life, pp. 166-168, 183. 

To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video meditation, click HERE.

Banner Image: The “Hands Off!” rally in Eugene, Oregon, April 2025. Photo by Ian M. Wikimedia Commons.

Queries for Contemplation

Do you recognize similarities between the goals of Karl Marx and those of Meister Eckhart as laid out in this meditation? Do you recognize a prophetic tradition in Marx and Eckhart’s critique of religion that fails to speak out about injustice? And that “nothing we have acquired unjustly is ours,” as Eckhart puts it.

Related Readings by Matthew Fox

Passion for Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart, pp. 417-545. 

Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior For Our Times. 

Meditations with Meister Eckhart, pp. 89-131. 

A Way To God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey. 

Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality. 

Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth. 

A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice. 

Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet. 

Charles Burack, ed., Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality. 

Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation.