Labriola, Antonio

(1843–1904)

   Labriola is noteworthy as the first “professorial Marxist” or academic Marxist, who made a significant contribution to Marxist theory, and influenced the Italian socialist movement, directing it away from syndicalism and toward Marxism. Labriola was for much of his career professor of moral philosophy and pedagogy at the University of Rome. While here he wrote his very influential Essay on the Materialist Conception of History (1895/6). His influence is indicated by the links he had with the leading socialists of his time including Friedrich Engels, Karl Kautsky, Karl Liebknecht, Max Adler, August Bebel, Paul Lafargue, Fillipo Turato, and Georges Sorel. He engaged in theoretical polemics with these figures defending historical materialism against revisionism and philosophical idealism. He himself was influenced by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s ideas.

   Labriola’s interpretation of Marxism was open and pragmatic with a significant empirical element. He saw historical materialism as unifying social science, but remaining sufficiently flexible to avoid descending into a rigid, deductive, mechanical model. Within this interpretation social psychology played a key part linking human beings and their social circumstances. This is reflected in his notion of praxis that focused on human activity, particularly productive activity, in the development of history.