Contemporary marxist pedagogues have proposed a single polytechnic school as a condition for the education of the "new man" that socialist society requires. This position assumes that marxism must expand through the inclusion of culture among its themes. This is so because the proletariat should be educated to make the socialist ideal come true. This papers tries to demonstrate that this was the position of German social-democracy at the time of the Second International and that this position was opposed to Marx's ideas. Marx believed that the new man already existed and was the proletariat, its being necessary to free him from salaried work. The immediate measure of this would be a reduction in the work day, because time is a prerequisite for human development. The reduction of the work day without a corresponding pay cut was regarded as crucial for changing the way of life. In the same movement, the regulation of the work of women and of children and youths of both sexes would be required, being combined, in the case of the latter, with schooling.
Marxism; education; workers; cultural anthropology