Marxist philosophy

Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory comprises works in philosophy strongly influenced by Karl Marx's materialist approach to theory, or works written by Marxists. It may be broadly divided into Western Marxism, which drew from various sources, and the official philosophy in the Soviet Union, which enforced a rigid reading of dialectical materialism, particularly during the 1930s. Marxist philosophy is not a strictly defined sub-field of philosophy, because the diverse influence of Marxist theory has extended into fields as varied as aesthetics, ethics, ontology, epistemology, social philosophy, political philosophy, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of history. Key characteristics of Marxism in philosophy are its materialism and its commitment to political practice as the goal of all thought.

The theory is also concerned with the struggles of the proletariat and their critique of the bourgeoisie.

Marxist theorist Louis Althusser, for example, defined the philosophy as "class struggle in theory", thus radically separating himself from those who claimed philosophers could adopt a "God's eye view" as a purely neutral judge.

Marxism and philosophy

There are many interpretations of the "philosophy of Marx", both within and outside the Marxist movement. Some scholars distinguish between a "young Marx" (in particular the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844) and a "mature Marx", or divide his output into purely philosophical works, economic works, and political and historical interventions. Étienne Balibar has argued that Marx's works can be divided into "economic works" (Das Kapital, 1867), "philosophical works", and "historical works" (The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte; the 1871 The Civil War in France, which concerned the Paris Commune and acclaimed it as the first "dictatorship of the proletariat"; etc.). Balibar further argued that if any philosopher could be called a "Marxist philosopher", it would undoubtedly be Louis Althusser:

Marx's critique of Feuerbach

What distinguished Marx from Feuerbach was his view of Feuerbach's humanism as excessively abstract, and therefore no less ahistorical and idealist than what it purported to replace: the reified notion of God found in institutional Christianity, which legitimized the repressive power of the Prussian state. Instead, Marx sought to give ontological priority to what he called the "real life process" of real human beings, as he and Engels wrote in The German Ideology (1846):

Historical materialism

Marx summarized the materialist aspect of his theory of history, otherwise known as historical materialism (a term coined by Engels and popularized by Karl Kautsky and Georgi Plekhanov), in the 1859 preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy:

Ethics and human rights Marx's critique of the ideology of human rights departs from the counter-revolutionary critique by Edmund Burke, who dismissed the "rights of Man" in favour of the "rights of the individual". It is not grounded in opposition to the Enlightenment's universalism and humanist project on behalf of the right of tradition, as in Burke's case, but rather on the claim that the ideology of economism and the ideology of human rights are two sides of the same coin. However, as Étienne Balibar puts it, "the accent put on those contradictions can not not ring out on the signification of 'human rights', since these therefore appears both as the language in which exploitation masks itself and as the one in which the exploited class struggle express itself: more than a truth or an illusion, it is therefore a stake". In Das Kapital, Marx ironizes the "pompous catalogue of the 'inalienable rights of man'" in comparison to the "modest Magna Charta of a working day limited by law":

The communist revolution, on this account, does not merely negate individual liberty and equality ("collectivism"). Rather, it culminates in the "negation of the negation": "individual property" under the capitalist regime is itself the "expropriation of the immediate producers".

The relationship between Marxist theory and ethical action was later taken up by Leon Trotsky, who in 1938 wrote Their Morals and Ours, an ethical polemic responding to criticism of his actions during the Kronstadt rebellion and to broader questions about the perceived "amoral" methods of the Bolsheviks. Critics believed these methods seemed to emulate the Jesuit maxim that "the end justifies the means". Trotsky argued that Marxism located the foundation of morality in society and in the service of social interests, rather than in "eternal moral truths" proclaimed by institutional religions. He nevertheless regarded it as farcical to assert that an end could justify any criminal means and viewed this as a distorted representation of the Jesuit maxim. Instead, Trotsky believed that means and ends frequently "exchanged places", as when democracy is sought by the working class as an instrument to actualize socialism. He also viewed revolution as deducible from laws of development and primarily from class struggle, but this did not mean that all means were permissible.

Notes

References

Revisionism In Marxist philosophy, "revisionism", otherwise known as "Marxist reformism", represents various ideas, principles, and theories that are based on a reform or revision of Marxism. According to their critics, this involves a significant revision of fundamental Marxist theories and premises, and usually involves making an alliance with the bourgeois class.Oxford English Dictionary Revisionism 1. "A policy first put forward in the 1890s by Edward Bernstein (1850–1932) advocating the introduction of socialism through evolution rather than revolution, in opposition to the orthodox view of Marxists; hence a term of abuse used within the communist world for an interpretation of Marxism which is felt to threaten the canonical policy." Cites the first use in English "1903 Social-Democrat VII. 84 (heading) Revisionism in Germany." Some academic economists have used revisionism to describe post-Stalinist, Eastern European writers who criticized one-party rule and argued in favour of freedom of the press and of the arts, intra- and sometimes inter-party democracy, independent labour unions, the abolition of bureaucratic privileges, and the subordination of police forces to the judiciary power.

In Marxist discourse, revisionism often carries pejorative connotations and the term has been used by many different factions. It is typically applied to others and rarely as a self-description. By extension, Marxists who view themselves as fighting against revisionism have often self-identified as Marxist–Leninist anti-revisionists. Revisionism is most often used as an epithet by those Marxists who believe that such revisions are unwarranted and represent a watering down or abandonment of Marxism—one such common example is the negation of class struggle.

Revisionism has been used in a number of contexts to refer to different or claimed revisions of Marxist theory. Those who opposed Karl Marx's revolution through his lens of class struggle and sought out non-revolutionary or more conciliatory means for a change are known as revisionists. Eduard Bernstein, a close acquaintance of Marx and Friedrich Engels, was one of the first major revisionists, and was prominent in the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

In the late 19th century, the term revisionism was used to describe reformist socialist writers, such as Bernstein, who sought to revise Marx's ideas about the transition to socialism and claimed that a revolution was not necessary to achieve a socialist society. The views of Bernstein gave rise to evolutionary socialism, which asserts that socialism can be achieved through gradual peaceful reforms from within a capitalist system. referenced in

Differences within Marxist philosophy The status of humanism in Marxist thought has been contentious. Many Marxists, especially Hegelian Marxists and those associated with some Communist parties, have adopted strongly humanist positions. These humanist Marxists argue that Marxism identifies what they regard as the true potential of human beings and that this potential can be realized in collective freedom once communist revolution removes capitalism's constraints on and subjugation of humanity. A particular version of humanism within Marxism is represented by the school founded by Lev Vygotsky in theoretical psychology, including Alexei Leontiev and László Garai.

Key works and authors

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, especially the earlier writings such as The 1844 Manuscripts, The German Ideology and "Theses on Feuerbach", but also the Grundrisse, Das Kapital and other works inspired Theodor Adorno Louis Althusser Alain Badiou Étienne Balibar Walter Benjamin Ernst Bloch Nikolai Bukharin Amadeo Bordiga Cornelius Castoriadis Maurice Cornforth Guy Debord Joseph Dietzgen Hal Draper Raya Dunayevskaya Laszlo Garai Antonio Gramsci Jürgen Habermas CLR James Fredric Jameson Karl Kautsky Karl Korsch Antonio Labriola Paul Lafargue Henri Lefebvre Claude Lefort Vladimir Lenin Georg Lukács, History and Class Consciousness developed the theory of ideology to include a more complex model of class consciousness Rosa Luxemburg Herbert Marcuse Ralph Miliband, often considered a main proponent of Instrumental Marxism, however some dispute this Ho Chi Minh Antonio Negri Antonie Pannekoek Georgi Plekhanov Georges Politzer Jacques Rancière Helmut Reichelt M. N. Roy Jean-Paul Sartre Leon Trotsky,"Their Morals and Ours" Deng Xiaoping Mao Zedong Slavoj Žižek

Marxist philosophy

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