How is Marx wrong?

[fa2991]

As far as his theories, where do you think Marx got something wrong? (Aside from his conception of the DOP or the state...)

[Zanthorus]

He did have a very racist view of Indians. He said some things along the lines of time has stood still in India and progress has only been made thanks to the invading British. Although to be fair he got all his information about India from imperial sources. His views on the possibilities of the Russian Obshchina as a vehicle for socialism provided that the upcoming Russian revolution sparked a working class revolution in the west were also probably misguided, although the basic idea that underdeveloped countries can skip over stages in their historical development by importing productive forces from more economically advanced countries seems solid to me.

I'm also a little uncomfortable with some of the references he makes to Jews, e.g the "dirty Jewish form of appearance" line in the first thesis on Feuerbach and I think there was also something about "huckstering Jews" in Capital. Hal Draper's excuse runs something along the lines of that "Juden" is colloquial in Germany for "commerce" although his article on the subject only covers On the Jewish Question and not the other references in Marx's writing.

There is also a letter from him to Engels when he says the best outcome of the Franco-Prussian war would be a victory for Prussia because it would get rid of all the Proudhonists and change the balance of power in favour of the German working class. His views on the various national questions in general are very... questionable. There was one example quoted by Rosa Luxemburg in The National Question where he says Czech liberation is useless because in a few years the Czech's will all have died off anyway.

EDIT: According to the notes to The National Question the articles on Czech liberation were actually written by Engels but submitted by Marx.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Well first, I think his conception of the state is very useful and is necessary in order to have a critique of the USSR as state-capitalist. The idea that the state exists apart from and outside of class doesn't make sense IMO.

But Marx was mostly wrong in some of his predictions about capitalism, but to be fair he could not see into the future and see how capitalists would adapt to problems. So I think he (and definitely his early adherents) might have thought that crisis in capitalism always gets worse and more intense in each business cycle. This pattern sort of holds up, but now there is also credit, there has been Keynesianism, and huge wars between industrial countries which have been able to change the dynamics of capitalism in times of crisis and kind of re-set production.

I don't know of Marx using minorities as insults other than some homophobic comments. Marx used terms like "barbarian nations" to describe pre-capitalist societies, or "negro" to describe black people but I think it's expecting too much of any historical figure to exist outside his or her own time. Homophobic comments before homosexuality was even considered an official category or was widely known (let alone before there was any movements for LGBT liberation) may be disgusting to us now, but I think we can give some space to historical context. Also, while Marx used the term "barbarian" which was the common way to describe these societies back then, he also writes really well and sympathetically about the crimes of feudal and capitalist era Europeans in Africa and Asia and the New World.

[Zanthorus]

Well first, I think his conception of the state is very useful and is necessary in order to have a critique of the USSR as state-capitalist.

I think the point about Marx's concept of the state was because obviously anarchists would disagree with that, and it wasn't really worth mentioning. Or just to stop anarchist vs Marxist flamewars. At least that was how I read it.

[mikelepore]

Marx used terms like "barbarian nations" to describe pre-capitalist societies,

Not used as an insult. "Barbarian" is a technical term in the classification system of the anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan to refer to societies whose manufactured items are at least as complicated as pottery and the bow and arrow, but who have not yet invented a written alphabet.


or "negro" to describe black people but I think it's expecting too much of any historical figure to exist outside his or her own time.

"Negro" is the Spanish word for "black." Mi camisa es negro. (My shirt is black.) Mis zapatos son negros. (My shoes are black.)

[mikelepore]

"In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things." -- The Communist Manifesto

That idea was wrong. It implies that nothing can go wrong, that it's only necessary to overturn the old society and then emancipation will be certain. It implies that there can't possibly be a revolution that ends up installing a Stalin or a Kim Jong Il. We should recognize now that a lot can go wrong.

[Zanthorus]

"In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things." -- The Communist Manifesto

That idea was wrong. It implies that nothing can go wrong, that it's only necessary to overturn the old society and then emancipation will be certain. It implies that there can't possibly be a revolution that ends up installing a Stalin or a Kim Jong Il. We should recognize now that a lot can go wrong.

I don't think that's necessarily what was meant. If you look at the paragraphs preceding it, they give support to various working class, radical and democratic movements. My interpretation of the phrase was not that they merely blindly support every movement which declares itself revolutionary, but that they support every revolutionary movement which is progressive.

[RadioRaheem84]

He did have a very racist view of Indians. He said some things along the lines of time has stood still in India and progress has only been made thanks to the invading British

LOL. Hitchens uses this as an excuse to be racist! If Marx said then it must be a Marxist POV. :lol:

[Queercommie Girl]

Pre-capitalist societies are not "barbaric". They were "semi-barbaric", like feudal China and Russia.

Pre-feudal tribal societies, like those in Africa, were "barbaric".

[bricolage]

I disagree with this analysis of the Paris Commune;
'With a modicum of common sense, however, it could have reached a compromise with Versailles useful to the whole mass of the people- the only thing that could be reached at the time.'

[28350]

Something from "Listen, Marxist! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bookchin/listenm.html)"

The idea that a man whose greatest theoretical contributions were made between 1840 and 1880 could "foresee" the entire dialectic of capitalism is, on the face of it, utterly preposterous.
One of the few sentences in that text I agree with.
I feel I should write a response.

[Stephen Colbert]

My only criticism of Marx is that he couldnt have an epic of a beard as Engels. Major flaw in my opinion

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

My only criticism of Marx is that he couldnt have an epic of a beard as Engels. Major flaw in my opinion

"Last Sunday we had a moustache evening. For I had sent out a circular to all moustache-capable young men that it was finally time to horrify all philistines, and that could not be done better than by wearing moustaches." - Friedrich Engels

He even wrote a poem:

Philistines shirk the burden of bristle
By shaving their faces as clean as a whistle.
We are not philistines, so we
Can let out mustachios flourish free.
Long life to every Christian
Who bears his moustaches likes a man.
And may all philistines be damned
For having moustaches banished and banned.

(Marx and Engels Collected Works, Vol. 2. New York 1975-2005).