Marxism: not a science

[BIXX]

While many have claimed that Marxism is a science, I have never heard anyone prove this claim, and I have began to doubt it.

Reason: Sciences are processes of discovery or study, for example, physics. Physics is the name we have given to the study of matter and energy, and as such we test claims and formulate hypothesis and models that demonstrate our understanding of the universe.

On the other hand, Marxism seems to be a "theory of being", much like Max Stirner's individualism. Just like individualism, it has its tenets that it rests upon. Unlike individualism, it does appear to be a theory of sociology (in the sense that Marxism is a certain theory of how society will move and how society will change), but I cannot bring myself to call it a science.

Thoughts? I would like to hear why people call it a science, and why others don't.

[ARomanCandle]

Well, it would obviously depend on how you define science and how you define Marxism.

Marxian economics seems to me to be, by far, the most explanatory and intelligible theory of economic phenomena.

The question hinges on whether you consider social sciences to be science.

[Loony Le Fist]

It's going to depend on what part of Marx's ideas you are talking about. I don't think anything under the heading of "Marxism" is really a science. But Marxist economics can be a helpful starting point for things. But economics in general isn't a hard science, despite what many adherents will tell you.

[motion denied]

Sciences are processes of discovery or study

Then 'Marxism' is a science.


formulate hypothesis and models that demonstrate our understanding of the universeThen 'Marxism' is not a science.

Arbitrary hypothesis and models are found in Weber and Durkheim. Marx was more concerned with 'real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both which they find already existing and those produced by their activity'.

Is it a science? I don't know, I don't know if I even care, to be honest. Does it explain the movement and tendencies of society? Yes; and in this sense, historical materialism is insuperable.

EDIT: There is no "marxian economy", "marxian sociology" or "marxian whatever".

How does one separate so-called marxian economy from so-called marxian sociology? Marx knew only one science, the science of History.

[Fakeblock]

Marx knew only one science, the science of History.

Or rather the science of social relations.

Interestingly, I've heard the case made that the German Wissenschaft, used by Marx and Engels, doesn't have the same connotations as in English (where science is mostly associated with the natural sciences). Instead it refers more generally to a systematic study. As such, Marxism or 'scientific socialism' could be called scientific not necessarily because it uses the same method as the natural sciences, but because it draws its conclusions from a systematic study of social relations and history, as opposed to utopian socialism which had no basis in the existing world.

German speakers should feel free to correct me on this though.

[Homo Songun]

Hegel and other 19th century thinkers used the word 'science' in a specific manner, but since then Logical Positivism and others of their ilk have bogarted the word in the English speaking world. It suited their aims to narrow the word's meaning.

[Red Economist]

While many have claimed that Marxism is a science, I have never heard anyone prove this claim, and I have began to doubt it.

Because of how central the claim to 'science' is to making the case that communism is a product of historical development, I've taken an interest in this- but I'm still undecided on the issue.

According to Russell Jacoby in Dialectics of Defeat, Marxists generally divided down into the "orthodox" Marxists who believe it is a science (Orthodox Marxism/Social Democracy, Marxism-Leninism, etc.) and the "Unorthodox" Marxists who treat it as a philosophy ('western Marxists, such as the Frankfurt School. I think Gramsci may well be in this group). The latter generally reject the application of Marxism to nature.

The problem is that as an 'ideology', Marxism's claim to scientific status is not subject to "proof" in the current sense. Marxism is 'technically' a dogma because it begins with Dialectics and Materialism as assumptions reflecting the nature of reality. Rather, it is a philosophical proof in much the same way as the existence/non-existence of god. And the latter is somewhat central to rejecting 'idealism' in Marxist acceptance of 'materialism'.

The definition of science has changed over time to exclude philosophical reasoning and much of bourgeois ideology in science has become embedded as 'fact' rather than philosophical conjecture. So, Marxism would have been considered a 'science' in the 19th century, but not in west in the 20th.

In the 21st century, Post-Modernism is using the philosophical challenge to Positivist conceptions of science as a social construct and potentially re-opening the definition of science to reveal it's philosophical under-pinning. This has caused problems because it has been abused by people wanting to make the case for denying climate change and introducing intelligent design as a 'scientific' concept.

Within the Positivist definition of science, you can prove an individual hypothesis, but not an ideological system. Hence I'm undecided because it involves changing the definition of 'science'.

[Atsumari]

When I talk to some comrades, they seem to do a better job convincing me that it is a religion.

[Red Economist]

When I talk to some comrades, they seem to do a better job convincing me that it is a religion.

Because of the nature of Marxist ideology as 'dogma', this is a fair accusation. Yet, at the same time liberalism conception of "natural law" is also quasi-religious (e.g. the market is always right, human beings are always rational, liberal societies are always free, etc). "human nature" is more or less a secular conception of the soul.

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

In the case of Karl Marx, the obstacles preventing us from appreciating his thought are reinforced with several extra protective layers. ‘Marxism’ is not just a doctrine, but a tradition, not just a set of theoretical notions, but the life activity of large numbers of people. These men and women have invested their entire lives in fighting for what they thought were the theories of Marx, convinced they were struggling for the emancipation of humanity from exploitation and oppression. Their theory was an attempt to give a coherent account of what was happening in the world, including their own activity. It is a very painful business for them to cut a path through the misconceptions on which they had based their efforts. Not surprisingly, many find it much easier to ditch the whole thing.

When I accuse ‘Marxists’ of burying Marx, I don’t mean to condemn attempts to develop older ideas to take account of new situations and events – of course, that is legitimate. I am talking about the process whereby Marx’s essential insights were obscured and denied.

Each generation of ‘Marxists’ inherited a set of ideas and defended it against its critics. As these opponents were, in general, utterly ignorant of what they purported to refute, their attacks only helped to shore up the prejudices of the ‘Marxists’. Particular prominent figures in the movement became accepted as ‘authorities’, quotations from whose works would decide the issue in the event of dispute.

When Marxism became the doctrine claimed by large organisations, a canon of ‘orthodoxy’ was established. Anybody appearing to contradict standard texts or interpretations was perceived as an enemy. As happened to Jesus of Nazareth, too, the ideas of ‘orthodox Marxism’ became bound up with a massive state structure. Soon, orthodoxy was protected by state power, with all its sanctions of isolation, exile, violence and death.

That is why, if we want to find out what Marx’s ideas have to say about the contemporary world, we can’t do it just by reading his books. We have to retrace the path by which the tradition came into being, to find out how and where Marx was buried. I am certainly not the only one today trying to re-examine this history. Some people want to ‘reconstruct Marxism’. Others are also trying to discover and correct the distortions which are now so evident. Each of these people must base their work on his or her own experience. Some of this work is useful, but I think little of it digs very deep.

In this chapter, I try to retrace my own steps and attempt to find my way back to Marx’s actual ideas. Let me repeat, I am not looking for the ‘genuine’, ‘pure’, ‘perfect’, ‘original’ Marx, who will provide us with the ‘correct’ answers – such a person never existed. I want to establish what were Marx’s real ideas, in order to see what they have to say about our present predicament.

Even in their lifetimes, Marx (1818-1883) and Engels (1820-1895) were dismayed to see their fundamental notions buried under the myth of infallibility. Marx would have been utterly hostile to the statement of Plekhanov (1856-1918) that ‘Marxism is an integral world outlook’. In fact, only a fraction of Marx’s original plan for his work was ever completed. By the time of his death, bourgeois society was already entering a new stage. A large and important part of his writings remained as unedited and undeciphered manuscripts, unknown even to Engels.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-cyril/works/millenni/smith2.htm

I've found this to be extremely useful. The reason why I've posted this is because it highlights the dogmatism in the history of Marxism, helping to shed light on the argument of whether it is a science or not. Do not forget to distinguish between wissenschaft and science in the English sense of the word.

Oh and http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-cyril/works/millenni/smith4.htm covers Marx, Marxism and science in greater detail.

[RedMaterialist]

Prediction is supposed to be a fundamental aspect of science. Mendeleyev predicted that chemical elements would be discovered to fill in the blanks in the Periodic Table (Mendeleyev himself was a reactionary conservative according to Trotsky); Einstein's theories predicted that time is relative (which is now used to calibrate cell phone satellites), and also predicted the existence of black holes, not to mention the possibility of the atomic bomb.

Marx predicted that capitalist crises would continue every 7-10 years until a catastrophic crisis. The big one came in 1929. Marx didn't predict that capitalism would be able to survive by having the state prop up effective demand with trillions of dollars in spending. Even with Keynesianism capitalism still goes into crisis every 10 yrs or so : 2008, 2001, 1991, 1982, 1980, 1974, etc. If Marx is right, another crisis will come in 2015-17.

Marx also predicted a worker's revolution, which occurred, not in England, but in Russia in 1917. He didn't see that the revolution would be "betrayed."

He predicted mass unemployment; continued and increasing inequality of wealth. Real unemployment is probably at 20% and .01% of the population in the U.S. owns about 80% of the wealth. Supposedly 500 people own more wealth than 2/3 of the rest of the people on the planet, combined.

He predicted capitalism would lead to the total commodification of society. Who can deny that practically all human relations have become commodities? Even the bourgeois economists now admit that people are "human capital." Everything is for sale.

I would say that practically every day confirms Marxism's predictions. The difference between Marxism and physics, chemistry, etc., is that there is a massive education and propaganda system in place to deny the reality of Marxism. It took a 100 yrs for Darwin to be accepted in the U.S. It will be even longer for Marx.

[Das war einmal]

It's going to depend on what part of Marx's ideas you are talking about. I don't think anything under the heading of "Marxism" is really a science. But Marxist economics can be a helpful starting point for things. But economics in general isn't a hard science, despite what many adherents will tell you.

This. It's astounding that many economic schools are even considered decent studies. The whole 'invisible hand of the market' theory is laughably wrong and the whole Austrian school is basically idealistic in nature.

[Ritzy Cat]

Marxism is not a science.
It is political philosophy. I debate even calling political science itself just because of the connotations associated with the word.

Science is biology, chemistry, geology. Acquiring knowledge on properties of the world through experimental hypothesization. Properties being the unchangeable mechanisms of how the world works, which humans cannot change. We "discover" these ideas, not "create" them, as Marx did his own. Although I guess even that could be debated. We could argue that Marx analyzed the past to formulate historical dialectics through examination and experimental observations. His work is not presented as such though. It's more so philosophical and economical analysis, neither of which I consider "science".

Marxism could be a social science perhaps. But it'd perhaps be an idea under a social science like sociology. It wouldn't be a science in itself.

[Das war einmal]

Still even if it's not hard science, marxism, economy or philosophy in general shouldn't be placed in categories. Thats a metaphysical view on the subject of science.

[Strannik]

It seems to me, that Marxism contains at least one scientific hypothesis - that ideological structure of stable human society must always be in accordance with it's mode of production. This is similar to Darwin's hypothesis, that species evolves according to it's environment. If it can be shown that theory of evolution is science then the same should be true for Marxism.

[Dodo]

I am going to read this article soon

MARXISM AS SCIENCE:
HISTORICAL CHALLENGES AND THEORETICAL GROWTH - Michael Burawoy

but I'd like it if someone else did before me and wrote their take on it. It is an academic paper, so it is probably a "scientific" take on Marxism's scientificness.
Also you might come across good references.

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

Marx wasn't interested in making his thoughts fit into the scope of the natural sciences.

The idea that Marxism is even scientific in the natural science sense of the word is... nonsense.

http://marxmyths.org/john-holloway/article.htm

[Dodo]

Marx wasn't interested in making his thoughts fit into the scope of the natural sciences.

The idea that Marxism is even scientific in the natural science sense of the word is... nonsense.

http://marxmyths.org/john-holloway/article.htm

Oi, thats one hell of an article we need a whole thread on. I remember Alan Woods fiercely defending the Engelsian position whereas this seems to attack it.

[Dodo]

And one more thing. I am going to write a thesis on stagnation of Turkish economy and its roots in the Ottoman empire in the 19th century.
I am going to make this analysis as a "Marxist" and I will make a Marxian analysis. But what does that even mean?

Rigid application of historical materialism? Is Marxism=Historical Materialism, or is it the dialectical approach to concepts?
There are problems in both cases for me right now. A rigid application of historical materialism goes in the face of all "scientific" analysis which dealt with failures of Marxist "theory". Whereas dialecticians argue that Marxism IS NOT A THEORY of society, it is a critique of science, it is negative and not "positive".
What does that imply for looking at history?
That I should use contemporary everything available(historical materialism, neo-classical theory, New institutional economics, structural functionalism...etc whatever) to analyze the agrarian roots of Ottoman capitalism? Or should I stick to core concepts in Marxism? Alienation, historical materialism, critique of political economy(Marxian economics) ?

I guess I should make a thread about this.

[Thirsty Crow]

On the other hand, Marxism seems to be a "theory of being", much like Max Stirner's individualism.
If any of the Marxisms out there is any such thing, it needs to be scrapped.

The point about the insistence on the scientific is that a section of the working class undertaking the study of social relations and social life cannot afford itself the luxury of ideological (self) manipulation and deceit. In order to change the world, you've got to get to know it, and here not all procedures are equally productive.

EDIT: of course, that doesn't mean that historically hordes of self-proclaimed Marxists hadn't twisted their thinking into either ideology or soothing fairy tales preventing them from openly and soberly assessing both their own practice and the (then) current state of things.

EDIT no. 2:
Hegel and other 19th century thinkers used the word 'science' in a specific manner, but since then Logical Positivism and others of their ilk have bogarted the word in the English speaking world. It suited their aims to narrow the word's meaning.
Yeah, if we're going by anything Hegel wrote on science, we'd end up with naked mysticism. So any narrowing down is more than welcome. And the hate the logical positivists with their verificationism get is damn weird considering the fact that bourgeois apologia actually found this approach not in their best interest when trying to castigate Marxism.

[blake 3:17]

What about trying to promote Marxism as a craft? The intellectual aspect often seems overemphasized, with the practice made stupid and deskilled.

[Homo Songun]

Mao Zedong, Althusser, and others have competently argued that Marx was in fact a scientist. The best in the Marxist tradition have indeed applied a 'scientific' attitude to the work. Mao talks about the relationship between perception, practice and abstraction ("theory") in his famous essay (http://www.marx2mao.com/Mao/OP37.html). Lenin's "Materialism and Emperio-Criticism" and "Conspectus on Hegel" also have illuminating observations, but are kind of a drag. Engels' "Dialectics of Nature" is illustrative of the method even if many scientific claims therein have been by now, superseded.

[Dodo]

Michael Burawoy had written a lot on this in the article I mentioned in the previous page.

I think his take on the issue is pretty good. He sticks to the concept of Imre Lakatos, so he calls Marxism as a "research program" with it's core material, and external argument material that varies greatly. From scientific structuralist types to critical dialecticians(who hate "science"), as long as they revolve around, they are part of the Marxist research program. Some of the stuff from this is also "scientific" as in a social science but there are essentially internal dynamics.
So Marxism is not only a scientific method but from within Marxism, there had been born the "scientific" types which kept the core aspects.
This also makes it easier to see "revisionism" such as that of Bernstein.

I would HIGHLY recommend this paper to any Marxist out there:

http://burawoy.berkeley.edu/Marxism/Marxism%20As%20Science.pdf

The more we are aware of the discourses within Marxism, the better judgement we can make.

[Decolonize The Left]

It all depends on what you mean by 'science.' Generally speaking, we differentiate between 'hard sciences' (biology, physics, chemistry, geology, etc...) and 'soft sciences' (sociology, anthropology, political science, etc...). Marxism most certainly falls within the latter category but not the former.

[BolshevikBabe]

I'd argue Marxism exists as a material practice and also as a socio-economic theory and method of analysis composed of a science (historical materialism) and a metaphilosophy (dialectical materialism). The use of the word "science" needs to be properly delineated though because otherwise you get people like Popper pretending Marx was making a claim that Marxism is exactly the same as physical sciences and so on.

[ckaihatsu]

In an older and closely related meaning, "science" also refers to a body of knowledge itself, of the type that can be rationally explained and reliably applied.




In modern usage, "science" most often refers to a way of pursuing knowledge, not only the knowledge itself.




"[S]cience" has also continued to be used in a broad sense to denote reliable and teachable knowledge about a topic, as reflected in modern terms like library science or computer science. This is also reflected in the names of some areas of academic study such as "social science" or "political science".

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/The_Scientific_Universe.png/500px-The_Scientific_Universe.png




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science


---





We could call Marxism a 'societal paradigm', and also call religious thought a 'societal paradigm' -- the difference is that religion has already been historically manifested, whereas Marxism has not.

It's easy to see why people would accuse Marxism of being a religion, because it's paradigmatic, but it *is* scientific in its method and can also develop its repertoire by analyzing continuously unfolding world events.

Additionally, Marxism is *integrative* and *comprehensive*, and cuts against the prevailing *reductionistic* approach contained in most scientific perspectives.

Anything that's so paradigmatic, or all-encompassing, can be difficult to get a grasp on, since it can be unwieldy in its totality. Acceptance of a paradigm's premise -- like the class struggle -- gives rise to far-flung implications -- like the *need* for active class struggle -- that may not always be so appealing.

If you feel that Marxism to-date is stagnating, that may be reflective of the stalling of pro-active class struggle from below, generally -- arguably. Marxism is *still* a unified form of knowledge, and speaks to the productive process no matter what shape it takes, *independently* of the knowledge base involved.


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Humanities - Technology Chart 3.0

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[1] History, Macro Micro -- Precision

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[Zanthorus]

Interestingly, I've heard the case made that the German Wissenschaft, used by Marx and Engels, doesn't have the same connotations as in English.

I am not a native speaker, but in contemporary German at least I think 'Wissenschaft' is interchangeable with 'Science'. For confirmation you can read the 'Wissenschaft (http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/)' section of a German newspaper.

[Kaoxic]

You have to keep in mind what science meant at the time Marx was writing. Science was Hegel's science and never meant to be something like it means in English. A lot of things get lost in translation.

[Five Year Plan]

Well, no, I guess Marxism isn't a "science" anymore than the law of gravity is a "science." They are postulates arrived at through applying the scientific method to explain the world around us. If you think there's a gap between science and Marxism, you're not doing one or the other correctly.

[Killborn]

Marxism is not a science because it attaches utopian inevitability to itself. If it accepted multiplicity it could be accepted as a societal health science.

[motion denied]

Marxism is not a science because it attaches utopian inevitability to itself.


Uh, how so?

[Vogelfrei]

Don't care much for the topic but it does remind me of an article I recently read ('The Art of Science, and the Science of Art') recently sent to me by a colleague. The author, unknown to me, is one by the name of Terry Button.

marxistoutlookdotcom


The Art of Science, and the Science of Art

It is doubtless true that those who approach Marxist literature for the first time encounter the proverbial six shredded wheat. More often than not it is because the approach itself is misguided. In any case, let us see if Marxist literature is really such hard going.

Below I give some examples of great Marxist writing. Let us evaluate it as art rather than political science. Actually, the first quotes are from Hegel, the German philosopher who provided the spark that set Marx and Engels going, and the quotes come from Hegel’s Science of Logic, in the section entitled The Doctrine of Being.

"Being, pure being, without any further determination. In its indeterminate immediacy it is equal only to itself. It is also not unequal relative to another; it has no diversity within itself nor any with a reference outwards. It would not be held fast in its purity if it contained any determination or content which could be distinguished in it or by which it could be distinguished from an other. It is pure indeterminateness and emptiness. There is nothing to be intuited in it, if one can speak here of intuiting; or, it is only this pure intuiting itself. Just as little is anything to be thought in it, or it is equally only this empty thinking. Being, the indeterminate immediate, is in fact nothing, and neither more nor less than nothing"

There is a strangely compelling rhythm to this, and the symmetry is faultless. It reads like some strange form of poetry. Here is the following paragraph:-

"Nothing, pure nothing: It is simply equality with itself, complete emptiness, absence of all determination and content- undifferentiatedness in itself. In so far as intuiting or thinking can be mentioned here, it counts as a distinction whether something or nothing is intuited or thought. To intuit or think nothing has, therefore, a meaning; both are distinguished and thus nothing is (exits) in our intuiting or thinking; or rather it is empty intuiting and thought itself, and the same empty intuition or thought as pure being. Nothing is, therefore, the same determination, or rather absence of determination, and thus altogether the same as pure being."

Once again we have the same perfect symmetry, but now we perceive something astonishing. The second paragraph is a mirror image of the first, so that the two taken together as a whole are symmetrical. They form a symmetrical whole of symmetrical parts. The next paragraph adds to the fascination:-

"Pure being and pure nothing are, therefore, the same. What is the truth is neither being nor nothing, but that being – does not pass over but has passed over- into nothing, and nothing into being. But it is equally true that they are not undistinguished from each other, that, on the contrary, they are not the same, that they are absolutely distinct, and yet are unseparated and inseparable and that each immediately vanishes in its opposite. Their truth is, therefore, this movement of immediate vanishing of the one in the other: Becoming, a movement in which both are distinguished, but by a difference which has equally immediately resolved itself."

The separate contents of the first two paragraphs are now brought into a unity, but not a still, lifeless unity. Their unity consists in their motion and life, in the fact that they share a common fate. Instead of stillness and death we have all the colour and richness of life. There’s mountains more of this in Hegel.

Continuing our quest for great art rather than great science, let us find something more exciting. For excitement the best place to go is Lenin. The following is taken from What is to be Done?, written during the period when Lenin, against much opposition, was preparing the Bolsheviks for the revolution of 1917.

"We are marching in a compact group along a precipitous and difficult path, firmly holding each other by the hand. We are surrounded on all sides by enemies, and we have to advance under their almost constant fire. We have combined voluntarily, precisely for the purpose of fighting the enemy, and not to retreat into the adjacent marsh, the inhabitants of which, from the outset, have reproached us with having separated ourselves into an exclusive group and with having chosen the path of struggle instead of the path of conciliation. And now several among us begin to cry out: Let us go into the marsh! And when we shame them they retort; how conservative you are! Are you not ashamed to deny us the liberty to invite you to take a better road! Oh, yes, gentlemen! You are not only free to invite us, but to go yourselves wherever you will, even into the marsh. In fact, we think that the marsh is your proper place, and we are prepared to render you every assistance to get there. Only let go of our hands, and don’t clutch at us and don’t besmirch the grand word freedom, for we too are free to go wherever we please, free to fight not only against the marsh, but also against those who are turning towards the marsh!"

The most colourful of all the great Marxist writers was Trotsky. This is from his brilliant History of the Russian Revolution, and he is speaking of the peasants revolutionary struggle to free themselves from serfdom.

Complaints came in from Moscow, Nizhegorod, Petrograd, Oral, and Volyn provinces – from all corners of the country – about the destruction of the forests and seizure of reserves of corded wood. ‘The peasants are arbitrarily and ruthlessly cutting down the forest. Two hundred dessiatins of the landlords forest have been burned by the peasants’. ‘The peasants of Klimovichevsky and Cherikovsky counties are destroying the forests and laying waste to the winter wheat.’ The forest guards are in flight; the landlords’ forests are groaning; the chips are flying throughout the whole country. All that autumn the muzhiks axe was feverishly beating time to the revolution."

The imagery is superb. The guards are in flight – the state is disintegrating. The forests are groaning, as trees do just before they fall – the old society is about to come crashing down. The revolutionary upsurge of the workers in the cities proceeds in waves to which the peasants' revolutionary axe beats time. Powerful stuff.

Marxism is of course a science, and writing is an art, hence Marxist literature is a synthesis of both. As a matter of fact art and science are in any case two sides of a coin, and this explains something rather curious about the above quotes from Hegel. How is it that, although the original was written in German, it retains its perfect symmetry in the English language? The answer is to be found not in the art but in the science. It is the scientific nature of the logical reasoning which imparts the symmetry to the text, and makes it possible for a skilled translator to retain the symmetry in any other language. The accomplished artistry of the great Marxist writers has been an important factor in the exposition of the science.

So far we have considered science as art. Now let us see how art is also science. In his lyrical drama, Prometheus Unbound, P.B. Shelly expresses the Marxist scientific prognosis concerning the future of human society in incomparable artistic form. Prometheus, the champion of mankind, is chained to a rock and subjected to perpetual torture by the tyrant Jupiter. Demogorgan, the primal power of the world, drives Jupitor from his thrown and releases Prometheus, undoubtedly a revolutionary thing to do. There follows the reign of love, when “thrones, alters, judgment-seats and prisons” are things of the past and “Man remains ...

Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man,

Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless,

Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king

Over himself; just, gentle, wise, but man.”

This deeply moving lyricism expresses perfectly the future communist classless society in which the state will have withered away. It is thoroughly materialist, or at least humanist, since Shelly takes man as first principle as did Feuerbach. Moreover, Shelly’s reference to “free, uncircumscribed man” faithfully echoes Hegel’s understanding of freedom, that which is “unlimited by an other”, self-determined, infinite.

This beautiful work was published in 1820, more than twenty years before Marx and Engels put pen to paper.

Terry Button

[Gramthusser]

Michael Burawoy had written a lot on this in the article I mentioned in the previous page.

I think his take on the issue is pretty good. He sticks to the concept of Imre Lakatos, so he calls Marxism as a "research program" with it's core material, and external argument material that varies greatly. From scientific structuralist types to critical dialecticians(who hate "science"), as long as they revolve around, they are part of the Marxist research program. Some of the stuff from this is also "scientific" as in a social science but there are essentially internal dynamics.
So Marxism is not only a scientific method but from within Marxism, there had been born the "scientific" types which kept the core aspects.
This also makes it easier to see "revisionism" such as that of Bernstein.

I would HIGHLY recommend this paper to any Marxist out there:

The more we are aware of the discourses within Marxism, the better judgement we can make.The reference to Lakatos' research program was the same one I was going to make. Thanks for the Burroway article too. I'm going to read it soon.

I don't think physicists would consider Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek to be scientists but the ruling class has done a great job of building a hegemonic political and ideological practice upon their insights. We need to do the same.

The utility of Marxism in analyzing the conjuncture's balance of class forces, of explaining the origins of crisis and the possible trajectories deriving from them, and of suggesting forms of political and ideological intervention to make a difference in the struggle is enough for me.

Personally, I don't care whether Marxism is scientific in relation to any definitions current or past. I don't need the mantle of science to valorize the struggle for socialism and human liberation. I don't even care if Marx was consistently "materialist." By my reckoning, through my reading of Marx and a re-reading of old Jameson texts, Marx's materialism was quite practical. It was not so much in the vein of the bourgeois science of his time that he turned Hegel upside down but, rather, through an emphasis on the mode of production--something very, very material, ground zero sort of stuff.

Anyway, that's my take.

By the way, I just discovered this place! Looks like I'll be able to link up with some good people here.

[MarcusJuniusBrutus]

It's not a science because it does not involve experimentation in an attempt to falsify a hypothesis. Marxism is a historical theory of deconstruction, an effort to identify constructed social norms that exploit the mass for the benefit of a privileged few. It has certain assumptions of its own, some of which have held up better than others.

[Gramthusser]

Marxism is not a science because it attaches utopian inevitability to itself. If it accepted multiplicity it could be accepted as a societal health science.

I'm new here and I should, perhaps, not be this bold this soon before I know people better and what they are prone to post, their history and the like. I don't want to come off as more Catholic than the Pope, so to speak, but I'm a communist, so boldness goes with the territory.

Certainly, Marxists have been hopeful people, and Marx was a hopeful man. I am too. And if the 3 sources are indeed German Philosophy, British Political Economy, and French Socialism, surely the French Socialism had an undeniable utopian tinge to it. Still, I've always considered the inevitability thing to be more in the vein of a possibility, and more of a political and ideological manner of inspiring the troops, at least for Marx himself. Otherwise, he'd have spent more time writing about that than about capitalism. He wasn't willing to predict what something beyond the horizon of even his imagination would look like.

Still, people died for communism; they had that hope mingling with the blood in their mouths as they expired and so will I. No, it's not inevitable, but it sure is worth living and dying for if there's even only a 5% chance of making that sun rise.



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[ckaihatsu]

It's not a science because it does not involve experimentation in an attempt to falsify a hypothesis. Marxism is a historical theory of deconstruction, an effort to identify constructed social norms that exploit the mass for the benefit of a privileged few. It has certain assumptions of its own, some of which have held up better than others.


If the hypothesis is that there is a class divide, and the null hypothesis is that there is *no* class divide, then, using whatever approach you like, you find that the class divide *does* exist, that would confirm Marxism's thesis of the class divide and class struggle.

Marxism examines social relations according to this reality of the class struggle.

[Vogelfrei]

Marxism is not a science because it attaches utopian inevitability to itself. If it accepted multiplicity it could be accepted as a societal health science.

Any honest reading of Marx or competent Marxologist will tell you that the process of the negation of the negation of capitalist society has to be achieved and the necessity for this change may seem to critics like it is posed as inevitable when in actuality, for the change to be successfully undertaken it requires "the expropriation of a few usurpers by the mass of the people" (Capital Volume One, 1976, Fowkes trans. p. 930). The language Marx employs there is that of necessity and not physical inevitability. Marx speaks in imperative mood of the "centralisation of the means of production and the socialisation of labour [which] reach a point at which they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropiated."(Ibid., p. 929). But this expropriation can occur only through its being willed by the vast majority i.e. emancipation of the working class has to be the task of the working class itself. So it is implied that as long as members of the working class remain unconvinced of the practicality of this goal the majority of them will remain in the negative condition of capitalist exploitation.

In short, the conflict between opposing views and forces in human society provides the impetus for development. The main vehicle of this development is negative. What undermines existing society is often also what drives it in a new direction. What Marx tried to bring out with his dialectics is the positive forces which lie within the negative.

A quotation from Goethe's Faust would be an appropriate motto both for Hegel and Marx, who recognised that without destruction and suffering, human freedom, salvation and the vision could never be had, that is, without the negative, humanity would seek uninterrupted rest --

Mephistopheles himself explains the function of his negativity. To Faust’s question, ‘Enough, who are you then?’ he replies:

Part of that force which would
Do evil evermore, and yet creates the good.

Faust:
What is it that this puzzle indicates?

Mephisto:
I am the spirit that negates.
And rightly so, far all that comes to be
Deserves to perish wretchedly;
‘Twere better nothing would begin.
Thus everything that your terms, sin,
Destruction, evil represent-
That is my proper element

One cannot fail to note how similar the role of negation is in Goethe's great masterpiece.

[ckaihatsu]

Had to return to this topic to note that science enables us to make *generalizations*:


Generalizations-Characterizations

http://s6.postimage.org/dakqpbvu5/2714844340046342459_Quxppf_fs.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/dakqpbvu5/)

[ProletariatPower]

I'd say Marxism is a theory within the science of Sociology, a theory doesn't mean it's just a conjecture, but it could be considered a theory like evolution which can be demonstrated repeatedly (and hence ultimately be proven correct). The main argument I have heard for Marxism not being scientific thing is that it is based upon an unfalsifiable hypothesis, every action can is interpreted with exactly the same results, everything being determined to class conflict etc., therefore it consistently forms a unfalsifiable hypothesis, one which opponents of Marxist have suggested is 'designed to be never disproved', or to explain all data without it being possible to disprove, somewhat like how Freudianism is considered unscientific because every result can be explained through the same theories. That being said however, even if this were a unfalsifiable hypothesis that certainly does not make Marxism wrong, just in itself not a science. I've only ever heard this argument that it is unfalsifiable, it made me think but I have never heard any counters to it before, perhaps people here may have some?

[ckaihatsu]

Regardless of any possible ideological motivations, the call for using the 'falsifiability' criterion is simply a non-starter, or 'apples-and-oranges' when applied to Marxism and historical determinism....

This is because 'falsifiability' is being inappropriately applied to a topic of *social science* as though a lab process of *hard science* could be used for it.




*Social science* is better-served with the *inductive reasoning* process, by which a 'critical mass' of supporting data will allow the researcher to arrive at a conclusion / generalization about the data. If some existing data is *outlying* -- adding complexities and complications to the conclusion -- that doesn't necessarily mean that the larger conclusion is *invalidated*, it just means that there are 'shades of gray', or contingencies, bound-up with the abstracted generalization.

*Hard science* is better-served by the *deductive reasoning* process, by which incontrovertible results can be determined from various definitive tests, with *no* shades-of-gray, or nuance, involved.


Order - Complexity - Complication - Chaos

http://s6.postimg.org/s8yqs5zhp/130421_order_complexity_complication_chaos.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/s8yqs5zhp/)

[TheSocialistMetalhead]

If you've gone to a university or have had the opportunity to enjoy some sort of higher education where you studied social sciences, you will know that Marx has had a tremendous influence on the humaniteis and other social sciences. Note the word "influence" here. I don't really consider marxism a science in itself, it's more of a method to conduct social science. And yes, social sciences are just as important as hard sciences as far as I'm concerned. They're just as essential to human development.

[ckaihatsu]

If you've gone to a university or have had the opportunity to enjoy some sort of higher education where you studied social sciences, you will know that Marx has had a tremendous influence on the humaniteis and other social sciences. Note the word "influence" here. I don't really consider marxism a science in itself, it's more of a method to conduct social science. And yes, social sciences are just as important as hard sciences as far as I'm concerned. They're just as essential to human development.


I'll take this as a cue to post *yet another* %#@&! diagram....


Humanities - Technology Chart 3.0

http://s6.postimage.org/6psghrjot/120830_Humanities_Technology_Chart_3_0.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/6psghrjot/)

[Vogelfrei]

I'd say Marxism is a theory within the science of Sociology, a theory doesn't mean it's just a conjecture, but it could be considered a theory like evolution which can be demonstrated repeatedly (and hence ultimately be proven correct). The main argument I have heard for Marxism not being scientific thing is that it is based upon an unfalsifiable hypothesis, every action can is interpreted with exactly the same results, everything being determined to class conflict etc., therefore it consistently forms a unfalsifiable hypothesis, one which opponents of Marxist have suggested is 'designed to be never disproved', or to explain all data without it being possible to disprove, somewhat like how Freudianism is considered unscientific because every result can be explained through the same theories. That being said however, even if this were a unfalsifiable hypothesis that certainly does not make Marxism wrong, just in itself not a science. I've only ever heard this argument that it is unfalsifiable, it made me think but I have never heard any counters to it before, perhaps people here may have some?

Ernest Mandel reminds us that:

“It is precisely because of Marx's capacity to discover the long-term laws of motion of the capitalist mode of production in its essence, irrespective of thousands of 'impurities' and of secondary aspects, that his long¬ term predictions- the laws of accumulation of capital, stepped-up technological progress, accelerated increase in the productivity and intensity of labour, growing concentration and centralization of capital, transformation of the great majority of economically active people into sellers of labour-power, declining rate of profit, increased rate of surplus value, periodically recurrent recessions, inevitable class struggle between Capital and Labour, increasing revolutionary attempts to overthrow capitalism - have been so strikingly confirmed by history.” (Capital V1, Fowkes trans, 1976, p.23)

And adds

"Popper denies the scientific nature of Capital by asserting that, unlike scientific theories, its hypotheses cannot be scientifically tested. This is obviously based upon a misunderstanding of the very nature of the materialist dialectic, which, as Lenin pointed out, requires constant verification through praxis to increase its cognition content” (p.24)

ProletariatPower, I would not take these points too seriously (to even call some of them 'criticisms' is to give them more credit than they really deserve). Many of the so called criticisms leveled against Marx, in my experience, stem not from the critic’s close interaction with his work but rather from some kind of internal conflict caused by and then projected onto his work. Marx (and Engels) wrote thousands of pages of material -- including hundreds of articles, brochures, reports, and several unfinished books and much of that is yet to be published. So letting Marx 'speak for himself' to borrow a phrase from the American empirical economist Andrew Kliman, involves carefully reading through all of his work and evaluating it on its own terms which is important to some (especially those who have squandered their youth and idled away their maturity reading Karl Marx) and can be a wonderful long life journey too but unfortunately it is something many of his critics have not done.

"There are obstacles to understanding Marx that do not lie in the texts themselves; and it is important to address one of these impediments at the outset of the study of Capital. It lies in the existence of different structures of thought, sets of ideas, or conceptual frameworks that rest on premises that are fundamentally dissimilar from one another. One school of thought or conceptual framework may appear quite opaque, possibly even meaningless or incomprehensible, from the perspective of another. Unless one examines these structures of thinking critically, including one’s own often unexamined acceptance of certain ideas and concepts, a different or alternative set of ideas may make little or no sense, or at the very least, be extremely difficult to grasp. For many readers first coming to Marx, their own unexplored intellectual assumptions may well be the biggest barrier to grasping his work." (Teeple, Notes on V1 of Capital).