Marxism not falsifiable?

[Alet]

To classify a theory as scientific it has to be falsifiable:

Falsifiability or refutability of a statement, hypothesis, or theory is an inherent possibility to prove it to be false. A statement is called falsifiable if it is possible to conceive an observation or an argument which proves the statement in question to be false. In this sense, falsify is synonymous with nullify, meaning not "to commit fraud" but "show to be false". Some philosophers argue that science must be falsifiable.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
Even Darwin's theory of evolution can be falsified, for example if you find 500mio years old fossils of let's say a lion. Hypothetically you could falsify the law of conservation of energy, if you found a system in which it would not apply. I do not want to question Marx' and Engels' method of universalizing scientific knowledge to undergird their theories, but Marxism is sometimes criticized for not being falsifiable, but is rather pseudoscience and a dogma. How does a Marxist counter this argument?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

To classify a theory as scientific it has to be falsifiable:

[...]

- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability

No, it really doesn't. There are enough historical counterexamples. This fetishism of falsifiability generally comes from Popper, who isn't taken seriously by any actually existing philosophers of science, but who has enjoyed a sort of academic afterlife in that his theories, long disparaged as "naive falsificationism" in philosophy of science, have become an indispensable part of popular works by various professional skeptics and lolbertarians.


Even Darwin's theory of evolution can be falsified, for example if you find 500mio years old fossils of let's say a lion. Hypothetically you could falsify the law of conservation of energy, if you found a system in which it would not apply. I do not want to question Marx' and Engels' method of universalizing scientific knowledge to undergird their theories, but Marxism is sometimes criticized for not being falsifiable, but is rather pseudoscience and a dogma. How does a Marxist counter this argument?

It's interesting that you chose to talk about the theory of evolution, because Popper's conclusion was exactly the opposite of yours, that evolution can't be falsified and is therefore metaphysical. I think that in this debate - Darwin vs. Popper - time and scientific practice has pretty much shown Darwin to be the overwhelming winner. And since Popper's theory can't account for how we actually do science, it's bollocks.

[Rafiq]

Marxism has definite theoretical foundations that under their terms of allowance can be falsified. What does this mean? To put it bluntly, the idea that anything is up for critical scientific evaluation, as opposed to metaphysics whether it's the cosmos or history, is not falsifiable. The insistence of science contra ideology is not falsifiable. The unfalsifiability of Marxism stems from it's insistence that the social dimension, which is designated ideologically with or without Marxism, is up for critical understanding. If we accept the premise that it is, then the hypotheses wrought out by Marxism become falsifiable. I mean to take astronomy as an example, you wouldn't have been able to falsify the notion that the cosmos can be studied comprehensively, because theology was capable of being just as consistent one way or another. Scientific methedology itself was an insistence.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Firstly, Marx never intended his critique of capitalism to be taken as gospel. He made predictions about the possible outcomes of economic trends (instability) in capitalism. Socialist revolution is presented by Marxists as a possible outcome. The trends that may lead to socialist revolution (and the "countervailing factors" that work against it) were demonstrated through historical observation.

There's a difference between pointing out that history is still in motion and the ultimate outcome is not yet observable, and completely ruling out all possibilities of revolution in the manner of Fukuyama's "end of history" thesis. If anything is unfalsifiable, it would seem to be the latter.

Marxism is most often attacked as being unfalsifiable for allegedly taking a "teleological" view of history, but that claim is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of Marxism among bourgeois ideologues and in disingenuous jingoism cloaked in pseudo-Marxist rhetoric by political opportunists.

Even if falsifiability is mandatory, Marxism doesn't seem incompatible with that. Explanations for why the Bolshevik Revolution didn't spread further or why revolutions failed in other places (i.e. Germany), instead of a submission/admission that "Marx was wrong after all", don't demonstrate "unfalsifiability". They demonstrate that Marxism can account for the failure and successes of revolutions, rather than presuming their inevitable success as some have assumed.

The labour theory of value, for instance, is falsifiable, is it not? It just hasn't been falsified, but rather matched the material evidence. A rival theory such as that value is "subjective", on the contrary, seems to be repeatedly demonstrated to be inaccurate.

I appreciate the critique of the requirement of falsifiability itself, but does even taking that as necessary render Marxism unscientific? I don't think so, unless one takes a fatalistic approach to revolution based on a politically convenient misinterpretation of Marxism.

[oneday]

Even if falsifiability is mandatory, Marxism doesn't seem incompatible with that. Explanations for why the Bolshevik Revolution didn't spread further or why revolutions failed in other places (i.e. Germany), instead of a submission/admission that "Marx was wrong after all", don't demonstrate "unfalsifiability". They demonstrate that Marxism can account for the failure and successes of revolutions, rather than presuming their inevitable success as some have assumed.

Of course you will be accused of adding an ad-hoc hypothesis to prevent falsification.

[oneday]

To classify a theory as scientific it has to be falsifiable:

- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
Even Darwin's theory of evolution can be falsified, for example if you find 500mio years old fossils of let's say a lion. Hypothetically you could falsify the law of conservation of energy, if you found a system in which it would not apply. I do not want to question Marx' and Engels' method of universalizing scientific knowledge to undergird their theories, but Marxism is sometimes criticized for not being falsifiable, but is rather pseudoscience and a dogma. How does a Marxist counter this argument?

One good argument would be to ask bourgeois economists and social theorists to demonstrate the falsifiability of their claims (have fun with the economic equilibrium). In the end, we see that they rest on ideology. This is sort of the point.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Of course you will be accused of adding an ad-hoc hypothesis to prevent falsification.

Yeah, I meant to include that in my original post, but it was rushed. ;)
Again, though, that's the standard accusation but it's based on a misunderstanding of Marx's actual hypothesis regarding revolution. Even building on an original hypothesis to account for unexpected events isn't a deadly sin in science as long as you keep Ockham's razor in mind.

The problem with, say, creationist pseudoscience is that it piles on ad-hoc explanations to account for already existing overwhelming evidence of the Earth's actual age. There are observable phenomena quite literally set in stone that demonstrate the Earth is far more than 6,000 years old. Evidence that socialist revolution(s) will be a success or a failure is necessarily derived from ongoing observation (as are other genuine sciences).

(To be continued).

[oneday]

Yeah, I meant to include that in my original post, but it was rushed. ;)
Again, though, that's the standard accusation but it's based on a misunderstanding of Marx's actual hypothesis regarding revolution. Even building on an original hypothesis to account for unexpected events isn't a deadly sin in science as long as you keep Ockham's razor in mind.

I don't think defending Marx on the basis of being falsifiable is very fruitful, I don't believe Marx actually made many actual truly falsifiable statements. Most of social science is like this by it's very nature. Hell, economists can't even predict what the unemployment rate will be like next year with any degree of certainty ( hbr.org/2014/05/unemployment-is-about-to-fall-a-lot-faster-than-predicted/ The multiple predictions were all wrong, it's 5.4% now).

Popper just went after Marx and Freud because he didn't like them, he could have went after anyone in those disciplines with the same charges.

[ckaihatsu]

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*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/b8fujhmgh/130421_order_complexity_complication_chaos.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/s8yqs5zhp/full/)

[Invader Zim]

One of the great problems with this kind of discussion is that most people talk at cross-purposes because the issue of language and meaning never gets properly pinned-down. The language of Marxism does indeed paint Marxism as 'scientific socialism', but my question here is what did Engels actually mean when he used the term 'scientific', and do we mean the same thing? 19th Century conceptions of 'science' are not what they are today. And then there is the question of translation. Something is usually lost when translating the German word wissenschaft to 'science', it is one of the first things that good historians try to make clear to new students looking at concepts on historical study in the 19th Century when von Ranke is brought into the discussion. The actual concept of the word, as I understand it, is that it concerns a concept of study in which systemisation is inherent, which is not necessarily limited to what we think of as 'science' today.

[RedMaterialist]

Marxism, or historical materialism, could be falsified if you found evidence of wage-labor in a 30k year old society; or if you found an economic transition from slavery to capitalism with no intervening stage of feudalism; or if you found evidence of a society based entirely on commodity production in, say, 10th century France;or, even better, if you found a long term tendency in the increase of the rate of profit in capitalist society, or if in recorded history you could find any society not based on class antagonism.

Bourgeois economists are constantly trying to say that primitive hunters and gatherers were capitalists because they produced things people had a demand for, and therefore, capitalism is eternal. This is the Robinson Crusoe argument addressed by Marx in The Fetishism of Commodities.

Primitive people used shells and beads as money, and capitalists use money, therefore capitalism is eternal. The shells and beads were a store of value because they required several hours of skilled labor to produce. If you could find evidence of a primitive bank where individuals made deposits and withdrawals of beads and kept records of it and punished people for making unauthorized withdrawals and bankers advanced beads as credit, then you could falsify Marxism. (And primitive record keeping existed in forms of notches on sticks, etc.)

[RedMaterialist]

The actual concept of the word, as I understand it, is that it concerns a concept of study in which systemisation is inherent, which is not necessarily limited to what we think of as 'science' today.

Evolution can be falsified if a human bone were found in the same geological layer as a dinosaur, the biological theory of disease can be falsified if a disease were found not caused by some biological agent, the theory of relativity would be falsified if anywhere in the universe the speed of light were measured at less or more than C2. Why shouldn't Marxism be subject to the same scientific scrutiny? (which is not to say that falsifiability is a valid test of "science;" Popper, for instance, did not believe that evolution was a valid science.)

One of the few mathematically measurable predictions Marx made was the long term tendency in the rate of profit to fall. In the last few yrs it has been made, IMO, absolutely clear in numerous studies that the capitalist rate of profit in fact has been in a long term tendential fall. If one of the standards of science is the predictability of a theory then I would think Marxism is a science: periodic crises, extreme inequalities of wealth and poverty, global dominance of capitalist markets, extreme monopolization. How many more crises like 1929 and 2008 will capitalism be able to endure? My guess is, not many.

[Rafiq]

My guess is, not many.

And your guess is wrong. It will be infinitely many until either the success of the revolution, dependent on the will of men and women, or the annihilation of the world.

[Alet]

One of the great problems with this kind of discussion is that most people talk at cross-purposes because the issue of language and meaning never gets properly pinned-down. The language of Marxism does indeed paint Marxism as 'scientific socialism', but my question here is what did Engels actually mean when he used the term 'scientific', and do we mean the same thing? 19th Century conceptions of 'science' are not what they are today. And then there is the question of translation. Something is usually lost when translating the German word wissenschaft to 'science', it is one of the first things that good historians try to make clear to new students looking at concepts on historical study in the 19th Century when von Ranke is brought into the discussion. The actual concept of the word, as I understand it, is that it concerns a concept of study in which systemisation is inherent, which is not necessarily limited to what we think of as 'science' today.

I'm actually pretty sure that what he called 'scientific' is what we would consider to be scientific as well. The scientific socialism was, in contrast to the 'utopian socialism', not really an abstract painting of a better future including hate sermons against current poverty, but rather rational argumentation based on dialectics, analyzing previous historic developments to find a logical order, also based on dialectics, and of course analyzing capitalism in its essences. They also said that recent scientific theories (evolution, law of conservation of energy) prove that they were right, because both include dialectics. In his 'Dialectics of Nature' Engels also tried to explain how, well, nature is based on dialectics. Thus, I'm not sure whether we really have to review the term 'scientific'

[Invader Zim]

Why shouldn't Marxism be subject to the same scientific scrutiny? (which is not to say that falsifiability is a valid test of "science;" Popper, for instance, did not believe that evolution was a valid science.)


I'm not sure how your post relates to the point I made, which was about the problem definitions. But just a quick correction for you and Xhar-Xhar Bink, Popper's problem was that he equated evolution with Survival of the Fittest / natural selection. He later recanted his position and accepted, in several different outlets, that he had been wrong:

"I blush when I have to make this confession; for when I was younger, I used to say very contemptuous things about evolutionary philosophies. When twenty-two years ago Canon Charles E. Raven, in his Science, Religion, and the Future, described the Darwinian controversy as "a storm in a Victorian teacup," I agreed, but criticized him for paying too much attention "to the vapors still emerging from the cup," by which I meant the hot air of the evolutionary philosophies (especially those which told us that there were inexorable laws of evolution). But now I have to confess that this cup of tea has become, after all, my cup of tea; and with it I have to eat humble pie."
- Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach, 1972, p. 241

"The fact that the theory of natural selection is difficult to test has led some people, anti-Darwinists and even some great Darwinists, to claim that it is a tautology. . . .

I mention this problem because I too belong among the culprits. Influenced by what these authorities say, I have in the past described the theory as "almost tautological," and I have tried to explain how the theory of natural selection could be untestable (as is a tautology) and yet of great scientific interest. My solution was that the doctrine of natural selection is a most successful metaphysical research programme. . . .

I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation. . . .

The theory of natural selection may be so formulated that it is far from tautological. In this case it is not only testable, but it turns out to be not strictly universally true. There seem to be exceptions, as with so many biological theories; and considering the random character of the variations on which natural selection operates, the occurrence of exceptions is not surprising."

- 'Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind' Dialectica, 32, 1978, pp. 344-346.

[RedMaterialist]

I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation. . . .

The theory of natural selection may be so formulated that it is far from tautological. In this case it is not only testable, but it turns out to be not strictly universally true. There seem to be exceptions, as with so many biological theories; and considering the random character of the variations on which natural selection operates, the occurrence of exceptions is not surprising."

- 'Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind' Dialectica, 32, 1978, pp. 344-346.

Too bad he didnt change his mind about historical materialism.