Theory of Marxism. Flawed or Great?

[MrSavage]

..

[RaiseYourVoice]

The "withering away of the state" is the final phase of Marxism. When the government has had a tight hold on the people, strict regulation of behavior, and censorship of any outside ideology, there will not be any need for government.
i stopped reading when encountering that bullshit. were in marxist theory was that mentioned?

before people write articles about marxism they should read into it, rly.

anyway i am pretty sure there are several topics about this already

[ComradeRed]

It appears to be more of a criticism towards Marxism as explained by Lenin.

The "criticism" does not even address Historical materialism, Marxist Economics, or Marx's Method.

I deem it thus a waste of bandwidth and server space.

[Rawthentic]

The government, run by revolutionaries, would control all forms of business and set up a planned economy. It would censure anything that was not seen as "Socialist" or "Marxist".
It censures anything that tries to actively overthrow the proletarian state and bring back capitalism.


The 1917 October Revolution of Russia, the rise of Fidel Castro, and the brutal North Korean dictatorship are all examples of the stages of Marxism at work. What the world has not seen is the third stage, and the overall creed of Marxism.
I would say the October Revolution was the only place where Marxism was put in practice, but thats just me. After all, Marxism is not a dogma, it is an analysis of specific conditions, etc.


When the government has had a tight hold on the people, strict regulation of behavior, and censorship of any outside ideology, there will not be any need for government. People will know how to act, how to work, and how to get along. There will be no anti-social behavior in this society, because that would have been eliminated by the dictatorship of the proletariat a long time ago. Once the state is gone, Marxism would achieve its goal, which is Communism. It will be a "stateless utopia". Yet, I would not describe this place as a utopia. I would see it as an utter nightmare
This person sees a stateless, classless society as not utopian, but a nightmare. I don't think this person is working class. The reality behind the "withering away" of the state is that as the expropriated bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie reintegrate themselves into society as workers and the revolution has been made global, classes and the antagonisms that accompany it will disappear. This moron makes it seem as if the proletarian state "molds" people by force. And lets get another thing straight: the dictatorship of the proletariat is not of one man, but of a whole class, just like under capitalism we have the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.


However I personally do not believe violence is the way to achieve revolution. The best way to do this, as radical as this may seem, is to just stop. Stop consuming products you do not need that are being commercialized and shoved down your throat. Corporatism is just as bad as Socialism, because it undermines the values of the individual, and small groups. Get out of the centralized system and start a useful independent work field. Become an entrepreneur.
Violence and force will be the only ways that we will remove the capitalist oppressors from power, not by sweet talking them. Socialism does not undermine the individual, it lets it flourish by giving it the material necessities to pursue their development.


The "revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat" would be replaced with the "revolutionary democracy of the proletariat".
The latter is the highest form of democracy, based on workers soviets and neighborhood assemblies.


There are better ways of doing this, such as what I mentioned above, rather than create an overly bureaucratic killing machine.
This was created in nations that called themselves "socialist" and payed lip-service to Marxism, but Marx's theories are not to blame for this.


The third stage of Marxism is absolutely ludicrous. Who would ever want to live in a future world as a programmed robot? People will function and behave that way because they have been suppressed and hidden for so many years. This will not be a utopia. This will not be happiness. No one is happy if they can not free their mind. The worst crime of humanity is to suppress thought.
A "programmed robot"? :wacko: Freedom of speech and thought are secured because the working class (under socialism) control the press and radio and all forms of communication, thus putting the possibilities into the hands of the vast majority, not the wealthy minority.


The truth is, society will never reach a Utopian society. There will always be murder, theft, greed, and all sorts of corruption, but there could be less of it. I personally believe humans are naturally good, so I also believe a decentralized system, with individuals who care, could help out with this. They would not suppress free thought, but they would actually contribute to society. Many people are doing this today.
The first sentence is true. The thing about always being greed and murder and shit is not true, they are products of the material conditions that capitalism subjects people to.

So, the person who made that article is very stupid and uninformed, I hope you can learn better from that.

[Rawthentic]

It appears to be more of a criticism towards Marxism as explained by Lenin.
What do you mean?

[Naxal]

As an economist, Marx was great. His ability to absorb, think about and predict their effects on the working class is incredible, and many of this theories are even more applicable today than when he was writing. The only major economic blunders that he made were his predictions about the 'Middle Class' and his comments on Asia and the underdeveloped world (which, at the time, included places like Russia and the Balkans etc), but I think a lot of that stemmed from a general ignorance, as most people were at the time, of the realities of these places. But other Marxist or Neo-Marxist economists have done an excellent job of applying his theories to the modern world, for instance Andre Gunder Frank and Samir Amin.

Socially, he was vauge and carefully avoided making explicit statements about society, which is always a clever thing to do if you're going for mass support (see- Gandhi & Ho Chi Minh), however later Marxists did a lot for social theory, for instance Engels and Gramsci all did a lot for Marxist social theory.

Dilectical Materialism is...simplistic and naive. If you're looking for patterns, you'll find patterns and I think DM is an excellent example of this in action. It underestimates the Bourgeoise, ignores social factors (which are 'fixed' by Gramsci with his writings of Social Hegemony) and so on. He is a product of his times and his education, thus sees history as one giant arrow that is progressing towards the perfect society which is incredibly similar to Hegel, in that he believed that ideas were slowly progressing in a giant arrow towards the perfect idea. I have as much trouble accepting this as I do accepting the post-modernists.

[gilhyle]

The fundametnal ideas of Marxism are lost to us:

- the critique of political economy is lost to us because political economy has been superceded;

- dialectical materialism is lost to it because the bourgeoisie did not adopt the theory of which it is a critique;

- the key political idea of building a mass movement of the working class is lost to us because the shattering of the working class movement has been the defining characterisitic of the imperialist epoch.

- historical materialism is lost to us because it has been mostly assimilated in to the practice of bourgeois historiography;

Marrxism has become like water that you try to hold in your hand. If you try really hard you can begin to recover it, but you never cease beginning.

[Avtomat_Icaro]

One main critique point I have with Marx is the sole focus on class, it assumes that everybody immediatly identifies themselves with their class. All workers are connected to each other because they are workers. In reality however people seem to be more connected to each other by things such as "race", ethnicity, nationality, age instead of class. But yeah, maybe thats just the "reactionary" anthropologist in me speaking :P

[cenv]

One main critique point I have with Marx is the sole focus on class, it assumes that everybody immediatly identifies themselves with their class. All workers are connected to each other because they are workers. In reality however people seem to be more connected to each other by things such as "race", ethnicity, nationality, age instead of class. But yeah, maybe thats just the "reactionary" anthropologist in me speaking
The only reason people currently see ethnicity, nationality, etc. as so much more important than class is because the institutions of capitalist society emphasize nationality, ethnicity, and such so much more than class. In fact, when a bourgeois news source cares to mention class, it's usually just to reassure us that we're all middle class now (obviously wrong) or that class issues aren't the fault of capitalism.

As far as the ruling class is concerned, the last thing they want to do is give us a sense of how important class is. Intentionally or not, they rely on our ignorance, our lack of awareness, and on the use of superfluous divisions like "nationality" to divide (and conquer) us.

But no matter how much the bourgeois media and "education" system, the servants of the ruling class, ignore class and hence convince workers that ethnicity, nationality, and so on are more important than class, and as much as they try to convince us that class is just a technical sociological system of categorization and not a concrete set of relations, the fact remains that most of us have to sell our time and energy to a minority in order to survive and that that minority gets rich by exploiting us.

Avtomat_Icaro, I wouldn't call you "reactionary." I just think that you, like most folks, currently lack the ability to think for yourself without the help of bourgeois ideology. However, we were all there once, and I'm sure that with learning and critical thinking you will ultimately see the flaw in downplaying class.

As far as the original article, it has to be one of the most terribly researched and inaccurate articles on Marxism I've ever read. This guy obviously has no clue what he's talking about... he's just regurgitating typical anti-communist propaganda without actually bothering to use his brain.

[ComradeRed]

Naxal, you are - I assume - the author of the criticism?

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 02:27 pm
As an economist, Marx was great. His ability to absorb, think about and predict their effects on the working class is incredible, and many of this theories are even more applicable today than when he was writing. Uh he didn't "predict" anything from thin air...he explained empirically recorded phenomena.

Haven't you ever heard of the blue books of England? He studied them thoroughly, and developed his law of accumulation from it.


The only major economic blunders that he made were his predictions about the 'Middle Class'... I see you've never read any of Marx's original writings on Economics, or else you choose to invent your own vocabulary for Marxist theory.


...and his comments on Asia and the underdeveloped world (which, at the time, included places like Russia and the Balkans etc)... Being vague and ambiguous seems to be your strong suite. Could you provide an example of how he was wrong exactly?


Socially, he was vauge and carefully avoided making explicit statements about society, which is always a clever thing to do if you're going for mass support (see- Gandhi & Ho Chi Minh), however later Marxists did a lot for social theory, for instance Engels and Gramsci all did a lot for Marxist social theory. I have no clue what the hell you are talking about "socially", do you mean "sociologically"?


Dilectical Materialism is...simplistic and naive. If you're looking for patterns, you'll find patterns and I think DM is an excellent example of this in action. It underestimates the Bourgeoise, ignores social factors (which are 'fixed' by Gramsci with his writings of Social Hegemony) and so on. He is a product of his times and his education, thus sees history as one giant arrow that is progressing towards the perfect society which is incredibly similar to Hegel, in that he believed that ideas were slowly progressing in a giant arrow towards the perfect idea. I have as much trouble accepting this as I do accepting the post-modernists. Only Leninists really hold Dialectical materialism dear; besides its not important to Marxism at all.

Historical materialism, on the other hand... <_<

[Chicano Shamrock]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 04:48 pm


BTW, are you always such an uptight asshole?
From my experience yes.

That article was garbage. I think Marxism is flawed but that article was just horribly dumb.

[Naxal]

<<Uh he didn&#39;t "predict" anything from thin air...he explained empirically recorded phenomena.. Haven&#39;t you ever heard of the blue books of England? He studied them thoroughly, and developed his law of accumulation from it>>

My faith in Empiricism is fairly thin, and his studies were largely confined to Britain, and to a lesser extent, Germany. He knew practically nothing of Eastern Europe, and reflected the opinions held by those he knew about the Slavs as a whole, though he may have revised his views later on. Empiricism has many limitations, lets not take Marx as law.

He predicted that the petit bourgeoise would slowly be crushed out of existance by the bourgeoise, polarising the situation so that it would a situation where there would be the bourgeoise and the proletariat, very black and white. This is not the case, in the West the petit bourgeoise have expanded rapidly, for instance. He made educated predictions that Capitalism would take hold in all of Europe, this turned out to be right, his predictions about the fate of the petit bourgeoise, the middle class, turned out to be wrong. These things happened after Marx&#39;s death, so I think we can describe them as &#39;predictions&#39;. It&#39;s not an intrinsicly insulting term.

<<I see you&#39;ve never read any of Marx&#39;s original writings on Economics, or else you choose to invent your own vocabulary for Marxist theory.>>

What &#39;original writings&#39; are you speaking of? I have read Capital, but I have not read the Grundrisse. I&#39;ve read other shorter articles by Marx, though I don&#39;t remember their names. A.G. Frank and S. Amin have had a far more profound influence on my economic thinking than Marx has.

<<Being vague and ambiguous seems to be your strong suite. Could you provide an example of how he was wrong exactly?>>

Well, I&#39;m refering to him creating this great &#39;Asiatic mode of production&#39; in order to escape from criticisms of his claims of the &#39;universality&#39; of his theories. But I put such things down to his ignorance of such things, he had never been to Asia and detailed studies were fairly bias and thin on the ground at the time.

<<I have no clue what the hell you are talking about "socially", do you mean "sociologically"?>>

Social organisation, how social relations should work. I have never studied sociology, so I prefer not to discuss it.

<<Only Leninists really hold Dialectical materialism dear; besides its not important to Marxism at all.>>

It&#39;s important if you want to claim Marxism to be &#39;inevitable&#39; or &#39;scientific&#39;. I reject both claims.

Historical materialism has value, and I think is a good starting point for historical investigation. However I also think "Only by understanding the intentions, ideas, values and beliefs that motivate people can you really know anything"- Max Weber is also an excellent place to start, and something that is all too often ignored.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 07:46 pm
My faith in Empiricism is fairly thin...
Yes, you are an idealist, who knew.


...and his studies were largely confined to Britain, and to a lesser extent, Germany. Do you have a source for his studies being extended to Germany?

As for it being limited to Britain alone, that&#39;s not really a valid criticism since Britain was the most advanced capitalist power at the time.

If you were to investigate capitalism today, you would focus on the U&#036; within the past 50 years; just as Marx focused on Britain for his time.


He knew practically nothing of Eastern Europe, and reflected the opinions held by those he knew about the Slavs as a whole, though he may have revised his views later on. And the vague ambiguities continue, source?


Empiricism has many limitations, lets not take Marx as law. No one is suggesting to take "Marx as law"...you&#39;ve just done horribly in giving a reason as to why.


He predicted that the petit bourgeoise would slowly be crushed out of existance by the bourgeoise, polarising the situation so that it would a situation where there would be the bourgeoise and the proletariat, very black and white. This is not the case, in the West the petit bourgeoise have expanded rapidly, for instance. He made educated predictions that Capitalism would take hold in all of Europe, this turned out to be right, his predictions about the fate of the petit bourgeoise, the middle class, turned out to be wrong. These things happened after Marx&#39;s death, so I think we can describe them as &#39;predictions&#39;. It&#39;s not an intrinsicly insulting term. Well, if you naively apply verbatim what one says you&#39;re never going to get the proper results. The moral: don&#39;t apply instructions like an idiot.

If you empirically look at what&#39;s going (introduction of new markets, new commodities, etc.) there&#39;s explanations of what&#39;s going on that Marxist economics takes into account.

I&#39;ve been working out putting an Australian&#39;s numerical analysis algorithms into mathematical formulas, so I don&#39;t have the luxury of time to explain things quite as rigorously as I would like.


What &#39;original writings&#39; are you speaking of? Pieces written by Marx rather than pieces interpreting those written by Marx.


I have read Capital... You could&#39;ve fooled me <_<


Well, I&#39;m refering to him creating this great &#39;Asiatic mode of production&#39; in order to escape from criticisms of his claims of the &#39;universality&#39; of his theories. But I put such things down to his ignorance of such things, he had never been to Asia and detailed studies were fairly bias and thin on the ground at the time. This is what you are doing: "MARX W4z DA WRONGER 1&#33;"

This is what I want to see: "Marx said &#39;X&#39; (source, link). Here is what actually happened Y (source and/or link). But X is not Y. Therefore reject X, and Marx was incorrect."

Do you see the difference?


Social organisation, how social relations should work. I have never studied sociology, so I prefer not to discuss it. Then how can you criticize it? :huh:

"I have absolutely no knowledge of chemistry, but the theory of quantum bonding is totally wrong&#33;" :lol:


It&#39;s important if you want to claim Marxism to be &#39;inevitable&#39; or &#39;scientific&#39;. I reject both claims. Huh, how naive of me as a physicist to think that dialectics was irrelevant to the status of being "scientific" or not <_<


Historical materialism has value, and I think is a good starting point for historical investigation. However I also think "Only by understanding the intentions, ideas, values and beliefs that motivate people can you really know anything"- Max Weber is also an excellent place to start, and something that is all too often ignored. Max Weber was a self-admitted idealist; why not start using Hegel too? :lol:

Max Weber mixes up the base with superstructure, e.g. in The Protestant Work Ethic...yeah it was because they were Protestants they succeeded economically, not because they were capitalists that invented a new ideology (Protestantism).

Brilliant reasoning, right up there with "Intelligent Design" :lol:

It&#39;s too naive of an approach for my tastes, but feel free to believe in whatever you want.

[Naxal]

<<Yes, you are an idealist, who knew.>>
Maybe. Idealistic, probably.

<<Do you have a source for his studies being extended to Germany?>>
He wrote articles during the 1848 revolution, for instance articles in the Neue Rheinishe Zeitung (1846-1849) and the &#39;Demands of the Communist Party in Germany&#39;. Engels wrote more heavily- &#39;The Peasant War in Germany&#39; (1850) and &#39;The Peasant Question in France and Germany&#39; (1894), as well as shorter articles. However I believe that Marx studied Germany in a similar way to Germany, he wrote in reaction to events, he did not dig deeper as he did in his studies of Britain.

<<As for it being limited to Britain alone, that&#39;s not really a valid criticism since Britain was the most advanced capitalist power at the time.>>
Indeed, but British style Capitalism did not spread to the rest of the world as Capitalism is not monolithic and its development does not follow a set pattern. This does not mean that his study is irrelevant or his methodology is flawed- what you say is quite correct, but because of the nature of Capitalism, it’s amazing flexibility and resistance it now exists in many forms, some far from what is described in Capital.

<<And the vague ambiguities continue, source?>>
Well, he calls them barbarians at one point:
"Austria is becoming intolerable in the eyes of the most barbarian of its peoples, the mainstays of old Austria — the South Slavs in Dalmatia, Croatia and Banat" (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/01/31.htm)

And:
“Result as obtained by Duchinski: Russia is a name usurped by the Muscovites. They are not Slavs; they do not belong to the Indo-Germanic race at all, they are des intrus [intruders], who must be chased back across the Dnieper, etc. Panslavism in the Russian sense is a cabinet invention, etc. I wish that Duchinski were right and at all events that this view would prevail among the Slavs. On the other hand, he states that some of the peoples in Turkey, such as Bulgars, e.g., who had previously been regarded as Slavs, are non-Slav.” (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/letters/65_06_24.htm)

But then again, these views were fairly common at the time and reflect his background. I’m fairly sure Marx never went anywhere near Eastern Europe and credible sources on the Economies of Eastern Europe would be as thin on the ground as they are now. In addition, this was the time when economics was still developing, geography was still regional and so on.

<<Then how can you criticize it?>>
Because sociology is not an all encompassing thing, you can speak about society, the relations and organisations of humans, working from a basis in anthropology, a subject that I do have more familarity with, though I have many criticisms of. You can speak about society working from other subjects, Sociology has existed for less than 200 years, but people from various branches of study have looked at society in a critical and insightful way starting with, arguably, Heraclitus. I am familar with history, philosophy, economics, classics and anthropology- I look at society using skills learnt from these subjects.
In addition, Marx was a Philosopher and Classicist. As far as I know he had little to no formal education in economics, yet he wrote literally volumes about the subject. Volumes that both of us think have great merit.

<<Huh, how naive of me as a physicist to think that dialectics was irrelevant to the status of being "scientific" or not>>
Can you falsify Marxism? No, you cannot falsify it, thus it is not a science (The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl Popper). And saying “It’s gonna happen, but it hasn’t happened yet” as another Marxist explained to me is not falsification, it’s avoiding answering the question. I’ve always seen the use of ‘Scientific Socialism’ as simply a way to distinguish Marxist Socialism from the other branches of Socialism at the time. Plus they couldn’t really use the word they wanted, Communism, as at the time a Communist was a Blanquist.

<<Max Weber was a self-admitted idealist; why not start using Hegel too?>>
Oh God&#33; An idealist&#33; Lets ignore everything he has to say because he&#39;s an idealist, thus wrong&#33; However, I read through my statement and it was missing a comma- Weber said it but there should have been a comma after his name. I was acknowledging the souce of the quote, not endorcing his views. However, the quote in itself I think is valid and as a methodological statement it is all too often ignored, particularly in History (why people do what they do is generally ignored)

I also have work to do, but I will talk about the ‘Asiatic Mode of Production’ later.

[CornetJoyce]

Adepts of Marxist scientism may continue to dazzle and astound freshmen with their Ptolemaic epicycles but actual history- as opposed to History- has passed on. Marx and some of the epigones excelled in practical politics though and are worth some attention.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Red:


Only Leninists really hold Dialectical materialism dear; besides its not important to Marxism at all.

I wish that were so (and that I could alter even this), but nip over to LibCom and you will see there are plenty of mystics there too. :(

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gil:


dialectical materialism is lost to it because the bourgeoisie did not adopt the theory of which it is a critique;

Funny you should rate this so highly given that:

1) There is precious little evidence that Marx accepted it;

2) It is a laughably weak theory (so if he did, that would be a blow to his reputation);

3) It turns Marxism into a branch if Idealism -- given that &#39;theory&#39;s&#39; aprioristic nature;

4) I have all but killed it off. [The last rites will be read over it soon.]

5) And good riddance.... :D

[By the way, that article was an April Fools&#39; spoof, wasn&#39;&#39;t it???? :blink: ]