Marx Myths

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

This site debunks several myths about Marx:

http://marxmyths.org/index.php

[MarxSchmarx]

I'd also like to add something that's not on that site, b/c I bet it gets more press here :p

Myth: Charles Darwin rebuffed Marx's request to dedicate Vol. 1 of Capital to Darwin.

Fact: False. According to Janet Browne's highly regarded recent biography of Darwin, Marx never asked Darwin for permission to dedicate Capital. The extent of the two's correspondence was minimal - Marx sent Darwin a copy of an early edition of Capital, and Darwin shelved the book, wrote a thank you card, and each moved on.

[Spasiba]

Sorry if this post is a bit spamy, but a few questions from me, nonetheless. Delete as necessary.


I'd also like to add something that's not on that site, b/c I bet it gets more press here :p

Myth: Charles Darwin rebuffed Marx's request to dedicate Vol. 1 of Capital to Darwin.

Fact: False. According to Janet Browne's highly regarded recent biography of Darwin, Marx never asked Darwin for permission to dedicate Capital. The extent of the two's correspondence was minimal - Marx sent Darwin a copy of an early edition of Capital, and Darwin shelved the book, wrote a thank you card, and each moved on.

Do you have more info on Darwin and Marx interacting? Or is that it? I'm interested now! And any other encounters Marx had with influential people?


And this little bit I heard:
When a reporter asked Marx about human rights, Marx scoffed "human rights? what human rights!" Now, I know thats bullshit, but where did anyone find that kind of shit? I mean what the hell?

[Demogorgon]

And this little bit I heard:
When a reporter asked Marx about human rights, Marx scoffed "human rights? what human rights!" Now, I know thats bullshit, but where did anyone find that kind of shit? I mean what the hell?

Whatever it is, it is a new invention. The phrase "Human Rights" didn't enter common parlance until after the second world war. Prior to that they talked about "rights of man".

[bezdomni]

Sorry if this post is a bit spamy, but a few questions from me, nonetheless. Delete as necessary.



Do you have more info on Darwin and Marx interacting? Or is that it? I'm interested now! And any other encounters Marx had with influential people?


And this little bit I heard:
When a reporter asked Marx about human rights, Marx scoffed "human rights? what human rights!" Now, I know thats bullshit, but where did anyone find that kind of shit? I mean what the hell?

Marx wrote a lot of letters to Lincoln, telling him to free the slaves in the south.

I'm sure you can find them on marxists.org Also, Bob Avakian mentions it in one of his talks, but I forget which.

[Niccolò Rossi]

It seems obvious to me by the relatively small quantity of views this thread has received that most of the board's members have serious overlooked the content on the site provided.

I just finished reading The Tradition of Scientific Marxism, Chapter 7 of John Holloway's book Change The World Without Taking Power, The Meaning of Revolution Today from the site. It is really really interesting read and has some quite profound implications.

Does anyone have any opinions on the work itself, it's certainly too important to ignore??

[Marsella]

An SWP publication, The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx, maintains that Marx did indeed have an 'illegitimate' child.

[TheLuddite]

Interesting site ... thanks

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Z, Alex Callinicos and John Holloway debate his book here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2liVjkA30T4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A-ExRmuXYQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PhBlELzxmE&feature=related

[Oneironaut]

wonderful videos rosa. i agree with what Callinicos has to say in that in order to break capitalism down it has to be an organized global movement with political ends. What Holloway argues for seems to lifestyle revolution on a grand scale that will force capitalism's crash, at least from what I could gather. If that is the case, then i do disagree with Holloway. Is there by chance footage of Holloway's response to Callinicos statements about the faults in Holloway's ideas?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

There are a few bits and pieces at You Tube. I'll post any that look any use tomorrow.

-------------------------

Sorry, there do not appear to be any.

[davidasearles]

Hi Rosa-

My post is not so much about any myth about Marx himself but the apparent belief by a significant number of people who identify with Marx that it is sufficient to quote Marx/Engels to prove whether or not some proposed course of action is sound under the current historical /material conditions.

High upon the of quotations turned into holy text is from Civil War in France-

"the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes"

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/ch05.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/ch05.htm)

People have various opinions as to just what this meant.

HOWEVER no matter what Marx meant, quoting the text today in support or to refute the wisdom of some current action or proposed action is absolutely meaningless. Nothing is true because Marx said it was true. No course of action today is any less valid or any more valid simply based on some writing or group of writings from the past.

If we're scientists we should demand from ourselves and from others adherence to actual science including the norms of argumentation based upon facts and logic, and not upon who said what when.

For example - Marx applied the "law of value" to the commodty labor power and described the economic process of the extration of surplus vlaue. Most Marists, myself included, believe that this "surplus vlaue" is a valid concept. But the "why" of each indivdual's belief is often as importanted as the "what". Do be agree on "surplus value" simply becuase Marx wrote it?

If we do we are fools.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

MarxSchmarx, I have only just seen this comment of yours:


Myth: Charles Darwin rebuffed Marx's request to dedicate Vol. 1 of Capital to Darwin.

Fact: False. According to Janet Browne's highly regarded recent biography of Darwin, Marx never asked Darwin for permission to dedicate Capital. The extent of the two's correspondence was minimal - Marx sent Darwin a copy of an early edition of Capital, and Darwin shelved the book, wrote a thank you card, and each moved on.

As Steven Jay Gould argued in an article about Ray Lankester, who was one of the few individuals to attend Marx's funeral):


If Lankester showed so little affinity for Marx's worldview, perhaps we should try the opposite route and ask if Marx had any intellectual or philosophical reason to seek Lankester's company. Again, after debunking some persistent mythology, we can find no evident basis for their friendship.

The mythology centres upon a notorious, if understandable, scholarly error that once suggested far more affinity between Marx and Darwin (or at least a one-way hero worshiping of Darwin by Marx) than corrected evidence can validate. Marx did admire Darwin, and he did send an autographed copy of Das Kapital to the great naturalist; Darwin, in the only recorded contact between the two men, sent a short, polite, and basically contentless letter of thanks. We do know that Darwin (who read German poorly and professed little interest in political science) never spent much time with Marx's magnum opus. All but the first 105 pages in Darwin's copy of Marx's 822-page book remain uncut (as does the table of contents), and Darwin, contrary to his custom when reading books carefully, made no marginal annotations. In fact, we have no evidence that Darwin ever read a word of Das Kapital.

The legend of greater contact began with one of the few errors ever made by one of the finest scholars of this, or any other, century -- Isaiah Berlin, in his 1939 biography of Marx. Based on a dubious inference from Darwin's short letter of thanks to Marx, Berlin concluded that Marx had offered to dedicate volume 2 of Kapital to Darwin and that Darwin had politely refused.

This tale of Marx's proffered dedication then gained credence when a second letter, ostensibly from Darwin to Marx but addressed only to 'Dear Sir,' turned up among Marx's papers in the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. This letter, written on October 13, 1880, does politely decline a suggested dedication: 'I Shd. prefer the Part or Volume not be dedicated to me (though I thank you for the intended honour) as it implies to a certain extent my approval of the general publication, about which I know nothing.' This second find seemed to seal Isaiah Berlin's case, and the story achieved general currency....

To shorten a long story, two scholars, working independently and simultaneously in the mid-1970s, discovered the almost comical basis of the error (see Margaret A. Fay, 'Did Marx offer to dedicate Capital to Darwin?' Journal of the History of Ideas 39, 1978, and Lewis S. Feuer, 'Is the "Darwin-Marx correspondence" authentic?' Annals of Science 32, 1975). Marx's daughter Eleanor became the common-law wife of the British socialist Edward Aveling. The couple safeguarded Marx's papers for several years, and the 1880 letter, evidently sent by Darwin to Aveling himself, must have strayed into the Marxian collection.

Aveling belonged to a group of radical atheists. He sought Darwin's official approval, and status as dedicatee, for a volume he had edited on Darwin's work and his (that is, Aveling's, not necessarily Darwin's) view of its broader social meaning (published in 1881 as The Student's Darwin, volume 2 in the International Library of Science and Free-thought). Darwin, who understood Aveling's opportunism and cared little for his antireligious militancy, refused with his customary politeness but with no lack of firmness. Darwin ended his letter to Aveling (and not to Marx, who did not treat religion as a primary subject in Das Kapital) by writing:


It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds which follows from the advance of science. It has, therefore, been always my object to avoid writing on religion, and I have confined myself to science.

Nonetheless, despite this correction, Marx might still have regarded himself as a disciple of Darwin and might have sought the company of a key Darwinian in the younger generation -- a position rendered more plausible by Engels's famous comparison (quoted earlier) in his funerary oration. But this interpretation must also be rejected. Engels maintained far more interest in the natural sciences than Marx ever did (as best expressed in two books, Anti-Dühring and Dialectics of Nature). Marx, as stated above, certainly admired Darwin as a liberator of knowledge from social prejudice and as a useful ally, at least by analogy. In a famous letter of 1869, Marx wrote to Engels about Darwin's Origin of Species: 'Although it is developed in the crude English style, this is the book which contains the basis in natural history for our view.'

But Marx also criticized the social biases in Darwin's formulation, again writing to Engels, and with keen insight:


It is remarkable how Darwin recognizes among beasts and plants his English society with its division pf labour, competition, opening up of new markets, invention and the Malthusian 'struggle for existence.' It is Hobbes's bellum omnium contra omnes [the war of all against all]. [Marx to Engels, 18/06/1862.]

Marx remained a committed evolutionist, of course, but his interest in Darwin clearly diminished through the years. An extensive scholarly literature treats this subject, and I think that Margaret Fay speaks for a consensus when she writes (in her previously cited article):


Marx...though he was initially excited by the publication of Darwin's Origin...developed a much more critical stance toward Darwinism, and in his private correspondence of the 1860s poked gentle fun at Darwin's ideological biases. Marx's Ethnological Notebooks, compiled circa 1879-81, in which Darwin is cited only once, provide no evidence that he reverted to his earlier enthusiasm.[Spelling altered to conform to UK English. I have added a reference to Marx's correspondence.]

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_7_108/ai_55698600

[ZeroNowhere]

I'm not entirely sure what myth is being refuted in the article on Marx and religion, tbh.
I had been linked to the site elsewhere, and it was pretty helpful, though.

Edit: Also, Callinicos and Holloway? Is this supposed to be a horror movie or something?
Anyways, on to the site. The article by Rubel isn't really one of his best, to my great surprise Chris Arthur wrote something that is actually good (the article on 'Simple commodity production), rather than making me want to gouge my eyes out as usual.

[n0thing]

Nice link

[Misanthrope]

Great site! I think it's in a resources thread but I may be mistaken.

[Pol Pot]

There are many interesting thins there, tnx :)

[ComradeNegatron]

Thanks for the links. They definitely help shed some light on the matter. :)

[BorealStorm]

Ah, I really like that one about the dictatorship of the proletariat.
I needed to say something along those lines when someone blamed me of not being a Marxist because I said I didn't believe in building government.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Sorry, David, I have only just seen this post of yours (can't think how I missed it before!):


Hi Rosa-

My post is not so much about any myth about Marx himself but the apparent belief by a significant number of people who identify with Marx that it is sufficient to quote Marx/Engels to prove whether or not some proposed course of action is sound under the current historical /material conditions.

High upon the of quotations turned into holy text is from Civil War in France-

"the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes"

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/ch05.htm

People have various opinions as to just what this meant.

HOWEVER no matter what Marx meant, quoting the text today in support or to refute the wisdom of some current action or proposed action is absolutely meaningless. Nothing is true because Marx said it was true. No course of action today is any less valid or any more valid simply based on some writing or group of writings from the past.

If we're scientists we should demand from ourselves and from others adherence to actual science including the norms of argumentation based upon facts and logic, and not upon who said what when.

For example - Marx applied the "law of value" to the commodty labor power and described the economic process of the extration of surplus vlaue. Most Marists, myself included, believe that this "surplus vlaue" is a valid concept. But the "why" of each indivdual's belief is often as importanted as the "what". Do be agree on "surplus value" simply becuase Marx wrote it?

If we do we are fools.

I agree; if Marxism is a science, which I believe it is, then we have to accept Marx's ideas only if we think them true, and can defend them if challenged.

As you probably know, that is why I reject dialectics (as it has traditionally been understood); but anyway I think Marx rejected it too.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1158574&postcount=73

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1158816&postcount=75

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1161443&postcount=114

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1163222&postcount=124

http://www.revleft.com/vb/dialectics-and-political-t118934/index.html

But, I'd still reject it even if Marx hadn't.

[vyborg]

I've started to read the "miths". The material is very different nad of different interest and deepness. But I will go on.
For example, the article of Rubel on Engels is pure rubbish. Marx was so stupid he accepted this dumb guy as his best friend theoretically and politically for 40 years....if this is the case Marx was even dumber than Engels...
this is a nonsense of course.

[ZeroNowhere]

Eh, Rubel's made some silly mistakes in the past, such as reproducing the myth about Marx's illegitimate child in 'Marx Without Myth', and his systematic abuse of the 'Je ne suis pas Marxiste' quote, but the above post is about the worst attempt at pointing out a mistake in Rubel that I have seen so far.

Anyway, I read the article by Chris Arthur, and it was actually pretty well researched, and I find this very much shocking considering the author.

[vyborg]

Wel I dont care about Rubel but the idea that Engels theories were different from Marx's one is very widespread. The problem with this silly proposition, as I said, is that implies the following: Marx knew that Engels was a dumb, nonthelesse for 40 years he considered Engels his only aid in politics, in life also I would say. If you use someone that you consider a moron as your only co-thinker for all your adult life, we can consider you are at least as moron as him....

When Rubel and other genius like him try to divide Marx and Engels they never draw such a conclusion of course. It is a lot more honest to reject Marxism altogether than accusing Engels of what you dont like in Marxism

[vyborg]

The article about the "secret son" is useless but informed. the article about the relationship with the working class is good. The article about religion is senseless.
the article about the birth of dialectical materialism is ridicolous. How can someone really talk about "naturalism" in Marx..this is not Marx,, this is burgeois XVIII century materialism...

The reality is that Marx never had time to deal with DM because of he considered, rightly so, more important to write The capital, something he didnt succeded to end anyway.

Having said that, what Engels exagerates, when he speakes about DM, is the possibility to develop a scientific method outside the development of the specific branches of science (social and natural ones).

DM is the method of marxism, but this method cannot exist without the development of the concrete marxist theories.

It goes without saying that after stalinism what passed for DM was a useless bunch of laughable dictum with no connection whatsoever with marxism, as stalinist regime were completely detached from real socialism

[vyborg]

the article about simple commodity production seems filologically correct (I cannot check as I cannot read german) but it forgets at least two major points: the theory of concrete and abstract and the concept of production in general that Marx explains in the famous 1857 Introduction.

Does the simple commodity production ever existed as someone pretends? In my opinion no, Marx used the concept only as a general introduction to commodity based societies.

[vyborg]

the article about marxian economic determinism is correct in its position but too small and do not faces the real problem that is the following.

this myth doesnt come out only from burgeois intellectual but also from many tendencies inside the socialist and communist movement itself (many theoreticians of the 2nd International but also of the 3d, as Bordiga, for example).

[vyborg]

The other articles are not very interesting.

Above all, that real "myths" in this field are others. you dont have a worker or a youngster against communism because Marx had an illegal son, or because his books are difficult to read or because Engels exagerated the method vis a vis the single sciences.

So to educate people interested in marxism we need very different stuff

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

In re: "value theory of labor." No bigger fools than most cappie economists, who gleefully point out that the theory's "incorrect" while forgetting it's not Marx's, it's Ricardo's. The problem is, that Marx lays the foundations of his description in Kap. I, then goes on to explain how the abstract value theory of labor becomes something quite different in the real world, in Kapital III.

Sure, Marx can be wrong. But not as wrong as those who start from the assumption that Marx was wrong (="bad") so they can contradict their own misinterpretations of Marx and put out what Marx actually meant as if they'd just invented it.

[Proukunin]

has anyone heard the myth of Marx being a satanist? not LaVey satanism but theist satanism. actually believing in an underlord deity. Ive read it on some dumbass conservative sites but I just wanted to know if it was a myth or not.

[Apoi_Viitor]

has anyone heard the myth of Marx being a satanist? not LaVey satanism but theist satanism. actually believing in an underlord deity. Ive read it on some dumbass conservative sites but I just wanted to know if it was a myth or not.

You must be trollin

[Proukunin]

I meant i know its a myth, i didnt mean to use lavey because he was way after that era. I just read it and i was curious to know what people thought lol. I aint Trollin.

[Rjevan]

has anyone heard the myth of Marx being a satanist? not LaVey satanism but theist satanism. actually believing in an underlord deity. Ive read it on some dumbass conservative sites but I just wanted to know if it was a myth or not.
I have seen this view spread over several religious sites since my Catholic dad pointed my to Herr Wurmbrand's article, which serves as the main German source. Pretty vicious stuff but his "arguments" are easily refuted as they are based on a few "satanic" poems Marx wrote at the age of 19, statements like "My new tin god is called Karl Marx", vile falsification of well-known quotes, hysterical claims without ever giving even one related quote and convincing evidence like "Did you ever wonder about Marx beard and hair? It is no longer weird if you know that the cultists of satanist Joana Southcott all looked like this!"

Along the way the author states that "most capitalist states have adopted many aspects of socialism today", John Paul II was right in condemning liberation theology and that he'd support "everything, even communism, fascism or democracy" if he could only be convinced that they serve humanity but only Catholicism does, according to him, so I guess he's out for capitalist theocracy.

Is there a concrete English "Marx was a Satanist-manifesto", too, or just loose accusations?

[Proukunin]

I have seen this view spread over several religious sites since my Catholic dad pointed my to Herr Wurmbrand's article, which serves as the main German source. Pretty vicious stuff but his "arguments" are easily refuted as they are based on a few "satanic" poems Marx wrote at the age of 19, statements like "My new tin god is called Karl Marx", vile falsification of well-known quotes, hysterical claims without ever giving even one related quote and convincing evidence like "Did you ever wonder about Marx beard and hair? It is no longer weird if you know that the cultists of satanist Joana Southcott all looked like this!"

Along the way the author states that "most capitalist states have adopted many aspects of socialism today", John Paul II was right in condemning liberation theology and that he'd support "everything, even communism, fascism or democracy" if he could only be convinced that they serve humanity but only Catholicism does, according to him, so I guess he's out for capitalist theocracy.

Is there a concrete English "Marx was a Satanist-manifesto", too, or just loose accusations?

Thats exactly what I read. I thought it was bogus. I mean I AM a Marxist.

[Rooster]

I heard that Marx had a 12 inch p....oh wait, that site is pretty good.

[Rooster]

has anyone heard the myth of Marx being a satanist? not LaVey satanism but theist satanism. actually believing in an underlord deity. Ive read it on some dumbass conservative sites but I just wanted to know if it was a myth or not.

I have. Believe it or not, it stems from the fact that Marx had a beard like "other satanists" . I'll try to find the book where that came from. Haha...

Ah yes...

Karl Marx was a Satan worshipper...he joined a satanic cult that featured long unkempt beards. Every picture of Karl Marx depicts such.
— Ralph Epperson Secret Societies (audiotape 1987)

From the book "Was Karl Marx a Satanist?"

http://www.amazon.com/Karl-Marx-Satanist-Richard-Wurmbrand/dp/0882640844

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Exfoliate instead of exorcise, eh?

[Rafiq]

*REMOVED*

*edit, this was a really stupid thing of me to declare, and I'm disgusted by even looking at it.

I mean, of course Marx's works would be affected by such an obscure form of Idealism. You know what, fuck it, I'm deleting that post.

[lan153rez]

Marx wrote a lot of letters to Lincoln, telling him to free the slaves in the south.

I'm sure you can find them on marxists.org Also, Bob Avakian mentions it in one of his talks, but I forget which.


I have never heard this before but I think Karl Marx was on point about many things. He predicted that the poor would back lash one day over the owners of production and that is what we are seeing internationally.