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Open Marxism is a collection of critical and heterodox Marxist schools of thought which critique state socialism [1] and party politics, stressing the need for openness to praxis and history through an anti-positivist method grounded in the "practical reflexivity" of Karl Marx's own concepts. [2] The "openness" in open Marxism also refers to a non-deterministic view of history in which the unpredictability of class struggle is foregrounded. [3]
It is very strongly anti-structuralist in both its Marxism–Leninist [4] and Althusserian [5] forms, and there is significant overlap with some schools of post-Marxism. [6] It often (though not always) aligns itself with humanist Marxism, and libertarian or left communism. [7] It draws strongly from value-form criticism.
Derrida describes an 'open' Marxist tradition in an interview from 1980. [8] Alvin Gouldner also describes 'Two Marxisms' in the 1980s; one scientific, and one critical. [9]
Originating from a term used by Agnoli in a debate with Ernest Mandel, Open Marxism began in the 80's as an effort to unite heterodox Marxist tendencies against the dogmatism of revisionist Marxism-Leninism, and mainstream sociological structuralist [10] versions of Western Marxism, such as Althusserian Marxism and Gramscian cultural studies. [11] Open Marxists returned to basic Marxist concepts such as value, labour and the state-form, [12] and argued against social-democratic state-led and Marxist-Leninist party-led utilisations of Marxism.
The sources of critical, Open Marxism (sometimes called the 'warm stream of Marxism' [13] ) are many, from György Lukács' return to the philosophical roots of Marx's thinking, to council communism, the New Left, elements of Autonomism and situationism and also the Neue Marx-Lektüre of 70s Germany. [14] Hegel is often the common thread within these tendencies. [3]
Intellectual affinities with autonomist Marxism were especially strong and led to the creation of the journal The Commoner (2001–2012) following in the wake of previous open Marxist journals Arguments (1958–1962) [15] and Common Sense (1987–1999).
In the 1970s and 1980s, state-derivationist debates around the separation of the economic and the political under capitalism unfolded in the working group Kapitalistate and the Conference of Socialist Economists [16] journal Capital & Class, involving many of the theorists of Open Marxism and significantly influencing its theoretical development. [17] Endnotes journal references itself as influenced by OM. [11]
Three volumes entitled Open Marxism were published by Pluto Press in the 1990s. A fourth volume, again published by Pluto, appeared in 2020. The authorship of the latest volume showed how far the influence of Open Marxism has spread from Europe to Latin America. [18]
Some scholars discuss the existence of an 'open Leninism', or a Neo-Leninism, [48] that is, a critical [49] Hegelian, or post-structural Leninism that is critical of Marxism-Leninism [50] as it existed in the 20th century. [51] [52] The work of Lars T. Lih, [53] Kevin B. Anderson, [54] Kai Heron, [55] Jodi Dean, [56] Andreas Malm, [57] Antonio Negri, [58] Alberto Toscano [59] and Slavoj Zizek [60] have been representative of this trend.
Some critics have alleged that open Marxism is too open [61] - a charge of 'subjectivism' [62] and 'voluntarism' [63] is sometimes levelled, though its authors, particularly John Holloway have responded to this. [64]
Others claim that open Marxist accounts tend to treat the national capitalist state abstractly, without reference to uneven and combined development and international forms of class struggle in the capitalist "world-system". [65]
Like other forms of Marxism, it has been criticised for being totalising, universalising and Eurocentric. [66]
Open Marxism, whilst being fairly unified analytically, has very different political implications. Many, like Negri, argue for a revolution against capitalism. [67] Others, like Pitts, argue for quite mild social democracy against a more radical Left movement. [68] [69]
Council communism or Councilism is a current of communist thought that emerged in the 1920s. Inspired by the November Revolution, council communism was opposed to state socialism and advocated workers' councils and council democracy. It is regarded as being strongest in Germany and the Netherlands during the 1920s.
Reading Capital is a 1965 book about the philosopher Karl Marx's Das Kapital by the philosophers Louis Althusser, Étienne Balibar, and Jacques Rancière, the sociologist Roger Establet, and the critic Pierre Macherey. The book was first published in France by François Maspero. An abridged English translation was published in 1970, and an unabridged translation in 2015. The book was influential among intellectuals.
Raya Dunayevskaya, later Rae Spiegel, also known by the pseudonym Freddie Forest, was the American founder of the philosophy of Marxist humanism in the United States. At one time Leon Trotsky's secretary, she later split with him and ultimately founded the organization News and Letters Committees and was its leader until her death.
Harry Cleaver Jr. is an American scholar, Marxist theoretician, and professor emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin. He is best known as the author of Reading Capital Politically, an autonomist reading of Karl Marx's Capital. Cleaver is currently active in the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico.
Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as "historical materialism," to understand class relations and social conflict. It also uses a dialectical perspective to view social transformation. Marxism originates from the works of 19th-century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism has developed over time into various branches and schools of thought, As a result, there is no single, definitive Marxist theory. Marxism has had a profound impact in shaping the modern world, with various left-wing and far-left political movements taking inspiration from it in varying local contexts.
John Holloway is a Marxist lawyer, sociologist and philosopher, whose work is closely associated with the Zapatista movement in Mexico, his home since 1991. It has also been taken up by some intellectuals associated with the piqueteros in Argentina; the Abahlali baseMjondolo movement in South Africa and the Anti-Globalization Movement in Europe and North America. He is currently a professor at the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences at the Autonomous University of Puebla.
Autonomism, also known as Autonomist Marxism, is an anti-capitalist social movement and Marxist-based theoretical current that first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerism. Later, post-Marxist and anarchist tendencies became significant after influence from the Situationists, the failure of Italian far-left movements in the 1970s, and the emergence of a number of important theorists including Antonio Negri, who had contributed to the 1969 founding of Potere Operaio as well as Mario Tronti, Paolo Virno and Franco "Bifo" Berardi.
Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that originates in the works of 19th century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism analyzes and critiques the development of class society and especially of capitalism as well as the role of class struggles in systemic, economic, social and political change. It frames capitalism through a paradigm of exploitation and analyzes class relations and social conflict using a materialist interpretation of historical development – materialist in the sense that the politics and ideas of an epoch are determined by the way in which material production is carried on.
Structural Marxism is an approach to Marxist philosophy based on structuralism, primarily associated with the work of the French philosopher Louis Althusser and his students. It was influential in France during the 1960s and 1970s, and also came to influence philosophers, political theorists and sociologists outside France during the 1970s. Other proponents of structural Marxism were the sociologist Nicos Poulantzas and the anthropologist Maurice Godelier. Many of Althusser's students broke with structural Marxism in the late 1960s and 1970s.
Crack Capitalism (2010) is a book by sociologist John Holloway that carries on with the political ideas developed in his earlier Change the World Without Taking Power. Holloway sees the problem of political activism, in terms of those struggling “in-and-against” the system, as one of continuing to perpetuate capitalism through their commitment to abstract labour. Holloway defines "abstract labour" as labour which is subordinated exclusively to the demands of the market.
The real determinant of society is hidden behind the state and the economy: it is the way in which our everyday activity is organised, the subordination of our doing to the dictates of abstract labour, that is, of value, money, profit. It is this abstraction which is, after all, the very existence of the state. If we want to change society, we must stop the subordination of our activity to abstract labour, do something else.
Neo-Marxism is a collection of Marxist schools of thought originating from 20th-century approaches to amend or extend Marxism and Marxist theory, typically by incorporating elements from other intellectual traditions such as critical theory, psychoanalysis, or existentialism. Neo-Marxism comes under the broader framework of the New Left. In a sociological sense, neo-Marxism adds Max Weber's broader understanding of social inequality, such as status and power, to Marxist philosophy.
Post-Marxism is a perspective in critical social theory which radically reinterprets Marxism, countering its association with economism, historical determinism, anti-humanism, and class reductionism, whilst remaining committed to the construction of socialism. Most notably, Post-Marxists are anti-essentialist, rejecting the primacy of class struggle, and instead focus on building radical democracy. Post-Marxism can be considered a synthesis of post-structuralist frameworks and neo-Marxist analysis, in response to the decline of the New Left after the protests of 1968. In a more broader sense, post-Marxism can refer to Marxists or Marxian-adjacent theories which break with the old worker's movements and socialist states entirely, in a similar sense to post-Leftism, and accept that the era of mass revolution premised on the Fordist worker is potentially over.
Orthodox Marxism is the body of Marxist thought which emerged after the death of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the late 19th century, expressed in its primary form by Karl Kautsky. Kautsky's views of Marxism dominated the European Marxist movement for two decades, and orthodox Marxism was the official philosophy of the majority of the socialist movement as represented in the Second International until the First World War in 1914, whose outbreak caused Kautsky's influence to wane and brought to prominence the orthodoxy of Vladimir Lenin. Orthodox Marxism aimed to simplify, codify and systematize Marxist method and theory by clarifying perceived ambiguities and contradictions in classical Marxism. It overlaps significantly with Instrumental Marxism.
Dialectical materialism is a materialist theory based upon the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels that has found widespread applications in a variety of philosophical disciplines ranging from philosophy of history to philosophy of science. As a materialist philosophy, Marxist dialectics emphasizes the importance of real-world conditions and the presence of functional contradictions within and among social relations, which derive from, but are not limited to, the contradictions that occur in social class, labour economics, and socioeconomic interactions. Within Marxism, a contradiction is a relationship in which two forces oppose each other, leading to mutual development.
Western Marxism is a current of Marxist theory that arose from Western and Central Europe in the aftermath of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the ascent of Leninism. The term denotes a loose collection of theorists who advanced an interpretation of Marxism distinct from classical and Orthodox Marxism and the Marxism-Leninism of the Soviet Union.
History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics is a 1923 book by the Hungarian philosopher György Lukács, in which the author re-emphasizes the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's influence on the philosopher Karl Marx, analyzes the concept of "class consciousness," and attempts a philosophical justification of Bolshevism.
Various Marxist authors have focused on Marx's method of analysis and presentation as key factors both in understanding the range and incisiveness of Karl Marx's writing in general, his critique of political economy, as well as Grundrisse andDas Kapital in particular. One of the clearest and most instructive examples of this is his discussion of the value-form, which acts as a primary guide or key to understanding the logical argument as it develops throughout the volumes of Das Kapital.
Tony Smith is an American philosopher and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Iowa State University. He is known for his works on capitalism, Hegel, and Marx.
An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx's Capital is a book by German Marxist scholar Michael Heinrich examining the three volumes of Karl Marx's major economic work Capital. Published in German in 2004, the book is structured as a shortened account of Marx's analysis of capitalism, and is written from the standpoint of the Neue Marx-Lektüre school of thought, criticising both Marxist and bourgeois readings of Marx. The book was first published in Germany by Schmetterling Verlag and became one of the most popular introductions to Capital in the country. It was the first of Heinrich's works to be translated into English, with a 2012 edition by Monthly Review Press.
Geopolitical economy is a contemporary Marxist approach to understanding the capitalist world historically. It was proposed by Radhika Desai in her Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire as a critique of contemporary mainstream theories of International political economy (IPE) and International relations (IR). Geopolitical economy's critique rests on a rejection of orthodox views of the world economy as a seamless whole, united either by markets or by a single leading state, as in free market, free trade "globalization" and "hegemony" theories respectively. Instead, geopolitical economy emphasizes the interplay of political entities, namely, states, in the development of capitalism by going back to classical political economy and to the Marxist theories of imperialism, which geopolitical economy argues should be considered the first theories of international relations.