Building socialism: from ‘scientific’ to ‘active’ Marxism

Abstract

Historical materialism envisages law-like tendencies (‘scientific’ Marxism) promoting the development of productive forces and, concurrently, a political praxis (‘active’ Marxism) requiring human intervention. These positions give rise to conflicting interpretations of Marxism: first to understand society, second to change it – to abolish economic exploitation. The twentieth century witnessed a shift in the locus of the contradictions of capitalism to the economically dependent territories of the imperial powers. Socialist parties, when in power and adopting a Leninist political praxis, furthered modernisation and were successful in reducing economic exploitation. The paper addresses the relationship between the scientific and praxis components of Marxism in contemporary global capitalism. It considers post-Marxist interpretations of the changing class structure, the rise of identity politics and the evolving nature of capital. Forms of domination, oppression and discrimination (bureaucracy, patriarchy, racism, militarism and credentialism) give rise to their own distinctive forms of power relations. It is contended that they should not be equated with Marx’s crucial insight into the nature of economic exploitation. Many current Marxist (and ‘post-Marxist’) writers adopt a ‘scientific’ position emphasising the inherent contradictions of capitalism. The author claims that without appropriate political praxis, the resolution of such contradictions is unlikely to transcend capitalism.

Keywords:

• Marx
• Lenin
• historical materialism
• praxis
• Russia
• socialism
• development
• post-communism
• class

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The linkage is best known from Friedrich Engels’ speech of 1883 in which he explicitly compares Marx’s discovery of the law of human history to Darwin’s law of the development of nature (Engels F, p.13 ).

2 Alvin Gouldner distinguished between two Marxisms: scientific and critical.

3 Theses on Feuerbach (written 1845), Marx Engels Archive. Accessed 4 June 2018. Available at https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm

4 Luxemburg (1904). Most of the social-democratic parties of Western Europe preferred the course of electoral change predicated on trade union based socialist parties (See Gay P. 1952).

5 Mark Carney, as reported in the Daily Telegraph, April 14, 2018.

6 Paul Mason, New Statesman, May 4–10, 2018, quotation from p. 31.

7 “Revenues and their Sources,” Chapter 52: Classes, in Capital, vol. III, part VII. Available at https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch52.htm

8 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, “Manifesto of the Communist Party,” section 11.

February 1848. Available at https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/doc/Manifesto.doc

9 See e.g. F. Devine, M. Savage, J. Scott and R. Crompton. For Russia, a similar position is taken by authors in Rethinking Class in Russia, edited by Suvi Salmenniemi, p. 120.

10 See section under ‘bourgeoisie and proletarians’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Lane

David Lane is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (UK) and Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge University. His recent publications include Changing Regional Alliances for China and the West (with G. Zhu, 2018) and The Capitalist Transformation of State Socialism (2014). He has written extensively on development, transformation and the changing forms of capitalist society. Recent work has been on Eurasia, employment and unemployment, and alternatives to capitalism.