Criticism of Marxism

Karl Marx (1818–1883) was a philosopher, political journalist, critic of the bourgeois economy. Marxism was named after him.

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) was a politician, entrepreneur, philosopher and historian. Together with Karl Marx, he developed and spread the basic ideas of Marxism.

Criticism of Marxism , d. H. a critical examination of the form of social theory that refers to the writings of Karl Marx (1818–1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) has existed since Marxism existed. The critics come both from outside and from within the ranks of Marxism itself - then as a form of self-criticism and further development of Marxism.

overview

Since the publication of the first Marxist writings, criticism has formed at almost every part of the theory. This is mainly due to the incompleteness of Marx's last works and the fact that he corrected his theories on the basis of well-founded criticism ( “I welcome every judgment of scientific criticism” ). For example, there are not entirely contradictory considerations about the social preconditions for a socialist revolution. In Marx's letter to Vera Sassulitsch (1881), Marx referred to the situation in what was then Russia, which was viewed as a backward agricultural country, in which there was not yet a large number of industrial workers. The Russian village commune , in which common property already predominated, was considered, which Marx regarded with reservations as a possible “ base of the social rebirth of Russia ”. According to Marx, however, the proletariat should normally pave the way for a revolution, and he never refrained from it. As is well known, the October Revolution in Russia later (1917) was a revolution that was directed against capitalist class society and was led by Lenin and the Bolsheviks , who saw themselves as the vanguard of the working class . However, at that time Russia was still considered a predominantly agricultural country. Marx did not just conclude, but reinforced, after the experience of the Paris Commune (1871), that the proletariat should strive for the conquest of political power and that for this the constitution of political parties was necessary. In addition, Marx also came to the realization from the experiences of the Paris Commune that “ the working class cannot simply take possession of the finished state machine and set it in motion for its own purposes ” and in “ The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte ” (1852) he had already written: “ All upheavals ” [= society] “perfected this machine instead of breaking it. “Some formulations in Marx are therefore ambiguous. According to Lenin's interpretation, " The Marxian thought (...) consisted precisely in the fact that the working class must SMALL, BREAK, the finished state machine" and not simply limit itself to taking possession of it. (...) In these words: 'to break the bureaucratic-military machine', "according to Lenin's interpretation," in short, contains the main teaching of Marxism on the tasks of the proletariat in the revolution in relation to the state. ". Marx did not provide any concrete information on the political order of a communist state. The criticism of Marxism intensified in the 20th century in the course of the emergence of the state systems based on Marx. Above all, it attacks inhumane politics and economic inefficiency in “real socialism” as a result of Marxist theory. Inner-Marxist criticism comes primarily from different currents of neo-Marxism ), each of which often rejects only individual areas or criticizes Marxism-Leninism . Complete rejection of Marxist theories can be found especially on the part of followers of fundamentally different world views , sciences or philosophies .

Inner Marxist approaches to criticism

Within today's Marxism, which is divided into numerous, sometimes completely contradicting directions, almost all elements of Marx's theory are controversially discussed. Particularly controversial points are, for example:

• the role of the working class and its relationship to other social movements
• the definition (and organization) of "socialist democracy"
• the prerequisites for a socialist transformation of a society
• various questions of value creation
• the relationship between base and superstructure

Following Leon Trotsky , Ernest Mandel modified Marx's law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall with a Marxist version of the theory of long waves , emphasizing that the forces counteracting it can gain the upper hand for longer periods.

In particular, neo-Marxists reject the dogmatization of the Marxist structure of thought as a “proletarian worldview”, which was particularly evident in the state doctrines of real socialism . Eurocommunists and reformists, on the other hand, reject class struggles as a means of bringing about socialism and try to find democratic ways to overcome class antagonisms. Some post- Marxists question his class theory and philosophy of history with the critique of value .

Thinkers influenced by Marx accuse him of overestimating the impact of a commodity on a change to communism in his description of the use value of a commodity and of having barely included culture and nature in his economic theories. The prerequisites for transforming a socialist society into a communist one are also controversial. Marx himself noted that their success would only be possible after a global revolution.

Non-Marxist approaches to criticism and opposing positions

Almost every non-Marxist critic rejects the Marxist theories and supports at least parts of the inner-Marxist criticism. In addition, every part of Marxism has already been seriously questioned or rejected. For example, the Hegelian dialectic - on which historical and dialectical materialism are based - is fundamentally wrong, as, for example, Karl Raimund Popper criticizes in his work The Open Society and Its Enemies . Marx's thinking leads to a " closed society ". This is characterized by the fact that it is planned on the drawing board, so to speak, by elites who believe they are in possession of supposedly scientific knowledge about the "objective interests" of the subject, even if these deviated significantly from their subjectively perceived interests. The closed society is therefore a totalitarian dictatorship. In his book " The Misery of Historicism " in 1957, Popper criticized the notion of historical materialism,

• that history is purposeful,
• that certain patterns in it would be justified by certain subsequent patterns,
• that the supposedly "objective" knowledge of these basic patterns allows predictions of the course of history and normative statements about how it can be influenced.

Overall, however, “ scientific socialism ” is by no means scientific because it cannot be falsified . This is especially true if Marxist theses are sealed from the outside using the means of ideology criticism : Skeptics who doubt the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall or the reduction of all history to the history of class struggles are assumed to have no doubts at all would be honest, but only production of ideology in the interests of the ruling class. The more the skeptic insists on his misgivings, the more clearly the ideology critic thinks he can recognize his supposedly underlying intentions. Conditions under which he would admit that his theses were wrong, he could not name. In this interpretation of Popper, Marxism appears as a pseudoscience . The positivism dispute was fought over his theses and the scientific nature of the dialectical method in the sixties . Other critics complain about the narrow causal relationship between base and superstructure , as can be observed, among other things, in the Stamokap theory or in certain vulgar Marxist cartel theories . Here the institutions and bodies of the state are represented as direct recipients of orders from the industrialists, as mere "agents of monopoly capitalism". For this reason, the German historian Gerd Koenen and the American political scientist Daniel Pipes describe Marxism-Leninism as a conspiracy theory .

It is also criticized that the path to communism through a powerful party apparatus (dictatorship of the proletariat) carries the risk that the powerful leaders do not initiate any structural reforms in the interests of the proletariat, but above all defend their power interests. Many researchers such as For example, the editors of the Black Book of Communism assume that the millions of mass murders organized by dictators like Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot who refer to Marxism , are not deviations from the actually positive Marxist doctrine, but are inherent in it . Some critics of Marxism see the reasons for the failure of so-called real existing socialism or authoritarian communism according to Marxism as a confirmation of their opposing positions to Marxism. Famous anarchist critics included a. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon , Michail Bakunin , Peter Kropotkin , Gustav Landauer , Emma Goldman , Alexander Berkman , Erich Mühsam , Rudolf Rocker , James Guillaume , Pierre Ramus or also Abdullah Öcalan , Harold Barclay and David Graeber .

Economic criticism

Since the end of the 19th century, a paradigm shift took place in western economics with the victory of neoclassical theory - it broke with the classical economics on which Marx's analysis was based and, based on the marginal principle, relied on an alternative explanation of value determination, which has established itself in modern economics. In 1988, the Nobel laureate in economics, Robert M. Solow, described Marxist economic analysis as an “irrelevant dead end.” Liberal critics were Milton Friedman ( Chicago School ) or Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises ( Austrian School ). Criticism was also given by John Maynard Keynes , whose theories continue to have a significant influence on economic policy in industrialized countries.

Response to criticism

Contemporary graffito underscores reaction to Marxism controversies: Read Marx Understand Marx!

The criticism of Marxism has not gone unchallenged. The counter-criticism emphasizes that Marx and Engels made developments in their theoretical assumptions during their creative period. It should always be taken into account from which period the respective statements by Marx and Engels come. Reference is made here in particular to the differences between the statements in Karl Marx's early and late work. For example, Marx developed historical materialism through dialectical materialism .

Neo-Marxist approaches break away from a teleological and deterministic interpretation, which are often the main points of criticism of Marxist theory. Social development is neither understood as a fixed process that develops towards a specific goal, nor is it fixed by its material environment or by the mode of production in a society. The base does not determine the superstructure either. There is no inevitable sequence of developments, these are in principle open. Popper's criticism that Marxist theory would establish laws and a goal in historical development in order to derive solutions for the future is rejected in this regard. At the same time, a normative model of criticism is adhered to.

literature

Primary literature

• Karl Raimund Popper : Collected works , Mohr Siebeck Verlag.
  • Volume 4: The misery of historicism. 7th edition, Tübingen 2003, ISBN 3-16-148025-2
  • Volume 6: The open society and its enemies. Volume II: False Prophets: Hegel, Marx and the Consequences. 8th edition, Tübingen 2003, ISBN 978-3-16-148069-0
  • Volume 10: Conjectures and Refutations. The growth of scientific knowledge. Chapter 15 - What is Dialectic? , 2nd edition, Tübingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-16-150197-5
• Joseph Schumpeter : Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy . 8th edition, UTB Verlag, 2005
• Leopold Schwarzschild : The Red Prussian. Life and legend of Karl Marx. Scherz & Goverts, Stuttgart 1954
• Raymond Aron : Opium for intellectuals or The Search for Weltanschauung ("L'opium des intellectuels"). Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1957.
• Rudolf Bahro : The Alternative: To the Critique of Really Existing Socialism. European Publishing House, Cologne 1977, ISBN 3-434-00353-3
• Joseph Maria Bocheński : Science or Faith. Olzog, Munich 1973
• Cornelius Castoriadis : “Why I am no longer a Marxist” in: ders., From Socialism to Autonomous Society , Selected Writings, Volume 2.1, Lich: Verlag edition AV, 2007, pp. 19–64
• Gerd Koenen : Marxism-Leninism as a universal conspiracy theory. In: Die neue Gesellschaft / Frankfurter Hefte, H. 2 (1999), pp. 127-132
• Oswald von Nell-Breuning : Confrontation with Karl Marx . Hueber, Munich 1969
• Walter Theimer : Marxism: Doctrine - Effect - Critique. 8., completely rework. u. supplementary edition Francke, Tübingen 1985
• Henry Bamford Parkes: Marxism - An autopsy. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1939

Secondary literature

• Author collective: Myths about Marx. The most popular reviews, misjudgments and misunderstandings . Bertz + Fischer, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86505-748-8 .
• Galina Belkina: Marxism or Marxology. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin (GDR) 1975
• Elmar Julier: Marx-Engels falsification and crisis of bourgeois ideology. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin (GDR) 1975
• Wolfgang Kleinig: Changes in the Catholic criticism of Marxism. in: German journal for philosophy 9/1969. VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1969
• Volker Gerhardt : That's Murx . On the importance of Marxism in the 21st century In: Die literäre Welt (supplement to the daily newspaper Die Welt ), Berlin, May 3, 2008, No. 18, page 1.
• Eike Kopf : Engels' Anti-Dühring and the bourgeois criticism of Marxism in the 19th century. in: German magazine for philosophy 7/1977. VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1977
• Robert Steigerwald : Criticism of Marxism Today. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin (GDR) 1986
• Horst Ullrich: On the reaction of bourgeois ideology to the emergence of Marxism. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin (GDR) 1976

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Das Kapital, foreword to the first edition
2. ↑ Marx; Engels, foreword to the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" (German edition 1872)
3. ↑ Karl Marx “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte” (MEW 8), page 196 f.
4. ^ Lenin, State and Revolution. Lenin Works, Volume 25, Pages 393-507
5. ↑ Ernest Mandel, Der Spätkapitalismus. Frankfurt am Main 1971, pp. 118ff
6. ^ Robert M. Solow : THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD OF WEALTH. Book review of THE NEW PALGRAVE - A Dictionary of Economics. New York Times, February 20, 1988, accessed June 10, 2020 (English): "... most serious English-speaking economists regard Marxist economics as an irrelevant dead end"