Some highly educated people describe themselves as Marxists beacuse they believe, with or without caveats, that Marx's critique of political economy, contained

Some highly educated people describe themselves as Marxists beacuse they believe, with or without caveats, that Marx's critique of political economy, contained within it Marx's sociology and philosophy, come very close to a critique of the modern state of things, i.e the current mode of production, which most would identify as capitalism. I'll address each argument. 1. As I've already responded to dragonwriter, it's incorrect to say that "Marxism" is a set of goals to be acheived or a kind of economy or a mode of production or a mode of social organisation. Marxism is simply the critique of political economy, and from that critique emerges the idea of Communism. As to the question, a lot of work has been done in Marxist (and post-Marxist) circles since about the 1950s, you may have heard of the Frankfurt School, for instance. Alain Badiou, a contemporary French philosopher, has written a book called "The Communist Hypothesis" in which he attempts to "rescue" Communism, not merely as a "less-bad" alternative to capitalism (even considering the track record in history) but as the only alternative. He uses the example of approaches to proving a hypothesis, in which each iteration the lessons learned from the previous attempt are modified. This is directly relatable to history - consider the evolution of Leninism after the Paris Commune, or Maoism after Leninism. 2. Capitalism is the greatest precedent, and feudalism too before it. Though it's worth noting that not only is Communism the "upheaval" of an economic system, it is as Gilles Dauve but it: "the end of economy". Arguably, capitalism really has worked; Marx would be the last to claim that capitalism hasn't ushered in massive prosperity and progress. These are just my responses, but there is a whole host of diversity within modern (post 1930s) Marxist thought that stretches to this day, with various responses to your questions, obviously not so condensed. The Frankfurt School was critical of both Western capitalism and Soviet-style communism, while furthering the Marxist critique to a mass-media world. The left-communists champion a return to Marx himself rather than trying to re-formulate critique for the modern world. But I want to disspell the idea that modern Marxists are ignorant of history or human behaviour; Marxism is relatively popular in both sociology and some history departments.