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Ok, those phases may not have been as pronounced with Marx and Engels as later proponents of state socialism. But seems to me that the hard dichotomy between "t

Ok, those phases may not have been as pronounced with Marx and Engels as later proponents of state socialism. But seems to me that the hard dichotomy between "the founders and the usurpers" that you propose is false, and indeed the token escape route from the obvious inhumanity of the Marxist societies that have evolved from this thinking for modern Marxists, hence the constant quarrel between these of who is most orthodox. An honest scholarly assessment seems to me to be that "scientific" historical determinism is embedded in the Marxist thinking from the outset (albeit not without contradictory tendencies), including the objective historical phases based on the means of production. It is a reductionist approach which plagues much scientific thinking, which, contrary to the actual scientific method as we understand it, assumes that we know all the basic variables (the 'atoms' of history as it were), or at least that the variables behave in a mechanistic cause/effect manner, a determinism that ultimately paves the way for the moral/ethical irresponsibility we've seen. [0] That be as it may, in view of your fairly economist view ("the fundamental thesis of Marx is that society exists completely independent of politics, power hierarchies, ideas etc.."), it would be interesting to hear how you assess this letter of Engels from 1890, especially first and last paragraphs [1] I would also be interested to know what you mean by "DotP is one possible way socialism can be achieved" [0] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-mind/scientists-say-free-will-probably-doesnt-exist-but-urge-dont-stop-believing/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-mind/scientis... [1] https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_09_21.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_...

gnulinux 8y ago
> [first paragraph] While I don't wanna get more into this debate, I should one more time state that reducing Marxism to "inhuman Marxist societies" is ad hominem and your argument doesn't have any value to me. Also you used/coined a word "state socialism" which to me is an oxymoron as I cannot conceptualize socialism that is not stateless. Marxism may be reductionist or wrong (and it is) but it is almost by design wrong. Darwin was also vastly wrong and ignorant (he didn't even know genes). There is a very rich academic literature on Marxism, that is not written by laymen (like Stalin who I doubt ever read any Marx). Similarly, modern biology is almost all about evolution regardless whether Darwin's original ideas were accurate or not, they found their own way. Marx is outdated in a very similar fashion Freud or Darwin are outdated. Just 'cause some inhuman eugenics people thought we can apply "Darwinism" to kill people doesn't make Darwinism inhuman (unless you think it does, but I don't think so). > [Engels talking about dilettantes and how not everything can be reduced to economy etc] This sort of reduction wasn't what I was going for. To me Marxism is a tool, just like any other tool. It gives me a clear framework to conceptualize and analyze things, using a very similar analysis Marx used in the German Ideology, Capital etc (which people sometimes say reversed Hegelianism, but this is not very accurate). It's about when you observe the world what you see in abstract. Of course, in real life people still do stuff independent of their financial situation etc. This is not relevant imho.
- stareatgoats 8y ago
  OK thanks, we can leave it at that. I personally dropped Marxism (and joined the idealists) some 20 years ago when I became convinced that analysis doesn't portray reality as much as it creates it, and Marxism paints a more hopeless and sinister world than I actually adhere to. That said, agree that some aspects like class analysis are useful as analytical tools, that I still use to some degree.

gnulinux 8y ago

> [first paragraph] While I don't wanna get more into this debate, I should one more time state that reducing Marxism to "inhuman Marxist societies" is ad hominem and your argument doesn't have any value to me. Also you used/coined a word "state socialism" which to me is an oxymoron as I cannot conceptualize socialism that is not stateless. Marxism may be reductionist or wrong (and it is) but it is almost by design wrong. Darwin was also vastly wrong and ignorant (he didn't even know genes). There is a very rich academic literature on Marxism, that is not written by laymen (like Stalin who I doubt ever read any Marx). Similarly, modern biology is almost all about evolution regardless whether Darwin's original ideas were accurate or not, they found their own way. Marx is outdated in a very similar fashion Freud or Darwin are outdated. Just 'cause some inhuman eugenics people thought we can apply "Darwinism" to kill people doesn't make Darwinism inhuman (unless you think it does, but I don't think so). > [Engels talking about dilettantes and how not everything can be reduced to economy etc] This sort of reduction wasn't what I was going for. To me Marxism is a tool, just like any other tool. It gives me a clear framework to conceptualize and analyze things, using a very similar analysis Marx used in the German Ideology, Capital etc (which people sometimes say reversed Hegelianism, but this is not very accurate). It's about when you observe the world what you see in abstract. Of course, in real life people still do stuff independent of their financial situation etc. This is not relevant imho.

stareatgoats 8y ago
OK thanks, we can leave it at that. I personally dropped Marxism (and joined the idealists) some 20 years ago when I became convinced that analysis doesn't portray reality as much as it creates it, and Marxism paints a more hopeless and sinister world than I actually adhere to. That said, agree that some aspects like class analysis are useful as analytical tools, that I still use to some degree.