Today marks (no pun) the 203rd birthday of the German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, and socialist revolutionary Karl Marx himself.
Obviously, Marx is a guy that doesn’t need too much introduction, however, he is someone that is incredibly misunderstood on many levels when it comes to broader issues and themes, especially about modern-day society.
And this misunderstanding can go either way on the political spectrum.
Right-wing reactionaries do not like Marx because they associate him with communism which is ironic because it adds two additional levels of complete and total ignorance on their part.
Furthermore, I think Marx becomes misunderstood amongst leftist circles especially when we’re dealing with labels like anarchism or Marxist-Leninism. For instance, anarchists may get the wrong idea about Marx himself because of his association with the more modern ML framework while ML’s may believe the philosophies surrounding Marx are exclusive to Marxist-Leninism.
Now before I go on, I’m not going to pretend like I’m some great expert on Marx or his philosophy. I’m simply going to convey some of the basics I’ve picked up over the past few years as I’ve made my own transition from a bleeding heart liberal to what I now self-identify politically as which is an anarcho-communist. But perhaps more importantly why Marx himself is vital to leftist unity.
So what is Marxism?
Marxism arose out of the disagreements Marx himself had with the theories of contemporary economists. Notably, Marx found that any existing analysis of capitalism was extremely uncritical and completely one-sided while leaving out the factor of labor.
From this Marx’s objective was to develop an analytical framework that took into account labor and in turn gave a critical analysis of capitalism. This included a further critical analysis of classic economists like Adam Smith and James Mill.
Now the basis of that framework dealt with two incredibly important methodologies that would help form a basis for what I see as modern-day leftism.
The first being historical materialism which a simpleton like myself may describe as a real-world analysis of conditions on the ground. A better description of historical materialism though would be the focus on human development within society as a result of the material conditions of the people living in that society rather than the ideas.
In essence, historical materialism is a method of understanding history in the way societies have developed throughout history
An example of this could be the American Revolutionary War.
The idealist perspective would be the Revolutionary War was fought between England and the Continental Army based on the idea of freedom and independence of a new American nation.
On the other hand, the material perspective of the Revolutionary War is it was fought because rich oligarchs and landowners wanted economic freedom from the British crown. Likewise, the material conditions of black people, natives, and lower-class white people wouldn’t change much if at all.
Meanwhile, dialectic, specifically Marxist dialectic derives itself from Hegelian dialectic in some respect but it was Marx’s intention to turn Hegel’s philosophy on its head.
But first to quickly summarize, dialectic itself predates Marx and Hegel by at least 2,000 years. In fact, you can trace it all the way back to Plato when the father of western philosophy would present a central idea by having two opposing characters argue two opposing ideas. Eventually, the opposing ideas would refine the central idea before ultimately some semblance of a coherent idea is formed. Hegel would eventually expand on this in his own dialectic philosophy developing an idea that human societies are developed through an absolute spirit and that all things that have happened on Earth are subordinate to a realm of ideas.
Marx though took this and reformed Hegel’s and in some sense Plato’s dialectic philosophies and instead of ideas being primary to dialectics it was the material reality that took precedence. In turn, history is marked by the constant change in development as a result of opposing and contradicting classes.
So to relate this to the American Revolution, the material conditions on the ground and shaping of American history from 1776 and beyond was determined by two opposing forces whether that be the contradictions between the Continental Army and the British, oligarchs and those who were enslaved, etc.
Marxism and Communism
So is Marxism actually communism?
Not exactly.
First I’d like to point out that communism didn’t begin with Karl Marx’s philosophies. Anthropologists have long argued the idea of proto-communism dating all the way to Jesus Christ himself.
Marx, however, can certainly be credited with helping establish the contemporary political philosophies surrounding modern-day communism.
So what are the differences?
Perhaps in the simplest terms, Marxism served as the ideology and philosophy while communism served as the political practice and system. Marxism served as the theory while communism served as the practical implementation of Marxism, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”. If Marxism helped us understand the development of the state, it was communism that took Marxism’s philosophy to eventually move towards a stateless and egalitarian society. Finally, if Marxism gave us a way to view the world, communism was the resulting condition of society and political movement.
Lastly, it’s important to note that Marx, through his theories, never laid out a blueprint of actually achieving communism. In fact, The Communist Manifesto which many like to point to as some introduction to communism wasn’t really about communism at all. The Communism Manifesto more or less outlined Marx’s critiques of capitalism.
A much better introduction to communism would be The Principles of Communism by Friedrich Engels.
Leftist Unity through Marxism
Now, believe it or not, leftist unity can be derived from Marxism. Sure some fundamental differences arise from the y-axis, notably between an ML and anarchist. Bakunin had his disagreements with Marx while Peter Kropotkin had his issues with the direction of the Russian Revolution.
Classical Marxism would also see socialism as a stage between capitalism and communism implementing a dictatorship of the proletariat while Vladimir Lenin would further expand on the state’s role when it came to moving out of capitalism and towards communism.
Obviously, this idea of the state would have a direct conflict with anarchist theory and despite the varying schools of Marxist theory and communism many of the central themes were exclusive to one school of thought. Marxists, communists, anarchists, and socialists had the same views on the exploitive nature of capitalism. Historical materialism and dialectics weren’t exclusive to just classical Marxism, while an egalitarian society devoid of class and hierarchy was a shared goal by all.
It’s these fundamental themes of egalitarianism, labors relation to society, and how material conditions and dialectics shape our our world that should unify us rather than divide us.
