What makes a Marxist?

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What makes a Marxist? Anonymous 02/09/15 (Mon) 04:25:47 No.2023

Do you have to agree with Marx's account of historical materialism and all the rest of that Hegelian "stages of history" stuff, to be a Marxist? I consider myself a Socialist and I obvious respect Marx's work on politics and economics but some of his earlier philosophy is pretty questionable.

Anonymous 02/09/15 (Mon) 17:50:36 No.2027

Seeing as dialectical materialism is a core component of Marxism, I'd say pretty much. You can be a socialist without being a Marxist though, as you said. What exactly do you find objectionable?

Anonymous 02/09/15 (Mon) 21:45:44 No.2029

>>2027
I find questionable the given explanation of history into the set stages, and the idea that humans are "progressing" necessarily - I agree with the dialectic relationship between base and superstructure, but I am not so Hegelian to think that with each change the contractions of the last are met, that such revolutions will necessarily take place - I think they will only happen if we make them happen. I also do not necessarily think that Communism would definitely be "the end of history" in that sense.

Anonymous 02/10/15 (Tue) 01:20:41 No.2031

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Dialectical/Historical Materialism was essentially all ENGELS, read this: https://www.marxists.org/subject/marxmyths/jordan/article.htm

From the The German Ideology:
>Feuerbach’s great achievement is…. The proof that philosophy is nothing else but religion rendered into thought and expounded by thought, i.e., another form and manner of existence of the estrangement of the essence of man; hence equally to be condemned….
>One has to ‘leave philosophy aside’…, one has to leap out of it and devote oneself like an ordinary man to the study of actuality,

Anonymous 02/13/15 (Fri) 16:27:56 No.2036

>>2029

Well actually that's an important factor that makes dialectical materialism distinct from mechanical materialism. In dialectical materialism we recognize that people need to carry out the revolution, and it takes human action and decistion making to carry it out. At the same time though, humans are actually machine-like in the sense that their behavior is causally determined by the world around them and their own internal state. Seems paradoxical right? I think Engels wrote something about free will versus causality, but I can't find it at the moment.

Also, Marx actually said communism would be the beginning of history since mankind would finally be free to control it's own destiny instead of blind economic forces.

All that being said, I can, admittedly without having read much of Hegel's original works, say that Marxism is said to be an alteration of Hegelianism, so don't think that everything Hegel said is necessary correct; he was incorrect about a good many things.

>>2031

I wuld say that Engels' writings are part of the Marxist canon.