Marxism – philosophy or hoax? — Apollodorus

Hi. Marx and Engels were philosophers. I recommend making no more of the word 'Marxism' than of 'Platonism.'

Let's check if they sound philosophical.

The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux of their material behaviour. The same applies to mental production as expressed in the language of politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics, etc., of a people. Men are the producers of their conceptions, ideas, etc. – real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life-process. If in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside-down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life-process as the inversion of objects on the retina does from their physical life-process.

In direct contrast to German philosophy which descends from heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven. That is to say, we do not set out from what men say, imagine, conceive, nor from men as narrated, thought of, imagined, conceived, in order to arrive at men in the flesh. We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life-process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-process. The phantoms formed in the human brain are also, necessarily, sublimates of their material life-process, which is empirically verifiable and bound to material premises. Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain the semblance of independence. They have no history, no development; but men, developing their material production and their material intercourse, alter, along with this their real existence, their thinking and the products of their thinking. Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. In the first method of approach the starting-point is consciousness taken as the living individual; in the second method, which conforms to real life, it is the real living individuals themselves, and consciousness is considered solely as their consciousness.

This method of approach is not devoid of premises. It starts out from the real premises and does not abandon them for a moment. Its premises are men, not in any fantastic isolation and rigidity, but in their actual, empirically perceptible process of development under definite conditions. As soon as this active life-process is described, history ceases to be a collection of dead facts as it is with the empiricists (themselves still abstract), or an imagined activity of imagined subjects, as with the idealists.

Where speculation ends – in real life – there real, positive science begins: the representation of the practical activity, of the practical process of development of men. Empty talk about consciousness ceases, and real knowledge has to take its place. When reality is depicted, philosophy as an independent branch of knowledge loses its medium of existence. — GI

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm

"Marx and Engels were philosophers"

Yes, but that's the Marxist view of the issue. I was looking for a more non-partisan perspective. IMO that's the only way to develop an objective critique of Marxism.

n short, could it be that Marxism is not a philosophy but an elaborate hoax designed to help Marx acquire influence and power, a hoax that perhaps started as a prank and later developed into something more serious? — Apollodorus

You might want to read a bio of Marx. I think you'd find this theory highly implausible afterward.

Here's some nice work from Engels, which gives us an idea of how M & E understood Hegel.

Now, according to Hegel, reality is, however, in no way an attribute predictable of any given state of affairs, social or political, in all circumstances and at all times. On the contrary. The Roman Republic was real, but so was the Roman Empire, which superseded it. In 1789, the French monarchy had become so unreal, that is to say, so robbed of all necessity, so irrational, that it had to be destroyed by the Great Revolution, of which Hegel always speaks with the greatest enthusiasm. In this case, therefore, the monarchy was the unreal and the revolution the real. And so, in the course of development, all that was previously real becomes unreal, loses it necessity, its right of existence, its rationality. And in the place of moribund reality comes a new, viable reality — peacefully if the old has enough intelligence to go to its death without a struggle; forcibly if it resists this necessity. Thus the Hegelian proposition turns into its opposite through Hegelian dialectics itself: All that is real in the sphere of human history, becomes irrational in the process of time, is therefore irrational by its very destination, is tainted beforehand with irrationality, and everything which is rational in the minds of men is destined to become real, however much it may contradict existing apparent reality. In accordance with all the rules of the Hegelian method of thought, the proposition of the rationality of everything which is real resolves itself into the other proposition: All that exists deserves to perish.

But precisely therein lay the true significance and the revolutionary character of the Hegelian philosophy (to which, as the close of the whole movement since Kant, we must here confine ourselves), that it once and for all dealt the death blow to the finality of all product of human thought and action. Truth, the cognition of which is the business of philosophy, was in the hands of Hegel no longer an aggregate of finished dogmatic statements, which, once discovered, had merely to be learned by heart. Truth lay now in the process of cognition itself, in the long historical development of science, which mounts from lower to ever higher levels of knowledge without ever reaching, by discovering so-called absolute truth, a point at which it can proceed no further, where it would have nothing more to do than to fold its hands and gaze with wonder at the absolute truth to which it had attained. And what holds good for the realm of philosophical knowledge holds good also for that of every other kind of knowledge and also for practical action. Just as knowledge is unable to reach a complete conclusion in a perfect, ideal condition of humanity, so is history unable to do so; a perfect society, a perfect “state”, are things which can only exist in imagination. On the contrary, all successive historical systems are only transitory stages in the endless course of development of human society from the lower to the higher. Each stage is necessary, and therefore justified for the time and conditions to which it owes its origin. But in the face of new, higher conditions which gradually develop in its own womb, it loses vitality and justification. It must give way to a higher stage which will also in its turn decay and perish. Just as the bourgeoisie by large-scale industry, competition, and the world market dissolves in practice all stable time-honored institutions, so this dialectical philosophy dissolves all conceptions of final, absolute truth and of absolute states of humanity corresponding to it. For it [dialectical philosophy], nothing is final, absolute, sacred. It reveals the transitory character of everything and in everything; nothing can endure before it except the uninterrupted process of becoming and of passing away, of endless ascendancy from the lower to the higher. And dialectical philosophy itself is nothing more than the mere reflection of this process in the thinking brain. It has, of course, also a conservative side; it recognizes that definite stages of knowledge and society are justified for their time and circumstances; but only so far. The conservatism of this mode of outlook is relative; its revolutionary character is absolute — the only absolute dialectical philosophy admits.

— E

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1886/ludwig-feuerbach/ch01.htm

Yes, but that's the Marxist view of the issue. I was looking for a more non-partisan perspective. IMO that's the only way to develop an objective critique of Marxism. — Apollodorus

I'm not a partisan, or only inasmuch as I think Marx is worth reading, just like Plato.

I don't think reading pro-Marx literature can solve the problem. On the contrary, critical works must be considered. Engels was the head of the pro-Marx propaganda campaign started during Marx's lifetime and carried on after his death. He is definitely not a reliable source. It's just like Communist Party propaganda in communist states.

Strange. I'm quoting Marx and Engels, the actual texts. Is that pro-Marx literature? Is The Symposium pro-Plato literature?

Therefore, like Plato and others, I believe that politicians should be replaced with philosophers. — Apollodorus

It seems to me that you are basically suggesting doing exactly what you are accusing Marx & Engels of doing.

You might like this one.

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch. For instance, in an age and in a country where royal power, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie are contending for mastery and where, therefore, mastery is shared, the doctrine of the separation of powers proves to be the dominant idea and is expressed as an “eternal law.”

The division of labour, which we already saw above as one of the chief forces of history up till now, manifests itself also in the ruling class as the division of mental and material labour, so that inside this class one part appears as the thinkers of the class (its active, conceptive ideologists, who make the perfecting of the illusion of the class about itself their chief source of livelihood), while the others’ attitude to these ideas and illusions is more passive and receptive, because they are in reality the active members of this class and have less time to make up illusions and ideas about themselves. Within this class this cleavage can even develop into a certain opposition and hostility between the two parts, which, however, in the case of a practical collision, in which the class itself is endangered, automatically comes to nothing, in which case there also vanishes the semblance that the ruling ideas were not the ideas of the ruling class and had a power distinct from the power of this class. — GI

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01b.htm

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A right-wing internet random who obviously hasn't read Marx, doesn't understand his intellectual capacity, influence, method or anything about his life, presents a thesis that's it's all a hoax based on the fact that he thinks Marx was mischievous.

Advice: read "Capital", realize how clownish and unthought-out your idea is and then come back and write an at least half-serious critique.

I am not sure who I find more boring Marx or Hegel. I have never been able to get though either. But both are significant figures in philosophy.

Here's a tip.

What you are arguing is a largely ad hominem and amounts to simple smearing. You need to examine his arguments and criticise them. Not him. Saying he was a self-aggrandizing douche-canoe, or that few at the time liked his books is irrelevant and as far as criticism goes, a rookie mistake or poor form.

There are famous artists/writers/thinkers who were disliked or didn't sell their works, but were later considered great - Van Gogh, for instance. Wagner was a piece of shit, but many consider his music to be inspired. Me included. Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy was largely ignored during his lifetime but he became a great figure in world philosophy, etc, etc...

Well, I thought essays by serious historians like Adamiack's "The Withering Away of the State" and Bender's "The Ambiguities of Marx's concepts" were serious critique?

Or are we not allowed any criticism of Marx and Marxism?

The descriptions of Marx are from serious historians like Isaiah Berlin and others. The authors don't necessarily agree with them on all points, but they do mention them as part of a balanced presentation of historical fact. This cannot in any way be construed as ad hominem. Statements regarding a person's character are admissible in a court of law.

Anyway, that was not even my main argument. My main argument is that Marxism does not sound like a philosophy. Even Wikipedia doesn't call it "philosophy".

I think it would have been much better had you focused on a particular concept to examine and avoided obvious polemical intent. You could have either talked about philosopher kings or some element in Marx's philosophy. Mixing both just looks like crude right-wing propaganda. (You don't want to sound like Tucker Talk.)

You know, judging by reports from his lectures, Kant was quite a cheeky chappy with all sorts of wild ideas, therefore I propose that the Critique of Pure Reason was a hoax. Now, of course, I don't know anything about Kant or his ideas because I haven't read him but I know I don't like his type much, so you should probably take me and my idea seriously and spend time debating this.

Oh, and here's some links to two articles critiquing Kant to make this seem substantive.

Even Wikipedia doesn't call it "philosophy". — Apollodorus

Karl Heinrich Marx (German: [maʁks]; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883[13]) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist and socialist revolutionary. — Wiki

As already stated, the Wikipedia article doesn't call Marxism "philosophy" which suggests that it isn't a philosophy in the strict sense of the word.

And I VERY CLEARLY referred to particular Marxist concepts.

SEE the links provided to Adamiack's "The Withering Away of the State" and Bender's "The Ambiguities of Marx's concepts".

Marx may have been a philosophical thinker but that doesn't make Marxism a philosophy. These are two totally different issues.

It sounds like you're upset because I dared criticize Marxism. But you failed to address my points on Marxian concepts like "withering away of the state" which I find rather strange from someone who is so knowledgeable about Marx's teachings.

It sounds like you're upset because I dared criticize Marxism. — Apollodorus

It's unfortunate that you misunderstand the situation this way. I'm not especially invested in Marx. He's one of many thinkers who brought philosophy down to earth. I am personally far more attached to Feuerbach, who created a strange brew of mysticism and materialism in his first book, Thoughts on Death and Immortality and wrote the classic Essence of Christianity afterward. I'm interested in how Hegel (who is fascinating but problematic) was brought down to earth (this process continues, consider The Spirit of Trust.)

But you failed to address my points on Marxian concepts like "withering away of the state" which I find rather strange from someone who is so knowledgeable about Marx's teachings. — Apollodorus

I don't claim to be especially knowledgeable. I've just read a few hundred pages and found lots of good stuff in them. For instance, The German Ideology can be hilarious. What I think about most in Marx is the attention paid to the economic aspect of life and its relation to 'ideal' realms like religion and philosophy.

Well, you're accusing me of not referring to particular Marxist concepts when I obviously did and do refer to them.

When you're stressing Marx's attention to economics and its relation to philosophy you probably mean economics as a prop to a philosophy that wouldn't otherwise stand on its own feet.

And you still haven't addressed Marxist concepts like "withering away of the state" presumably because you know that they don't stand up to scrutiny.

We know that Marx as a student was rebellious and mischievous and that contemporary descriptions portray him as “intolerant”, “autocratic”, “malicious”, “domineering” and “power-obsessed”.

In short, could it be that Marxism is not a philosophy but an elaborate hoax designed to help Marx acquire influence and power, a hoax that perhaps started as a prank and later developed into something more serious? — Apollodorus

Another example of why political psychology is bad.

Another example of why political psychology is bad. — Maw

That was just a suggestion and it wasn't even mine. It isn't my fault that people don't read critiques of Marx or his theories by reputable historians and other scholars.

The main question to be answered in the first place is whether Marxism is a philosophy. The evidence suggests that it isn't in which case we need to establish what exactly it is - or what it was at the time of Marx and what he really believed was its purpose.

What you're reacting to seems more like armchair guessing of people's motives (yeah that is B.S.) than the field called political psychology. My friend got his PHD in political psychology and he does economic analysis detailing how corporate media affects public opinion, drawing on empirically based social psychology and political economy of media. I think it's very useful research.

I saw that other thread. I personally don't put much energy concerning how liberals abuse folk psychology. I'm more interested in understanding all the small components of how the world works.

That was just a suggestion and it wasn't even mine. It isn't my fault that people don't read critiques of Marx or his theories by reputable historians and other scholars. — Apollodorus

For clarities sake you need to do a better job distinguishing what is your suggestion or position, and when you are citing someone else's opinion (and maybe source it), since this has happened several times with you. I've read critiques of Marxism along with a notable biography of Marx and while some of those personal traits listed are more or less true of Marx the idea that Marxism was constructed by Marx for personal gain and power is inexcusably idiotic. I'm quite curious what braindead oaf actually posed this.

Regarding what Marxism is; the attempt to pin it to a specific disciplinary such as philosophy, economics, is pretty pointless, uninteresting, and yet this question continues to pop up on this forum, perhaps unsurprisingly by people who have read much of Marx, if at all.

To my mind, Marx formulated a methodology, viz. Historical Materialism (which you can read more about in the chapter on Feuerbach in The German Ideology), and Marxism is Historical Materialism through the lens of Marx, or in other words, an interpretation of Historical Materialism through Marx via his writing, where one can glean specific areas of philosophic and socio-economic interest, moral positions, and how some of these interests and positions etc. changed and developed over his life time.

What you're reacting to seems more like armchair guessing of people's motives (yeah that is B.S.)

I saw that other thread. I personally don't put much energy concerning how liberals abuse folk psychology — Saphsin

Yeah, to be clear, I'm referring specifically to trait-based, psychological, innate, yadda yadda yadda, means through which to interpret, predict, understand, etc. politics, individually speaking or by cultural phenomenon. Perhaps I need to find a fairly universal term to avoid misunderstanding. As much as I agree that such work ultimately amounts to "armchair guessing", unfortunately it's a considered as legitimate as conservative economics by the public, with plenty of book deals, lucrative grants and speaking opportunities to Harvard graduates.

For clarities sake you need to do a better job distinguishing what is your suggestion or position, and when you are citing someone else's opinion (and maybe source it), — Maw

Well, critics of Marx don't always phrase it that way. I only did it to clarify my own position. But historians do point out for example that Marx used the organizations he joined for his own agendas. See the works on Karl Marx by Isaiah Berlin, Francis Wheen, and others.

And you can see from his private letters (available online) that he was using people for financial purposes.

Marx may have formulated a methodology but it doesn't amount to philosophy. Even pro-Marxist sources like Wikipedia don't call Marxism "philosophy". The Wikipedia article says Marxism "is a method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development".

If it isn't a philosophy, then what is it and what was its true purpose?

Philosopher and historian of ideas Leszek Kołakowski has pointed out that "Marx's theory is incomplete or ambiguous" in many places, with some statements being "philosophical dogmas that cannot be proved by scientific means" and others just "nonsense".

The same or similar arguments are made by Adamiack, Bender, R G Wesson, David W Lovell, Walicki and many others. It isn't "me". I was just trying to collate as many points of what looks to me as valid critique and condense them into a few brief observations.

If it turns out I'm wrong, so be it. I don't care. But we haven't got there yet.

Well every scholarly field related to politics that I know that uses a rigorous interdisciplinary approach integrates the field of psychology (social sciences are really about human beings interacting with institutions and the environment), so I have no idea what this is all about unless the word psychology has a radically different usage than I'm aware of. Criticizing the downplaying of larger structural causal explanations for certain issues is a different matter than dismissing psychology. It's trading one absurdity for another by buying into the Right-Wing assumptions you're arguing against. Kind of like how some liberals responded to the Right's assertion they "support small government" that "no, big government is good". It isn't necessary.

I've spent the last two days talking about subdiscipline that I think is bullshit anyway and can't say that I care to explicate further than beyond what I've written in the other thread, so I'll just leave this article here and call it a night.

Well I get your impression, but there's garbage all across these fields. Like with economics, you have a handful of scholars who shift through the pile and present what we need to know. We haven't done so from the Left in this area. At least that's what I think from my digging.

As I said before, I'm not a professional writer or debater. If anyone has any suggestions how the OP could be rephrased to make it more intelligible and perhaps less "controversial" I'd be more than happy to consider it.

Meantime, here are some sources if you're interested.

Marx lived for many years on money borrowed from others – I. Berlin, Karl Marx; S. Avineri, Karl Marx: Philosophy and Revolution

As shown by his private correspondence, Marx used even his middle-class associates (Freiligrath, Lassalle, Kugelmann, Engels and others) for financial as well as political ends. - Marx, K., Letter to Engels, 10 Dec. 1859, MECW, vol. 40, p. 547

By their own admission, Marx and Engels found value in the workers’ organisations they joined only to the extent that they could control and use them for their own purposes. - Berlin p 247

Marx chose philosophy as the instrument through which to change the world according to his own ideas, declaring that the purpose of philosophy was to change the world – Marx, Theses on Feuerbach

Marx was involved in funding arms for an uprising in Belgium – Jenny Marx in Jenny Marx oder die Suche nach dem Aufrechten Gang, p 57-8; F. Wheen, Karl Marx, p. 126-7

Marx advocated a coup to overthrow the government in Germany and seize power - Kolakowski p. 437; E. Bernstein, The Preconditions of Socialism, p. 152; Marx, Address to the Central Committee of the Communist League, May 1850

During their time as journalists, Marx and Engels learned how to use veiled, ambiguous and suggestive or misleading language to evade the political press censorship of the German state.

They used the same type of language to increase the appeal of their policies among existing or prospective followers - Adamiack

Marx and Engels used concepts and theories that were ambiguous, inconsistent or just nonsense – L. Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism

Marx was described along the lines of “liar and intriguer” by Karl Heinzen, Bakunin and others - Berlin

According to witnesses like Gustav Techow, chief of the general staff of the Palatinate Revolutionary Army whom Marx wanted to win over to his socialist movement, Marx’s intention was to drive the aristocracy from government and seize power for himself with the help of radicalized elements of the working class – Wheen p. 240

My summary of the above (and other data): You can't possibly spend years developing a political philosophy only to leave open all the central concepts related to its aim and purpose. Marx and Engels' "political philosophy" or ideology is logically inconsistent and ambiguous because it is meant to appeal to imagination and emotion without revealing the true intentions of its authors.

If anyone has any suggestions how the OP could be rephrased to make it more intelligible and perhaps less "controversial" I'd be more than happy to consider it. — Apollodorus

Just read Marx