Analytical Marxism
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Analytical Marxism is an academic school of
The school is associated with the "September Group", which included Jon Elster, John Roemer, Adam Przeworski and Erik Olin Wright. Its theorists emphasize methodology and utilize analytical philosophy, rational choice theory, and methodological individualism (the doctrine that all social phenomena can only be explained in terms of the actions and beliefs of individual subjects). Many other Marxists and scholars of Marxism have criticized analytical Marxism as representing a major departure from Marx's approach.
Origin
Cohen's book,
Theory
Historical materialism
For Cohen, Marx's historical materialism is a
The transition from one mode of production to another is driven by the tendency of the productive forces to develop. Cohen's accounts for this tendency by reference to the rational character of the human species: where there is the opportunity to adopt a more productive technology and thus reduce the burden of labour, human beings will tend to take it.
Exploitation
At the same time as Cohen was working on Karl Marx's Theory of History, the American economist
Rational choice Marxism
By the mid-1980s, "analytical Marxism" was being recognized as a "paradigm".[3][page needed] The September Group had been meeting for several years, and a succession of texts by its members were published. Several of these appeared under the imprint of Cambridge University Press's series Studies in Marxism and Social Theory, including Jon Elster's Making Sense of Marx (1985) and Adam Przeworski's Capitalism and Social Democracy (1985). Among the most methodologically controversial were these two authors, and Roemer, due to their use of rational-actor models. Not all analytical Marxists are rational-choice Marxists, however.[4][page needed]
Elster's account was an exhaustive examination of Marx's texts in order to ascertain what could be salvaged out of Marxism employing the tools of rational choice theory and
Justice
The analytical (and rational choice) Marxists held a variety of leftist political sympathies, ranging from
The analytical Marxists, however, largely rejected this point of view. Led by G. A. Cohen (a moral philosopher by training), they argued that a Marxist theory of justice had to focus on egalitarianism. For Cohen, this meant an engagement with moral and political philosophy in order to demonstrate the injustice of market exchange, and the construction of an appropriate egalitarian metric. This argument is pursued in Cohen's books, Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality (1995) and If You're an Egalitarian How Come You're So Rich? (2000b).
Cohen departs from previous Marxists by arguing that capitalism is a system characterized by unjust exploitation not because the labour of workers is "stolen" by employers, but because it is a system wherein "autonomy" is infringed, and which results in a distribution of benefits and burdens that is unfair. In the traditional Marxist account, exploitation and injustice occur because non-workers appropriate the value produced by the labour of workers. This would be overcome in a
Cohen argues that the concept of self-ownership is favourable to Rawls's difference principle as it ensures "each person's rights over his being and powers"
Criticism
Analytical Marxism received criticism from different quarters, Marxist and non-Marxist.
Method
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Some critics argued that analytical Marxism proceeded from the wrong methodological and
Critics also raised methodological objections. Against Elster and the rational choice Marxists, Terrell Carver[7][page needed] argued that methodological individualism was not the only form of valid explanation in the social sciences, that functionalism in the absence of micro-foundations could remain a convincing and fruitful mode of inquiry, and that rational choice and game theory were far from being universally accepted as sound or useful ways of modelling social institutions and processes.
History
Cohen's defence of a technological determinist interpretation of historical materialism was, in turn, quite widely criticized, even by analytical Marxists. Together with Andrew Levine, Wright argued that in attributing primacy to the productive forces (the development thesis), Cohen overlooked the role played by class actors in the transition between modes of production. For the authors, it was forms of class relations (the relations of production) that had primacy in terms of how the productive forces were employed and the extent to which they developed. It was not evident, they claimed, that the relations of production become "fetters" once the productive forces are capable of sustaining a different set of production relations.[8][page needed] Likewise, the political philosopher Richard W. Miller, while sympathetic with Cohen's analytical approach to Marxism, rejected Cohen's technological interpretation of historical materialism, to which he counterpoised with what he called a "mode of production" interpretation which placed greater emphasis on the role of class struggle in the transition from one mode of production to another.[9][page needed] The Greek philosopher Nicholas Vrousalis generalized Miller's critique, pointing out that Cohen's distinction between the material and social properties of society cannot be drawn as sharply as Cohen's materialism requires.[10][page needed]
Non-Marxist critics argued that Cohen, in line with the Marxist tradition, underestimated the role played by the legal and political superstructure in shaping the character of the economic base.[11][page needed] Finally, Cohen's anthropology was judged dubious: whether human beings adopt new and more productive technology is not a function of an ahistorical rationality, but depends on the extent to which these forms of technology are compatible with pre-existing beliefs and social practices. Cohen recognized and accepted some, though not all, of these criticisms in his History, Labour, and Freedom (1988).
Roemer's version of the cause of change in the mode of production as due to being inequitable rather than inefficient is also the source of criticism. One such criticism is that his argument relies on the legal ownership of production which is only present in later forms of class society rather than the social relations of production.
Justice and power
Some Marxists argue, against analytical Marxist theories of justice, that it is mistaken to suppose that Marxism offers a theory of justice;[5][page needed] others question analytical Marxists' identification of justice with rights.[12][page needed] The question of justice cannot be seen in isolation from questions of power, or from the balance of class forces in any specific conjuncture. Non-Marxists may employ a similar criticism in their critique of liberal theories of justice in the Rawlsian tradition. They argue that the theories fail to address problems about the configuration of power relations in the contemporary world, and by so doing appear as little more than exercises in logic. "Justice", on this view, is whatever is produced by the assumptions of the theory. It has little to do with the actual distribution of power and resources in the world.[13]
See also
- Criticisms of Marxism
- Neo-Marxism
- Critique of political economy
References
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- ^ ISBN 978-0-5214-7174-9.
- ISBN 978-0-271-01463-0.
- ^ Levine, Andrew; Wright, Erik Olin (September 1980). "Rationality and Class Struggle". New Left Review. 1 (123). Archived from the original on 9 May 2021.
- ISBN 978-0-691-01413-5.
- ISBN 978-1-4725-2828-5.
- ISBN 978-0-8133-0651-3.
- S2CID 224483854.
- ISBN 978-1-8598-4116-7.