Western Marxism

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Western Marxism is a current of

Marxism-Leninism of the Soviet Union.[1]

Less concerned with

subjective aspects of Marxism, and incorporating non-Marxist approaches to investigating culture and historical development.[2] An important theme was the origins of Karl Marx's thought in the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel[a] and the recovery of what they called the "Young Marx
" (the more humanistic early works of Marx).

While some early Western Marxists were prominent political activists,[3] Western Marxism became predominantly the reserve of university-based philosophers.[4] Since the 1960s, the concept has been closely associated with the New Left. Many Western Marxists were adherents of Marxist humanism, but the term also encompasses figures and schools of thought that were strongly critical of Hegelianism and humanism.[5]

Etymology

In the 1920s, the

Soviet interpretation of Marxism and the earlier Marxism of the Second International.[9]

History

working-class practice that resulted from the defeat and stagnation of the Western working class after 1920.[11]

Western Marxism traces its origins to 1923, when György Lukács's

bourgeois predecessors. Nor is it a scientific sociology, akin to the natural sciences. For them, Marxism is primarily a critique – a self-conscious transformation of society. They stipulate that Marxism does not make philosophy obsolete, as "vulgar" Marxism believes; instead, Marxism preserves the truths of philosophy until their revolutionary transformation into reality.[12]

Their work was met with hostility by the Third International,[13] which saw Marxism as a universal science of history and nature.[12] Nonetheless, this style of Marxism was taken up by Germany's Frankfurt School in the 1930s.[1] The Prison Notebooks of the Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci, written during this period, but not published until much later, are also classified as belonging to Western Marxism.[14] Ernst Bloch is a contemporaneous figure who is likewise sometimes judged to be one of Western Marxism's founding fathers.[15]

After the

Les Temps Modernes and Socialisme ou Barbarie such as Lucien Goldmann, Henri Lefebvre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Jean-Paul Sartre.[1] This later generation of Western Marxists were overwhelmingly professional academics and frequently professors of philosophy.[16]

Themes

Although there have been many schools of Marxist thought that are sharply distinguished from

Antonie Pannekoek and Herman Gorter, theorists who downplay the primacy of economic analysis are considered Western Marxists. Where the base of the capitalist economy is the focus of earlier Marxists, Western Marxists concentrate on the problems of superstructures,[17] as their attention centres on culture, philosophy, and art.[1]

Western Marxism often emphasises the importance of the study of

subjectivity for an adequate Marxist understanding of society.[1] Western Marxists have thus tended to heavily use Marx's theories of commodity fetishism, ideology, and alienation,[18] and they have expanded on these with new concepts such as reification and cultural hegemony.[19]

Engagement with non-Marxist systems of thought is a feature that distinguishes Western Marxism from the schools of Marxism that preceded it.[20] Many Western Marxists have drawn from psychoanalysis to explain the effect of culture on individual consciousness.[21] Concepts taken from German Lebensphilosophie, Weberian sociology, Piagetian psychology, French philosophy of science, phenomenology, and existentialism have all been assimilated and critiqued by Western Marxists.[20]

The

dialectics as a universal and scientific law of nature, Western Marxists do not see Marxism as a general science, but as a theory of the cultural and historical structure of society.[12]

Many Western Marxists believe the philosophical key to Marxism is found in the works of the

humanist core of Marxist theory.[24] However, the structural Marxism of Louis Althusser, which attempts to purge Marxism of Hegelianism and humanism, also belongs to Western Marxism, as does the anti-Hegelianism of Galvano Della Volpe.[25] Althusser holds that Marx's primary philosophical antecedent is not Hegel or Feuerbach, but Baruch Spinoza.[26] Della Volpe claims that Jean-Jacques Rousseau is a decisive precursor to Marx, while Della Volpe's pupil Lucio Colletti holds that the true philosophical predecessor to Marx is Immanuel Kant.[27]

Political commitments

While Western Marxism is often contrasted with the Marxism of the

Communist Party of France, but all would later become disillusioned with it; Ernst Bloch lived in and supported the Eastern Bloc, but lost faith in Soviet Communism towards the end of his life. Nicos Poulantzas, a later Western Marxist, was an advocate for Eurocommunism.[29]

List of Western Marxists

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Hence, Western Marxism is sometimes referred to as "Hegelian Marxism"; Jay 1984, pp. 2–3

Bibliography

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b c d e f Jacoby 1991, p. 581.
  2. Britannica Online
    . Retrieved 28 March 2021. Western Marxists were concerned less with the actual political or economic practice of Marxism than with its philosophical interpretation, especially in relation to cultural and historical studies. In order to explain the inarguable success of capitalist society, they felt it necessary to explore and understand non-Marxist approaches and all aspects of bourgeois culture.
  3. ^ Anderson 1976, p. 30.
  4. ^ Jacoby 1981, p. 109; Anderson 1976, pp. 49–50.
  5. ^ Jay 1984, pp. 3–4.
  6. ^ Merquior 1986, p. 3.
  7. ^ Korsch 1970, pp. 119–120.
  8. ^ Jay 1984, p. 1; Merleau-Ponty 1973, pp. 30–59.
  9. ^ Jay 1984, p. 2.
  10. ^ Anderson 1976, pp. 15–17.
  11. ^ Anderson 1976, pp. 92–93; Anderson 1995.
  12. ^ a b c Jacoby 1991, p. 582.
  13. ^ Kołakowski 2005, pp. 994–995, 1034.
  14. ^ Jacoby 1991, p. 581; Anderson 1976, pp. 54.
  15. ^ Jay 1984, p. 3; Merquior 1986, p. 2.
  16. ^ Anderson 1976, pp. 49–50.
  17. ^ Anderson 1976, pp. 75.
  18. ^ Jacoby 1991, p. 581-582.
  19. ^ Jacoby 1991, p. 583; Gottlieb 1989.
  20. ^ a b Anderson 1976, pp. 56–57.
  21. ^ Jacoby 1991, p. 583.
  22. ^ Anderson 1976, pp. 52–53.
  23. ^ Anderson 1976, pp. 59–60.
  24. ^ Jacoby 1991, p. 582; Anderson 1976, pp. 50–52.
  25. ^ Jay 1984, p. 3.
  26. ^ Anderson 1976, pp. 64.
  27. ^ Anderson 1976, pp. 63.
  28. ^ Jay 1984, pp. 7–8.
  29. ^ Soper 1986, pp. 89.

References

Further reading

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