Sorry if this is a stupid question but fortunately I’m uneducated.
You have “Marxist economists” like Richard Wolff and Michael Hudson, and you have “non-Marxist leftists” like Noam Chomsky and Carl Oglesby. What do Marxist and non-Marxist mean in this context? Is it like, Marxists think that everything Marx thought was correct and non-Marxists think everything he thought was wrong? Or is it like a >50% thing, if you think Marx was right more than half the time you’re a Marxist and if not then you’re a non-Marxist?
This is probably the wrong community to ask but how is it possible to be a non-Marxist (assuming that means you think Marx was wrong about everything) when fictitious capital and a reserve army of labor are staring you in the face?
Generally, a Marxist is one that places Marxist analysis above all other economic interpretations and schools of thought. Marx was wrong about a few things, but in the grand scheme of things is overwhelmingly correct. The Marxists that think Marx was 100% correct are actually extremely few in number, because things like the way imperialism evolved came after Marx could even observe them, and his work was unfinished. He’s closer to 99% correct.
Plus, he got some math wrong sometimes like in volume 2 of Capital, and Engels had to correct him on it. Marx never finalized it though so he gets a pass on that IMO, and it was very uncommon for him to get arithmetic wrong.
Chomsky and the like explicilty reject Marx. They disagree with the law of value, dialectical and historical materialism, etc. Even if they agree with ideas like surplus value extraction, rejecting the law of value, dialectical and historical materialism, etc. is what makes them non-Marxist.
Did Chomsky not even know dialectics?
It me. It sounds like “theres are 2 opposing systems that fundamentally dont work together. Eventually this conflict gets resolved with something that makes sense of them both.” Is this way off, or in the ballpark?
Ballpark, I’d say! There’s a lot more to it than that, though, such as the interdependence of these opposing forces (capitalists and workers oppose each other but depend on them too) and if you’re down for a read I recommend Elementary Principles of Philosophy by Georges Politzer.
Cool, thanks
No problem!
Thanks, interesting site. I found something on there relating to my question, from “Why Marxism?”:
The ideological struggle for a correct political strategy is fierce, even among those who already have identified capitalism as the enemy. Reigning perspectives in the West could be broadly described by three categories: the Reformists (e.g. social democrats, legalists), the Anarchists (e.g. mutualists, syndicalists), and the Marxists (whoever “extends the recognition of class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat”). [1]
Emphasis mine. Seems like there are different definitions of what it means to be Marxist.
Well, that’s the Marxist stance when finding political power
Chomsky is a liberal
Yep, not a fan of Chomsky at all. Take a look at On Chomsky if you have half an hour to burn and want to hate the guy, haha.
Edit: Didn’t see you linked it! Now I look a bit foolish, haha.
Didn’t burn a whole hour but I do now have a burning dislike to replace the admiration I had previously
NYT and USA are both “the best in the world”? 🤮🤮
Yep, there’s also litanies against Anthony Bourdain and George Orwell if you want to gain even more hatred, haha.
Chomsky is to the left what Taco Bell is to Mexican food.
But I have a soft spot for Taco Bell… One of the easiest brands to veganize in a pinch, and I had it a lot growing up, haha. I do see your point though, good Mexican food blows it out of the water and it isn’t close.
Ok, cleared up again by Cowbee. That’s exactly what I was asking, thanks comrade o7. Btw did you see you made the front page of MeanwhileOnGrad? Someone didn’t know what propaganda is and somehow blamed that on… tankies? Idk it was pretty embarassing tbh lol.
Edit: Here it is
No problem!
Oh yea, I have some dedicated haters that put an almost supernatural reverance/fear of me. I’ve been on MWoG many times, I don’t really take anything that Nazi bar says seriously just like I don’t take flat Earthers or MAGA seriously. It is funny when even that Nazi bar pushes back against OP though, haha.
My favorite self-report from that thread:
OP , I tapped this several times trying to downvote the .ml commenter I have labled for being a tankie… only to realize each time that: nope, it was still a screenshot. I am not a smart man.
OP , I tapped this several times trying to downvote the .ml commenter I have labled for being a tankie… only to realize each time that: nope, it was still a screenshot. I am not a smart man.
These people are the type to drown in a few inches of water at the penguin exhibit lmfao
Yea, there have been some zingers from that lot in the past, and I expect many more to come.
XD
Hey how do you get those pictures and stuff in your replies?
Hexbear emotes! On the web version of Hexbear there’s a whole slew of emojis
I really don’t know how you do it, you’re stronger than me, I couldn’t handle that level of liberal smug ignorance. I hate how every non lemmygrad/hexbear place on the fedverse is just pure reddit smuggness, no idea why they ever left.
I really don’t take any of them seriously, just like I don’t take flat Earthers or MAGA seriously. The ones that change over time more than make up for it, as well as the ones that already were fairly pro-communism but wanting direction. That’s about it, really!
a marxist drives a car like this
Are you… are you doing something with your hands??
XD
Non-Marxist =/= Anti-Marxist. An anti-Marxist specifically believes Marx was wrong, a non-Marxist simply doesn’t follow the Marxist framework. Additionally, you can be a Marxist and think that more than half of Marx’s conclusions are wrong, what matters is the framework you’re using (historical materialism/scientific socialism). You can also agree with most of Marx’s conclusions and not be a Marxist, because you arrived at those conclusions by a different framework or just arbitrarily chose them (this is a simplistic characterization of incoherent ideology, but it’s good enough).
If you are curious about the prevalence of anti-Marxism, consider the fact that most people in a place like America have literally never heard the phrases “fictitious capital” or “reserve army of labor,” or perhaps they heard it in passing once but don’t remember hearing it.
Regarding Chomsky, it doesn’t answer your question directly, but there was an excellent series of essays called “Noam Chomsky and the Compatible Left” that used to be easily accessible online but appears to have been taken down. Perhaps an archival site has it. Here’s an archive of the first part: https://web.archive.org/web/20191115222100/https://lorenzoae.wordpress.com/2019/03/04/noam-chomsky-and-the-compatible-left-part-i/
It looks like it was only online for a brief period of time, so I guess I’m lucky that I happened to download it. I wish I had the same foresight with “In Search of a Soviet Holocaust” but, in fairness, that article was much older at the time and hosted on a reputable website.
Thanks for your answer.
most people in a place like America have literally never heard the phrases “fictitious capital” or “reserve army of labor,” or perhaps they heard it in passing once but don’t remember hearing it.
Yes, this is a great success of class warfare :/
wolff and hudson focus on economics, chomsky is a linguist and oglesby was mostly an anti-war libertarian, if i recall. both of them rejected the labor theory of value and were never particularly interested in economic analysis to begin with.
Functionally, a Marxist is anyone who has at least a partial understanding of the real material workings of capitalism, while a non-Marxist is usually someone who is mystified by the nature of capitalism and follows one of many false abstractions that justify the continued existence of capitalism, regardless of evidence
It’s not a matter of whether one opinion Marx held was right or another was wrong, Marx was simply the first to glimpse the beast in its near entirety and as a result the field bears his name
