Jump to content

Talk:Marxism

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 84.208.86.134 (talk) at 02:37, 12 January 2022. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Template:Vital article

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Huenneke (article contribs).

Article is mainly about traditional marxism?

I get the feeling both the intro and many parts of the article treat "traditional marxism" as "marxism in general". I do not find any previous discussions about this in the archive, but if there is one please link. In short, what I propose is to edit the wording of the intro and other parts so that traditional marxism is not presented as "marxism" (which implies traditional marxism is the "true" marxism), and untraditional marxism is presented as some "deviation" from "true marxism". Sigvid (talk) 12:16, 14 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sigvid: The article is about Marxism in general. While it can be improved, it mentions and has links to Classical Marxism, Orthodox Marxism, Leninism, Trotskyism, etc. What would you want to change, and what sources would you use to support such change? --MarioGom (talk) 16:15, 16 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
MarioGom Yes, I am aware - and I do recognize the difficulty in writing about "marxism in general" considering it's many "branches". I am mostly interested in post-marxism, and from what I have read (a book by Richard D. Wolff and Stephen Resnick, an article in Rethinking Marxism also by Wolff and Resnick, and ~10-20% of Post-Marxism: An Intellectual History by Stuart Sim) post-marxists question many of the tenents of "traditional marxism". For example, the marxism that Wolff and Resnick defends (in their book Contending economic theories: Neoclassical, Keynesian and Marxian; should be noted, however, that they do not call their form of marxism "post-marxism"), is overdeterminist (but with no "last instance determinism" like with Althusser) and as such they deny historical materialism and the mode of production as the only determinant of everything else in society. Also, their definition of socialism/communism doesn't imply planned economy - rather so do they see "communism" as a type of fundamental class process that is not achieved by the state/bureaucrats replacing the state (and as far as I understand them their form of "communism" is compatible with a "free market"). I have yet to delve deeper into other post-marxists, but from what I've gathered from Stuart Sims book, it's a very diverse group of theorists. What I propose is to reword / reorganize the article so that traditional marxism isn't presented as "the" marxism. For example, the segment "Overview" describes a traditional marxist view on marxism. Historical materialism is it's own segment - I'd suggest this be a subsegment to "traditional marxism", or at least re-worded so that it does not imply that all forms of marxism defends historical materialism. The "criticism" segment also seems to mainly deal with traditional marxism, and as such should either be a subsegment to "traditional marxism" or reworded. Sigvid (talk) 20:25, 16 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sigvid: I would suggest improving the Post-Marxism article and then adding a summary section of it to Marxism. --MarioGom (talk) 17:55, 17 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
MarioGom I'm on it (it's going to take some time), but I still think parts of this article need to be reworded. Classical marxism is still not the only type of marxism, and since this is a article about the broad term "marxism", neither classical marxism nor any other type of marxism should be given interpretative prerogative. Sigvid (talk) 12:52, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Can you point to an example of a part of the article that favors the interpretive framework of Classical Marxism that you are talking about needing attention? Also, to the extent that there is a majority consensus among self described marxists, is it possible to avoid representing that consensus in a general argument in a way that will not be able to, and probably should attempt, to give equal time and weight to every minority viewpoint?

Elborgnine (talk) 22:51, 3 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Fails to Mention

The page fails to mention the origins of anti-capitalist theorists. Starting with Rousseau but especially Adam Fergusons "Essay on the History of Civil Society". This book was among if not Hegels biggest inspirations and Hegel of course inspired Marx and Engels. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.97.104.30 (talk) 22:46, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This page fails to mention Marxism's relationship to mass killings and terrorism. How is that possible?Glewis104 (talk) 21:47, 26 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Glewis104: What relationship? You might be confusing Marxism with something else. BeŻet (talk) 12:09, 27 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Post-Marxism in the lead section

“It has been argued that there is a movement toward the recognition of historical and dialectical materialism as the fundamental conceptions of all Marxist schools of thought. This view is rejected by some post-Marxists such as Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, who claim that history is not only determined by the mode of production, but also by consciousness and will.“ This sounds awfully much like the stuff Bernstein wrote in “Evolutionary Socialism” and Trotsky wrote every time when touching on Historical Materialism. As such I can’t believe that is the distinguishing factor Post-Marxism, as that would still be inside the bounds of Historical Materialism. NatriumGedrogt (talk) 22:38, 2 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I just came to this talk page to criticize that sentence. It implies Marx didn't think consciousness and will also act upon society. But that's the whole point of the third Theses on Feuerbach. People also consciously change society. That absolutely should be made clear in the lead. --108.169.173.242 (talk) 15:24, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the above. --2600:1700:94C0:8460:14FE:BBB2:95A5:F35 (talk) 21:21, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Further reading

This article contains a "Further reading" section. I would recommend that this be removed. There are thousands of books published on the topic of Marxism; the "Further reading" section can only serve to become a place for individual authors to promote their own works, or for other editors to add their own favorite work, with little evidence that the suggested works are significant works in the field. WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 14:10, 8 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't like those sections in general, because there doesn't seem to be a way to establish a "correct" list. I'd also be for removing it. BeŻet (talk) 20:53, 8 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think a "where to go next" section might be useful for the interested reader. How about referring them to e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist_schools_of_thought and/or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist_philosophy? If you can't find a marxism author of your favourite flavour there, you're not really trying. There is of course also the extensive library section found at https://www.marxists.org/archive/index.htm , but that is perhaps too much of an endorsement to be uncontroversial? T 84.208.86.134 (talk) 02:36, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Marxism&oldid=1065149431"