NEO-MARXIAN THEORY.   Term Paper ID:26707 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Analyzes revisions to & innovations in Marxism related to economic determinism, capitalistic development, individual freedom, monopolies, over-accumulation.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Analyzes revisions to & innovations in Marxism related to economic determinism, capitalistic development, individual freedom, monopolies, over-accumulation. Paper Introduction: Neo-Marxian theory differs with traditional Marxian theory primarily in its rejection of both economic determinism and the view that individuals play no role in shaping society. In fact, however, as Ritzer writes, Marx himself was not an economic determinist, although he certainly emphasized economics as the primary force at work in society: Marx often sounded like an economic determinist; that is, he seemed to consider the economic system of paramount importance and to argue that it determined all other sectors of society--politics, religion, idea systems, and so forth. Although Marx did see the economic sector as preeminent, at least in capitalist society, as a dialectician he could not have taken a deterministic position, because the dialectic is characterized by the notion that there is continual Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Reification involves an extension of the fetishism ofcommodities, so that the latter Marxist concept (in which what peopleproduce takes on a life of its own and becomes more valuable than thepeople themselves) is applied . . . . . . as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces. Alienation is a necessary element of the awakening processof the class of workers: The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority. 25-51.Woods, Alan, and Ted Grant. . . People havenot made choices which brought about capitalism: Marx argued that theanalysis of society must start from "the structure of social relations, notfrom individual choices or motivations."[ii] Marx believed that each stage of evolution was marked by a mode ofproduction and a division between the powerful class and the class withless or no power. . New York: Penguin, 1983.Ritzer, George. Paul M. Neo-Marxian theory differs with traditional Marxian theory primarilyin its rejection of both economic determinism and the view that individualsplay no role in shaping society. The proletariat . If monopoly capitalism itself requires any new theories, or reformulations of old ones, the traditional Marxists are silent about the matter.[xii] Sweezy notes that even when traditional Marxists acknowledge changesin the world since Marx's time (such as "giant corporations and resultantmonopolistic market situations, the various types of state interventioninto the economy, . . Modern Sociological Theory. London: Routledge, 199 .Fromm, Erich. From Marx's viewpoint, the processeswhich dehumanize and alienate are the same processes which can liberatethrough revolution. capitalism] cannot."[iv] Marx believed the ideas of individuals to be powerless as a force inhistory unless they are connected with materialism: 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. the manipulation of consumption,"[xiii], etc.),they fail to incorporate those changes in their traditional Marxist theory.Sweezy suggests that the reason for such neglect of these important changesis that such traditional Marxist theorists feel that "whatever has happenedor could happen under capitalism is . New York: Frederick Ungar, 1972.Marx, Karl. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2 .Sweezy, Paul M. Marx's Concept of Man. . But not only that. . . . without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being blown to pieces.[x] (216). Woods and Grant write that Marx and Engels did explain that "thefundamental driving force of all human progress is the development of theproductive forces of industry, agriculture, science and technique."However, this does not mean, as dishonest or ignorant detractors of Marxism have attempted to show, that Marx "reduces everything to economics." Dialectical and historical materialism takes full account of phenomena such as religion, art, science, morality, law, politics, tradition, national characteristics and all the other manifold manifestations of human consciousness. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972. The same dynamic applies in all sectors of capitalist society: people come to believe that social structures have a life of their own, and as a result they do come to have an objective character.[viii] Lukacs' neo-Marxist view of class consciousness gives more power toindividuals than Marxist theory, or least individuals within theproletariat, which is capable of a true class consciousness he believes isdenied to the bourgeoisie, which "at best . . They have their economic theory from Capital which they seem to consider equally applicable to the capitalism of today as it was to the capitalism of the mid-nineteenth century. understands the developmentof capitalism as something external, subject to objective laws, which itcan experience only passively." The proletariat, on the other hand, has the capacity to develop true class consciousness, and as it does, the bourgeoisie is thrown on the defensive. then thewhole capital accumulation process can be permanently and increasinglybiased toward over-accumulation and stagnation."[xvi] Clearly, if thisanalysis, and later more developed studies of monopoly, accumulation andstagnation by Steindl and others, are accurate, then it is a major revisionof traditional Marxism. . The Portable Karl Marx. The change in the mode of production and the conflictsbetween the classes were set not by human choice but by the forces ofhistory which swept society along toward capitalistic development. Sweezy writes that I don't believe traditional Marxists have made significant contributions to a theory of monopoly capitalism. http://www.marxism.com/ science/introduction.html-----------------------George Ritzer, Modern Sociological Theory (Boston: McGraw-Hill,2 ), 135.Anthony Brewer, Marxist Theories of Imperialism (London:Routledge, 199 ), 11.Ibid., 21.Ibid., 62.Erich Fromm, Marx's Concept of Man (New York: Frederick Ungar,1972), 197-98.Ritzer, 136.Ibid.Ibid., 137.Ibid., 138-139.Karl Marx, The Portable Karl Marx (New York: Penguin, 1983),216.Alan Woods and Ted Grant, Reason in Revolt: Marxism and ModernScience (London: Wellred, 1985), 2. ideas . . . For example, In underdeveloped countries the `surplus' is partly absorbed by the luxury spending of the ruling class, but much of it is transferred to the advanced countries (as profits), where it contributes to the problem of absorbing the rising surplus. . It also ties it neatly with Baran's analysis ofmonopoly and stagnation, mentioned in endnote 3 of this study. The major differences between the traditional Marxists and the neo-Marxists clearly has less to do with Marx's actual ideas on the individualand his actions or on economic determinism than with differentinterpretations and misinterpretations of his work. Sweezy, "On the Theory of Monopoly Capitalism." ModernCapitalism and Other Essays (New York: Monthly Review Press,1972), 37-38.Ibid., 38.Ibid.Ibid., 39.Ibid., 41.----------------------- 11 Baran in Brewer points out that the development of capitalism hadmore subtleties and deviations than Marx envisioned. True,the individual's actions are dwarfed by the forces of economics andhistory, but those actions are not in any sense entirely negated by Marx:"Individual capitalists, workers, organizations of various sorts, may havepurposes, but the system as a whole [i.e. Specifically, the theory seemed to short-circuit the dialectic by making individual thought and action insignificant. . Monopoly thus transforms capitalism from a force for development into a cause of stagnation.[iii] Still, the point remains that Marx did grant to individuals andindividual action a measure of significance which aligns him with neo-Marxists some of whom hold that he did not grant such significance. Reason in Revolt: Marxism and Modern Science. When the struggle reaches this point, the proletariat is capable of the action that can overthrow the capitalist system.[ix] However, once again, this is a divergence not from Marx's basic ideasbut from those who misinterpreted him. accounted for in the basictexts," and to consider "new theoretical departures is already a form ofrevisionism."[xiv] Sweezy defines the neo-Marxist not as a theorist who is "lessgenuinely Marxist than others," but instead as someone who is simply andhonestly "less convinced of the adequacy of Marxist theory as it has beeninherited from the past."[xv] Using Kalecki as an example of such a neo-Marxist, Sweezy considers Kalecki's reference to the impact of monopoly onthe theory of the accumulation process: "If monopoly is not only introducedas a once-and-for-all factor but as a secularly growing force. This interpretation also led to political quietism and therefore was inconsistent with Marx's thinking. cannot stir . London: Wellred, 1995. A self-conscious and independent proletarian movement hardly soundslike a passive set of machine cogs unable to act or able to act only whenhistory forces it to act in the same way that a landslide forces the earthto move. . Men are the producers of their . The earlier Marxistsseemed to have ignored the clearly active, self-conscious and independentrole which Marx saw for individuals in the process of overthrowingcapitalism and bringing about socialism, while the neo-Marxists seem tohave gone out of their way to ignore just how much the worker becomes acommodity himself before he reaches the stage where he becomes self-conscious and takes action against his capitalist oppressors. These problemshave less to do with major flaws in Marx's theory than with the simple factthat he was analyzing a world which has changed radically in largelyunforeseen ways from his time to ours. . . Endnotes BibliographyBrewer, Anthony. . . The workers as a class must become intensely alienated beforethey are willing to risk the little they have for the cause of revolutionand liberation. The argument of such Marxists as Friedrich Engelsthat individuals were merely cogs in the capitalist machine led to the major criticism of scientifically oriented economic determinism--that it was untrue to the dialectical thrust of Marx's theory. . Marxist Theories of Imperialism. The greatest weakness of neo-Marxist re-consideration of Marxisttheory is that it is still in process and requires additional study(particularly the questions of over-accumulation and stagnation), but sucha "weakness" is to be expected in such a revisionist effort. . to all society--the state, the law, and the economic sector. "The class struggle must be raised from the level of economic necessity to the level of conscious aim and effective class consciousness" [writes Lukacs]. The Hegelian Marxists "sought to restore the dialectic between thesubjective [i.e., individuals and individual action, especially politicalaction designed to counter the destructive and alienating elements ofcapitalism] and the objective [i.e., the economic and historical factors]of social life."[vii] Georg Lukacs introduced reification and classconsciousness. . . Although Marx did see the economic sector as preeminent, at least in capitalist society, as a dialectician he could not have taken a deterministic position, because the dialectic is characterized by the notion that there is continual feedback and mutual interaction among the various sectors of society.[i] While it is clear that individual actions, in Marx's view, were notthe primary factor in shaping society, he did give the individual animportant role, but essentially during the period leading to revolution.Historical materialism tries to explain the development of capitalism andimperialism in the world, with Marx arguing that the development of thesocioeconomic system of capitalism has been a material development, just asthe development of human beings has been a material evolution. . It shows their real content and how they relate to the actual development of society, which in the last analysis clearly depends upon its capacity to reproduce and expand the material conditions for its existence.[xi] While Marx clearly did not exclude non-economic issues or negate thecontributions of individuals and individual action and thought tohistorical and social processes he thought would destroy capitalism andbring socialism, as some neo-Marxists would argue, there are neverthelesscrucial problems with Marxist theory which such neo-Marxists as Paul Sweezyhave pointed out without misinterpreting Marx or his theory. . . The fascinating aspect of neo-Marxism is that their analysis of therole of individuals, economic determinism, monopoly, over-accumulation andstagnation, would probably receive a fair and open consideration by Marxhimself, who strikes this reader as less dogmatic and more scientific andobjective than the traditional Marxists who cling to Marx as if he hadwritten a sacred text which is immune to re-consideration. . The process of capitalism inevitably aggravates thedivision between the classes, and the social relations between the classesmust become intensely aggravated in order to bring about revolutionaryconditions. . Marx, on the other hand, clearly recognized both aspects of theprocess of the transformation of the proletariat and eventually of theentire society through revolution. In fact, however, as Ritzer writes, Marxhimself was not an economic determinist, although he certainly emphasizedeconomics as the primary force at work in society: Marx often sounded like an economic determinist; that is, he seemed to consider the economic system of paramount importance and to argue that it determined all other sectors of society--politics, religion, idea systems, and so forth. Clearly, given Marx's desire to integrate theory and practice, a perspective that omits action and even reduces it to insignificance would not be in the tradition of his thinking.[vi] The problem, then, which the neo-Marxists addressed, was not rootedin Marx but in those who misinterpreted him. . Marx, they say, predicted the coming of monopoly capitalism, but that's about as far as they go. "On the Theory of Monopoly Capitalism." Modern Capitalism and Other Essays. [Ideas] 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.[v] Still, Neo-Marxian theorists have emphasized the individual in wayswhich certainly distinguish those theorists from both Marx and histraditional interpreters. Lukacs refused to see the proletariat as simply driven by external forces but viewed it instead as an active creator of its own fate. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.

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