Karl Marx is my favorite philosopher. At it’s simplest, Marxism can be distilled into advancements on Hegel’s Idealist Dialectics into Materialist Dialectics, advocacy for understanding the laws of historical development to better steer said natural development to better ends, and critique of Capitalism. Of those, Dialectical Materialism is the most “philosophical,” and thus influences the methodology behind the other aspects.
Dialectical Materialism is both Dialectical and Materialist, hence the name. Materialism puts matter as primary, not ideas as distinct from material reality. An Idealist would, for example, say that ideas are generated independently, and it is through ideas that humans shape the world around them. Materialists assert that it is actually material conditions which create ideas, so the ideas of, say, a king are going to be different from those of a serf given their different experiences.
Hegel was an Idealist dialectician. For him, the advancement of humanity was in the “Spirit,” greater or lesser developed societies coincided with differences in development of this grand and universal Spirit. It is through every human acting in their own interests that the Spirit is advanced, people are pulled by their interests and pushed by their passions, and the fulfillment of this Spirit is what drives the course of history. This is dialectical in that contradictions inevitably resolve and sublimate thier premises into new concepts, thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.
Marx was not satisfied with this. Whenever Hegel returned to economics, he became closer to the truth; human history is driven by economic development, not by some grand “Spirit” that humanity is advancing. Marx accepted the Dialectics advanced by Hegel, but on Materialist grounds. This shows, for example, in the theory of Class Struggle, where all forms of production beyond tribal societies have been driven by conflicting classes that each advance their own interests.
The practicality in Dialectical Materialism is that it analyzes concepts in motion, as well as as they appear and disappear. Feudalism could not have lasted forever, as accumulation grew, new classes, the Bourgeoisie and Proletariat, emerged from Feudalism and overtook it. There are no “pure” or “static” systems, everything exists in motion and in context. This is why Marxists say history progresses in spirals, as contradictions play out, there is a quantiative change, so each time this mutually reinforcing antagonistic relationship plays out, it builds up until a large amount of quantitative additions leads to a qualitative change, ie accumulation beget money as Capital, which beget production of Surplus Value, which beget Surplus Value transformed into more Capital, which beget the rise of Capitalism, accelerated by the invention of the Steam Engine, itself a product of all that came before it and laid the foundations for all that came after.
Marxism sees history as a course of endless spirals, it’s a cycle of circles that repeats itself but does so with increasingly changing inputs. As Capitalism continues, disparity rises, the bourgeoisie shrinks in number relative to the proletariat, and the Proletariat becomes further advanced in political thought and more aware of this obscene disparity. This Class Struggle sharpens until it results in Revolution. Marx advanced Socialism not by trying to create a perfect idea in his head and create it in reality like Saint-Simon, Robert Owen, etc, but by learning and mastering the laws of development so that Humanity can apply the laws of Social Science and Political Economy in its own interests just like Humanity does with Biology for Medical use, or Chemistry for materials sciences, or Physics for Engineering.
That’s the simplest I could make it without losing anything too critical, haha.
The only constants in this world are death, taxes, and leftist theory being incredibly verbose (said with love).
Solid summary though, thank you for sharing. It reads fairly accessibly not unlike Graeber and Wengrow’s Dawn of Everything.
Thanks! If I had to oversimplify, I’d say Marxism is a study of change. I feel that that doesn’t really say much to those who don’t already know about it, though, so I went for simplifying the core concepts into an admittedly lengthy but straightforward overview. I appreciate it!
Bill S Preston, Esquire: “Be excellent to each other”
Party on, dudes.
Epictetus. “Some things are up to us and some are not up to us.”
Wittgenstein essentially said there is only counter-evidence. You cannot support an explanation; you can only disprove competing explanations. This was famously expressed as a conversation about heliocentrism. His friend said, “To ancient people, it looked like the sun went around the Earth.” Wittgenstein replied, “What would it have looked like if it looked like the Earth went around the sun?”
Solomon and his “Ecclesiastes” (I don’t think the Qur’an counts if you truly believe it to be divinely inspired/dictated, and I also read Solomon first so…). If you haven’t read it, go do so. Before your favourite Western existentialist, before Nietzsche and copycats, there was Solomon.
Edit: and what Solomon posited/understood was that life is ultimately meaningless, so find satisfaction in your toil, eat, drink and be merry and enjoy your meaningless life with your spouse. But before everything and, after all has been said: fear God and keep his commandments, for this is your whole duty (Ecclesiastes assumes you know about/is for those who believe in Abrahamic/Mosaic monotheism). Not too revolutionary today, maybe (many most focus on the “eat and drink” part, I guess, lol), but this is not from today and will be relevant forever. I mean, some of you probably quote Ecclesiastes often (nothing new under the sun, the fly in the ointment, there’s a time for everything, with much wisdom comes much sorrow, chasing after wind, and many more!) and don’t even know it. 😁
Rodrigo Nunes.
There’s no self-organization, neither in politics nor anywhere. There’s no spontaneity. Political change is a function of environmental conditions and systemic decision-making.
Fascism is a symptom of chaos and lack of order. Political action is the creation of order (organization) towards coexistence.
Politics is a conflict of forces, not a conflict ideas: it consists in constructing the powers necessary to alter the existent (potentia) and deconstructing the power that keeps things the same (potestas). Anything that happens and doesn’t alter this balance of power between potentia and potestas is simply a reproduction of the present in a different form.
I think the one that really “did it” for me was Ramana Maharshi.
His direct approach and Atma Vichara (self inquiry) facilitated the experience of my True Self.
Descartes’ “cogito ergo sum”, or, “I think therefore I am” is a favourite of mine. It’s proof that I exist. Nothing more.
