Re-centering Class in Critical Theory

Bhattacharya, Rajesh; Seda-Irizarry, Ian J.

doi:10.1177/0486613415584572

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

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“…For example, Resnick and Wolff reject ‘the problematic character of [the] reductionist and centered idea of the state’ in Marxism. Advocating ‘epistemological openness’ (Bhattacharya & Seda-Irizarry 2015: 676), they say that ‘the state is pulled and pushed in different contradictory directions’ so ‘intervening in individual social processes cumulatively could have as much, if not more, of a transformative effect on the state as any political practice targeted at the state’ (Bhattacharya & Seda-Irizarry 2015).…”

Section: Modern-day Marxist Revisionism and Class Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Like Analytical Marxists, Post-modernist-Marxists are also committed to a thinner, a less ambitious, Marxism. Two admirers of Post-modernist-Marxism suggest: ‘The main contribution of Stephen Resnick (in his works with Richard Wolff) was to … produce a thinner but analytically more distinctive Marxian theory’ (Bhattacharya & Seda-Irizarry 2015: 670). Laclau and Mouffe (1985: 4–5) say: ‘in scaling down the pretensions and the area of validity of Marxist theory, we are breaking with something deeply inherent in that theory: namely, its monist aspiration to capture with its categories the essence or underlying meaning of History’ (italics added).…”

Section: Modern-day Marxist Revisionism and Class Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Marxism and revisionism in the world today

Das

2022

Capital & Class

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Lenin said, ‘We do not regard Marx’s theory as something completed and inviolable; on the contrary, we are convinced that it has only laid the foundation stone of the science which socialists must develop in all directions if they wish to keep pace with life’. Marx himself believed in the principle of ‘ruthless criticism’ of everything existing. Critiquing and revising certain ideas to strengthen an approach to society is a constructive act. But the legitimate act of revision becomes revision-ism, when the fundamental tenets of Marxism are revised in order to attack – negate – its very explanatory or scientific foundation and to justify political reformism. Indeed, since Lenin’s time, scientific socialism has been under attack from not only the ruling class and its ideologues, but also those who associate themselves with Marxism itself, including in academia. The latter are revisionist Marxists. For them, Marxism has some usefulness. But they deny the superiority of Marxism as a way of critically and scientifically interpreting the world and transforming that world in the interest of the exploited and oppressed masses in a revolutionary socialist manner. This denial of Marxism’s superiority takes the form of the denial of Marxism’s central concepts: class and capitalism. The article discusses, and critiques, various forms of revisionist Marxism (e.g. Analytical Marxism, Polanyian Marxism, Post-Modernist Marxism, and Geographical Marxism). Revisionism does respond to some recent developments in the world (e.g. the defeat of class-based movements; the complexity of class structure), but it seeks to explain these not on the basis of Marxist foundations but on the basis of scientifically inadequate ideas and in a manner that is politically reformist.

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Section: Modern-day Marxist Revisionism and Class Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Modern-day Marxist Revisionism and Class Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%