Anarchism / Marxism debates

Eric Beck rayrena at accesshub.net
Tue Aug 17 19:23:02 PDT 1999


Charles,

You're as irritating as Heartfield is today. But that probably reflects more on me than you.


>Charles: Is the anarchist theory based on what it considers a scientific
>understanding of history ?

Uh, I don't know. Probably not. Are you saying that if it's not that we should we junk anarchism?


>This is the source of the scientific claims by Engels, that historical
>materialism, the theory >underlying _The Manifesto of the Communist Party_
>is a scientific theory of history, and the >working class's role in
>revolutionary change out of capitalism to socialism is scientifically
>based. >History tends toward it. Because history tends toward it , it is
>likely, and not some dream for >several generations from now, but possible
>within our lifetime. This doability helps with enthusiasm >in bringing it
>about.

I'm certainly no Marx scholar, but every time I hear about the Marxist "scientific theory of history," the only work that gets cited is by Engels. What does Marx have to say about this? If Marx was so enamored of scientific theories of history, why isn't he ever pulled out for take-that quotations?

And speaking of unleashing borrowed and fiery verbal jabs, here's one from Russel Jacoby's new book, The End of Utopia:

<quote>

To be sure, even those with little familiarity with Marxism know its founders denounced "utopian" socialism and prized "scientific" and practical approaches. This is only half right. Marxism and utopianism did not exist as simple opposites. (76) [...]

(76) The standard source for Marx's anti-utopianism is Frederick Engels's Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, which dispatched the utopian ideas as nothing more than "mish-mash" lacking a real basis in history. A more exact rendering of its German title, "Socialism from Utopia to Science," better captures Engels's argument. Engels championed "scientific" socialism as disloding a "utopian" socialism that failed to understand the vector of history and the working class. In The Dictionary of Marxist Epithets (Orthodox Ed.) "utopian," means ill-founded, foggy and diversionary. Yet Marx himself reproved the utopian socialists less for their hope for the future than their ability to understand how to reach it; they did not comprehend that political activity replaced utopian blueprints. Marx's object was not to destroy, but realize the visions. In his address to the Paris Commune [...he said] "From the moment the working men's class movement became real the fantastic utopias evanesced--not because the working class had given up the end aimed at by these Utiopians, but because they have found the real means to realize them."

</quote>

There's more, but I'm tired of typing. I don't find Jacoby's argument here wholly adequate, but neither do I think that history, revolution, or humanity can be reduced to a scientific, fully explanatory theory (or, as they say in Texas, a flat-ass statement).

Eric



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