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<P><EM>>I won't join in the storm of abuse, N/A, and I'll add that I'm not exactly a Marxist either, although I'm _certainly_ not an anarchist. However, I do know something about Marxism; I used to teach it when I was a professor, and have writen on the subject. And the characterizatioin of Marxism as economic determinism in any form is entirely too glib. There is a strain in Marxism, the Orthodix Marxsim of the 2d International (Kautsky, Plekhanov, and such) that might be characterized in that way, and the 2d I theory was given a sophisticated modern ghloss by GA Cohen in his KM's Theory of History a Defense, but Cohen has abandoned the strong determinsim of his earlier view. In Marx himself there are both economic determinist and nondeterminist strains; you can see them both in careful reading of the Manifesto. The Old Bolshevisk were anti-determinist, or they could never have hoped for a revolution in an underdeveloped country. Someone made this point about Lenin. So we
re the old </EM></P>
<P>When I was referring to Marxism being economically determinist, I was referring directly to the writings of Marx himself, and how they were at odds with the clearly anti-determinist philosophy of Bakunin. I also think that Leninism is a bastardized form of economic determinism, but im not going to wade into whether or not it or Kautskyism is "orthodox" marxism or not, as there are arugements for and against, and it is a debate best carried on within marxist circles. Needles to say, I would argue the Bolsheviks were determinist to an extent, despite their acknowledgement that revolution was possible in Russia before it occured in Germany - this could possibly have been due to the influence of the other revolutionary socialist cadres operating in Russia at the time, and the anti-determinism they held [anarchists come to mind] that held much sway with the proletariat of Russia. So I don't think you can simply write them off as being anti-determinist in the economic sense, alt
hough there are some apparent breaks with Marx's determinism.</P>
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<P><EM>> Western Marxists, like Gramsci, Lukacs, and Korsch. The Existentislist Marxists, like Sartre, were of course antideterminist, and the structuralists like Althussera re determinsit about sojmething, but it's not clearly the economy. The Brit Marxists (EP Thompson, EJ Hobsbawm, etc) were and and remain adamantly antideterminist. So the genearl characterization is false.</EM></P>
<P> The characterization was of Marx's writings in and of themselves... and the only current of Marxism you've named above that has any serious weight is probably of the Gramsci variety, although this has prominance primarily in academic circles and little to no influence amongst the working class of any country.</P>
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<P><EM>>Moreover, Marxists also want a social revolution that well eliminate classes; the Marxist commitment to political revolution (not a Marxist term, btw, Marxists say: to making the working class the ruling class) is undergirded by a belief that conquest of state power is necessary to make and defend a social revolution. Economic determinism has nothing to do with this, either in the sense that revolutions are supposed to occur when the social relations fetter the forces of production, or that the economic relations of production somehow expalin the ideological and political superstructure. Rather it's supposed to be a sociological fact about what's required to overcome bourgeois resistance and get the new instititions off the ground. Indeed, it's an anti-determinsit point in the sdecond sense: here the political institutions determined the social relations of production. </EM></P>
<P>I never denied Marxists want a social revolution as well. What I said is that they believed the social revolution was seperablew from the economic, and that both could be undertaken *after* a supposed political revolution. This is the idea I fundamentally oppose and anarchism itself clashes with. Indeed marxists hold that you need a political revolution before a social one to overcome burgeois resistance... so far the failure of every Marxist revolution in history, along developmental lines Bakunin laid out in theory for their failure half a century before any such revolutions took place, is testament to the bankruptcy of this claim.</P>
<P>It's not 'anti-determinist' because hte political institutions are determined (according to Marx which Lenin concurs with in The State and Revolution) by the historical material realities that have produced them. The idea that the "withering away" of the state is an inevitability, just as Marxist revolution is an inevitability, is fundamentally economically deterministic.</P></div><br clear=all><hr>The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and <a href="http://g.msn.com/8HMOEN/2019">2 months FREE*. </a> </html>