1.

The dialectical and materialist concept of

history Humankind's history is fundamentally
that of the struggle between social classes. The
productive capacity of society is the foundation
of society, and as this capacity increases over
time the social relations of production, class
relations, evolve through this struggle of the
classes and pass through definite stages
(primitive communism, slavery, feudalism,
capitalism). The legal, political, ideological and
other aspects (ex. art) of society are derived
from these production relations as is the
consciousness of the individuals of which the
society is composed.
2. The critique of capitalism In capitalist
society, an economic minority (the bourgeoisie)
dominate and exploit the working class
(proletariat) majority. Marx uncovered the
interworkings of capitalist exploitation, the
specific way in which unpaid labor (surplus
value) is extracted from the working class (the
labor theory of value), extending and critiquing
the work of earlier political economists on
value. Although the production process is
socialized, ownership remains in the hand of the

bourgeoisie. This forms the fundamental

contradiction of capitalist society. Without the
elimination of the fetter of the private ownership
of the means of production, human society is
unable to achieve further development.
3. Advocacy of proletarian revolution In order
to overcome the fetters of private property the
working class must seize political power
internationally through a social revolution and
expropriate the capitalist classes around the
world and place the productive capacities of
society into collective ownership. Upon this,
material foundation classes would be abolished
and the material basis for all forms of inequality
between humankind would dissolve.
Contemporarily, Karl Marxs innovative analytical
methods materialist dialectics, the labour theory
of value, et cetera are applied in archaeology,
anthropology,[1] media studies,[2] political science,
theater, history, sociological theory, cultural studies,
education, economics, geography, literary criticism,
aesthetics, critical psychology, and philosophy.[3]
o

Classical Marxism
Main article: Classical Marxism
This section needs additional citations for
verification.
Please help improve this article by adding
reliable references. Unsourced material may be
challenged and removed. (November 2008)
The term Classical Marxism denotes the theory
propounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich
Engels.[citation needed] As such, Classical Marxism
distinguishes between Marxism as broadly
perceived, and what Marx believed; thus, in 1883,
Marx wrote to the French labour leader Jules
Guesde and to Paul Lafargue (Marxs son-in-law)
both of whom claimed to represent Marxist
principles accusing them of revolutionary
phrase-mongering and of denying the value of
reformist struggle; from which derives the
paraphrase: If that is Marxism, then I am not a
Marxist.[4] To wit, the US Marx scholar Hal
Draper remarked, there are few thinkers in modern
history whose thought has been so badly
misrepresented, by Marxists and anti-Marxists
alike.[5]

[edit] Principal ideas

These are the principal concepts of Marxism:
[edit] Exploitation
A person is exploited if he or she performs more
labour than necessary to produce the goods society
consumes; likewise, a person is an exploiter if he or
she performs less labour than is necessary to
produce goods.[6] Exploitation is a matter of surplus
labour the amount of labour one performs beyond
what one receives in goods. Exploitation has been a
socio-economic feature of every class society, and is
one of the principal features distinguishing the
social classes. The power of one social class to
control the means of production enables its
exploitation of the other classes.
In capitalism, the labour theory of value is the
operative concern; the value of a commodity equals
the total labour time required to produce it. Under
that condition, surplus value (the difference between
the value produced and the value received by a
labourer) is synonymous with the term surplus
labour; thus, capitalist exploitation is realised as
deriving surplus value from the worker.

In pre-capitalist economies, exploitation of the

worker was achieved via physical coercion. In the
capitalist mode of production, that result is more
subtly achieved; because the worker does not own
the means of production, he or she must voluntarily
enter into an exploitive work relationship with a
capitalist in order to earn the necessities of life. The
worker's entry into such employment is voluntary in
that he or she chooses which capitalist to work for;
the worker must work or starve, thus exploitation is
inevitable, and the voluntarism of capitalist
exploitation is illusory.
[edit] Alienation
Alienation denotes the estrangement of people from
their humanity (German: Gattungswesen, speciesessence, species-being), which is a systematic
result of capitalism. Under capitalism, the fruits of
production belong to the employers, who
expropriate the surplus created by others, and so
generate alienated labourers.[7] Alienation
objectively describes the workers situation in
capitalism his or her self-awareness of this
condition is unnecessary.

[edit] Historical Materialism

The historical materialist theory of history, also
synonymous to the economic interpretation of
history (a coinage by Eduard Bernstein),[8] looks
for the causes of societal development and change in
the collective ways humans use to make the means
for living. The social features of a society (social
classes, political structures, ideologies) derive from
economic activity; base and superstructure is the
metaphoric common term describing this historic
condition.
[edit] Base and superstructure
The base and superstructure metaphor explains that
the totality of social relations regarding the social
production of their existence i.e. civil society forms
a societys economic base, from which rises a
superstructure of political and legal institutions i.e.
political society. The base corresponds to the social
consciousness (politics, religion, philosophy, etc.),
and it conditions the superstructure and the social
consciousness. A conflict between the development
of material productive forces and the relations of
production provokes social revolutions, thus, the

resultant changes to the economic base will lead to

the transformation of the superstructure.[9] This
relationship is reflexive; the base determines the
superstructure, in the first instance, and remains the
foundation of a form of social organization which
then can act again upon both parts of the base and
superstructure, whose relationship is dialectical, not
literal.[citation needed][clarification needed]
[edit] Historical periodisation
Marx considered that these socio-economic conflicts
have historically manifested themselves as distinct
stages (one transitional) of development in Western
Europe.[10]
1. Primitive Communism: as in co-operative tribal
societies.
2. Slave Society: a development of tribal
progression to city-state; Aristocracy is born.
3. Feudalism: aristocrats are the ruling class;
merchants evolve into capitalists.
4. Capitalism: capitalists are the ruling class, who
create and employ the proletariat.
5. Socialism: workers gain class consciousness,
and via proletarian revolution depose the

capitalist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie,

replacing it in turn with dictatorship of the
proletariat through which the socialization of
the means of production can be realized.
6. Communism: a classless and stateless society.
[edit] Class
The identity of a social class derives from its
relationship to the means of production; Marx
describes the social classes in capitalist societies:
Proletariat: those individuals who sell their
labour power, and who, in the capitalist mode of
production, do not own the means of
production.[citation needed] The capitalist mode of
production establishes the conditions enabling
the bourgeoisie to exploit the proletariat
because the workers labour generates a surplus
value greater than the workers wages.
Bourgeoisie: those who own the means of
production and buy labour power from the
proletariat, thus exploiting the proletariat; they
subdivide as bourgeoisie and the petit
bourgeoisie.

Petit bourgeoisie are those who employ

labourers, but who also work, i.e. small
business owners, peasant landlords, trade
workers et al. Marxism predicts that the
continual reinvention of the means of
production eventually would destroy the
petit bourgeoisie, degrading them from the
middle class to the proletariat.
Lumpenproletariat: criminals, vagabonds,
beggars, et al., who have no stake in the
economy, and so sell their labour to the highest
bidder.
Landlords: an historically important social class
who retain some wealth and power.
Peasantry and farmers: a disorganised class
incapable of effecting socio-economic change,
most of whom would enter the proletariat, and
some become landlords.
o

[edit] Class consciousness

Class consciousness denotes the awareness of
itself and the social world that a social class
possesses, and its capacity to rationally act in their
best interests; hence, class consciousness is required
before they can effect a successful revolution.

[edit] Ideology
Without defining ideology [11], Marx used the term to
denote the production of images of social reality;
according to Engels, ideology is a process
accomplished by the so-called thinker consciously, it
is true, but with a false consciousness. The real
motive forces impelling him remain unknown to him;
otherwise it simply would not be an ideological
process. Hence he imagines false or seeming motive
forces.[12] Because the ruling class controls the
societys means of production, the superstructure of
society, the ruling social ideas are determined by the
best interests of said ruling class. In The German
Ideology, the ideas of the ruling class are in every
epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the
ruling material force of society, is, at the same time,
its ruling intellectual force.[13] Therefore, the
ideology of a society is of most importance, because
it confuses the alienated classes and so might create
a false consciousness, such as commodity
fetishism.[citation needed]
[edit] Political economy

The term political economy originally denoted the

study of the conditions under which economic
production was organised in the capitalist system. In
Marxism, political economy studies the means of
production, specifically of capital, and how that is
manifest as economic activity.
[edit] Marxist schools of thought
[edit] Marxism-Leninism
Main article: Marxism-Leninism
Note: this is a discussion of Marxism-Leninism as a
school of thought. For a discussion of its political
practice, see subsection Marxism#Marxism as a
political practice below.
At least in terms of adherents and the impact on the
world stage, Marxism-Leninism, also known
colloquially as Bolshevism or simply communism is
the biggest trend within Marxism, easily dwarfing
all of the other schools of thought combined.[14]
Marxism-Leninism is a term originally coined by the
CPSU in order to denote the ideology that Vladimir
Lenin had built upon the thought of Karl Marx.

There are two broad areas that have set apart

Marxism-Leninism as a school of thought.
First, Lenin's followers generally view his additions
to the body of Marxism as the practical corollary to
Marx's original theoretical contributions of the 19th
century; insofar as they apply under the conditions
of advanced capitalism that they found themselves
working in. Lenin called this time-frame the era of
Imperialism. For example, Joseph Stalin wrote that

Leninism grew up and took shape under the

conditions of imperialism, when the
contradictions of capitalism had reached an
extreme point, when the proletarian revolution
had become an immediate practical question,
when the old period of preparation of the
working class for revolution had arrived at
and passed into a new period, that of direct
assault on capitalism.[15]

The most important consequence of a Leninist-style

theory of Imperialism is the strategic need for
workers in the industrialized countries to bloc or
ally with the oppressed nations contained within
their respective countries' colonies abroad in order

to overthrow capitalism. This is the source of the

slogan
Workers and Oppressed Peoples of the World,
Unite![16]

which is Lenin's twist on the traditional socialist

slogan.
Second, the other distinguishing characteristic of
Marxism-Leninism is how it approaches the question
of organization. Lenin believed that the traditional
model of the Social Democratic parties of the time,
which was a loose, multitendency organization was
inadequate for overthrowing the Tsarist regime in
Russia. He proposed a hardened cadre organization
that disciplined itself under the model of Democratic
Centralism.
Marxism-Leninism was closely associated with the
figure of Joseph Stalin until his death. Eventually
after the death of Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev became
the leader of the Soviet Union, an act which
ultimately lead to the splintering of the MarxistLeninism into several competing schools of thought.
[edit] Post-Stalin Moscow-aligned communism

At the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the

Soviet Union, Khrushchev made several ideological
ruptures with his predecessor, Joseph Stalin. First,
Khrushchev denounced the so-called Cult of
Personality that had developed around Stalin, which
ironically enough Khrushchev had had a pivotal role
in fostering decades earlier. More importantly,
however, Khrushchev rejected the heretofore
orthodox Marxist-Leninist tenet that class struggle
continues even under socialism. Rather, the State
ought to rule in the name of all classes. A related
principle that flowed from the former was the notion
of peaceful co-existence, or that the newly-emergent
socialist bloc could peacefully compete with the
capitalist world, solely by developing the productive
forces of society.
[edit] Eurocommunism
Beginning around the 1970s, various communist
parties in Western Europe, such as the Partito
Comunista Italiano in Italy and the Partido
Comunista de Espaa under Santiago Carillo tried
to hew to a more independent line from Moscow.
Particularly in Italy, they leaned on the theories of
Antonio Gramsci, despite the fact that Gramsci

happened to consider himself an orthodox MarxistLeninist. This trend went by the name
Eurocommunism.
[edit] Anti-revisionism
There are many proponents of Marxist-Leninism
who rejected the theses of Khrushchev, particularly
Marxists of the Third World.[citation needed] They
believed that Khrushchev was unacceptably altering
or "revising" the fundamental tenets of MarxismLeninism, a stance from which the label "antirevisionist" is derived. Typically, anti-revisionists
refer to themselves simply as Marxist-Leninists,
although they may be referred to externally by the
following epithets.
[edit] Maoism
Maoism takes its name from Mao Zedong, the
erstwhile leader of the Peoples Republic of China; it
is the variety of anti-revisionism that took
inspiration, and in some cases received material
support, from China, especially during the Mao
period. There are several key concepts that were
developed by Mao. First, Mao concurred with Stalin
that not only does class struggle continue under the

dictatorship of the proletariat, it actually accelerates

as long as gains are being made by the proletariat at
the expense of the disenfranchised bourgeoisie.
Second, Mao developed a strategy for revolution
called Prolonged People's War in what he termed
the semi-feudal countries of the Third World.
Prolonged People's War relied heavily on the
peasantry. Third, Mao wrote many theoretical
articles on epistemology and dialectics, which he
called contradictions.
[edit] Hoxhaism
Hoxhaism, so named because the central
contribution of Albanian statesman Enver Hoxha,
was closely aligned with China for a number of
years, but grew critical of Maoism because of the
so-called Three Worlds Theory put forth by elements
within the Communist Party of China and because it
viewed the actions of Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping
unfavorably. Ultimately, however, Hoxhaism as a
trend came to the understanding that Socialism had
never existed in China at all.
[edit] Trotskyism
Main article: Trotskyism

Trotskyism is the usual term for followers of the

ideas of Russian Marxist Leon Trotsky. Trotsky was
a contemporary of Lenin from the early years of the
Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, where he
led a small trend in competition with both Lenin's
Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks; nevertheless
Trotsky's followers claim to be the heirs of Lenin in
the same way that mainstream Marxist-Leninists do,
hence the preferred self-designation amongst
Trotskyists of Bolshevik-Leninists. There are several
distinguishing characteristics of this school of
thought; foremost is the theory of Permanent
Revolution. This stated that in less-developed
countries the bourgeoisie were too weak to lead
their own 'bourgeois-democratic' revolutions. Due to
this weakness, it fell to the proletariat to carry out
the bourgeois revolution. However, with power in its
hands the proletariat would then continue this
revolution (permanently), thus transforming it from
a bourgeois to a socialist revolution, and from a
national to an international revolution.
Another shared characteristic between Trotskyists is
a variety of theoretical justifications for their
negative appraisal of the post-Lenin Soviet Union;
that is to say, after Trotsky was expelled by a

majority vote from the CPSU[17] and subsequently

from the Soviet Union. As a consequence, Trotsky
defined the Soviet Union under Stalin, as a planned
economy ruled over by a bureaucratic caste. In The
Revolution Betrayed, Trotsky advocated for the
position of a political overthrow against the majority
around Stalin lest a capitalist counterrevolution
were to take place in the USSR.
[edit] Western Marxism
Main article: Western Marxism
Western Marxism is a term used to describe a wide
variety of Marxist theoreticians based in Western
and Central Europe (and more recently North
America), in contrast with philosophy in the Soviet
Union, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
or the People's Republic of China.
[edit] Structural Marxism
Main article: Structural Marxism
Structural Marxism is an approach to Marxism
based on structuralism, primarily associated with
the work of the French theorist Louis Althusser and
his students. It was influential in France during the

late 1960s and 1970s, and also came to influence

philosophers, political theorists and sociologists
outside of France during the 1970s.
[edit] Neo-Marxism
Main article: Neo-Marxism
Neo-Marxism is a school of Marxism that began in
the 20th century and hearkened back to the early
writings of Marx, before the influence of Engels,
which focused on dialectical idealism rather than
dialectical materialism. It thus rejected economic
determinism being instead far more libertarian.
Neo-Marxism adds Max Weber's broader
understanding of social inequality, such as status
and power, to orthodox Marxist thought.
[edit] The Frankfurt School
The Frankfurt School is a school of neo-Marxist
social theory, social research, and philosophy. The
grouping emerged at the Institute for Social
Research (Institut fr Sozialforschung) of the
University of Frankfurt am Main in Germany. The
term "Frankfurt School" is an informal term used to
designate the thinkers affiliated with the Institute for

Social Research or influenced by them: it is not the

title of any institution, and the main thinkers of the
Frankfurt School did not use the term to describe
themselves.
The Frankfurt School gathered together dissident
Marxists, severe critics of capitalism who believed
that some of Marx's alleged followers had come to
parrot a narrow selection of Marx's ideas, usually in
defense of orthodox communist or social democratic
parties. Influenced especially by the failure of
working-class revolutions in Western Europe after
World War I and by the rise of Nazism in an
economically, technologically, and culturally
advanced nation (Germany), they took up the task of
choosing what parts of Marx's thought might serve
to clarify social conditions which Marx himself had
never seen. They drew on other schools of thought to
fill in Marx's perceived omissions.
Max Weber exerted a major influence, as did
Sigmund Freud (as in Herbert Marcuse's FreudoMarxist synthesis in the 1954 work Eros and
Civilization). Their emphasis on the "critical"
component of theory was derived significantly from
their attempt to overcome the limits of positivism,

crude materialism, and phenomenology by returning

to Kant's critical philosophy and its successors in
German idealism, principally Hegel's philosophy,
with its emphasis on negation and contradiction as
inherent properties of reality.
[edit] Cultural Marxism
Main article: Cultural Marxism
Cultural Marxism is a form of Marxism that adds a
critical theory based Marxist analysis of the role of
the media, art, theatre, film and other cultural
institutions in a society, often with an added
emphasis on race and gender in addition to class. As
a form of political analysis, Cultural Marxism
gained strength in the 1920s, and was the model
used by the Frankfurt School at Columbia
University; and later by another group of
intellectuals at the Centre for Contemporary
Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham,
England.
[edit] Autonomist Marxism
Main article: Autonomism

Autonomism is a term applied to a variety of social

movements around the world, which emphasizes the
ability to organize in autonomous and horizontal
networks, as opposed to hierarchical structures such
as unions or parties. Autonomist Marxists, including
Harry Cleaver, broaden the definition of the
working-class to include salaried and unpaid
labour, such as skilled professions and housework;
it focuses on the working class in advanced
capitalist states as the primary force of change in
the construct of capital. Modern autonomist
theorists such as Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt
argue that network power constructs are the most
effective methods of organization against the
neoliberal regime of accumulation, and predict a
massive shift in the dynamics of capital into a 21st
Century Empire.
[edit] Analytical Marxism
Main article: Analytical Marxism
Analytical Marxism refers to a style of thinking
about Marxism that was prominent amongst a halfdozen analytically trained English-speaking
philosophers and social scientists during the 1980s.

It was mainly associated with the September Group

of academics, so called because they have biennial
meetings in varying locations every other September
to discuss common interests. The group also dubbed
itself "Non-Bullshit Marxism" (Cohen 2000a). It was
characterized, in the words of David Miller, by
"clear and rigorous thinking about questions that
are usually blanketed by ideological fog". (Miller
1994)
[edit] Marxist humanism
Main article: Marxist humanism
Marxist humanism is a branch of Marxism that
primarily focuses on Marx's earlier writings,
especially the Economic and Philosophical
Manuscripts of 1844 in which Marx develops his
theory of alienation, as opposed to his later works,
which are considered to be concerned more with his
structural conception of capitalist society. It was
opposed by Louis Althusser's "antihumanism", who
qualified it as a revisionist movement.
Marxist humanists contend that Marxism
developed lopsided because Marxs early works
were unknown until after the orthodox ideas were in

vogue the Manuscripts of 1844 were published

only in 1932 and it is necessary to understand
Marxs philosophical foundations to understand his
latter works properly.
[edit] Marxist theology
This section may contain previously
unpublished synthesis of published material
that conveys ideas not attributable to the
original sources. See the talk page for details.
(May 2009)
See also: Black liberation theology, Religious
communism, and Religious socialism
Although Marx was intensely critical of
institutionalized religion including Christianity,
some Christians have "accepted the basic premises
of Marxism and attempted to reinterpret Christian
faith from this perspective."[18] Some of the resulting
examples are some forms of liberation theology and
black liberation theology. Pope Benedict XVI
strongly opposed radical liberation theology while
he was still a cardinal, with the Vatican condemning
acceptance of Marxism. Black liberation theologian
James Cone wrote in his book For My People that

"for analyzing the structure of capitalism. Marxism

as a tool of social analysis can disclose the gap
between appearance and reality, and thereby help
Christians to see how things really are."[19]
[edit] Key Western Marxists
[edit] Georg Lukcs
Georg Lukcs (April 13, 1885 June 4, 1971) was a
Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic in
the tradition of Western Marxism. His main work
History and Class Consciousness (written between
1919 and 1922 and first published in 1923), initiated
the current of thought that came to be known as
Western Marxism. The book is notable for
contributing to debates concerning Marxism and its
relation to sociology, politics and philosophy, and
for reconstructing Marx's theory of alienation before
many of the works of the Young Marx had been
published. Lukcs's work elaborates and expands
upon Marxist theories such as ideology, false
consciousness, reification and class consciousness.
[edit] Karl Korsch

Karl Korsch (August 15, 1886 - October 21, 1961)

was born in Tostedt, near Hamburg, to the family of
a middle-ranking bank official.
In his later work, he rejected orthodox (classical)
Marxism as historically outmoded, wanting to adapt
Marxism to a new historical situation. He wrote in
his Ten Theses (1950) that "the first step in reestablishing a revolutionary theory and practice
consists in breaking with that Marxism which claims
to monopolize revolutionary initiative as well as
theoretical and practical direction" and that "today,
all attempts to re-establish the Marxist doctrine as a
whole in its original function as a theory of the
working classes social revolution are reactionary
utopias."[20]
Korsch was especially concerned that Marxist
theory was losing its precision and validity - in the
words of the day, becoming "vulgarized" - within the
upper echelons of the various socialist
organizations. His masterwork, Marxism and
Philosophy is an attempt to re-establish the historic
character of Marxism as the heir to Hegel.
[edit] Antonio Gramsci

Antonio Gramsci (January 22, 1891 April 27,

1937) was an Italian writer, politician and political
theorist. He was a founding member and onetime
leader of the Communist Party of Italy. Gramsci can
be seen as one of the most important Marxist
thinkers of the twentieth century, and in particular a
key thinker in the development of Western Marxism.
He wrote more than 30 notebooks and 3000 pages of
history and analysis during his imprisonment. These
writings, known as the Prison Notebooks, contain
Gramsci's tracing of Italian history and nationalism,
as well as some ideas in Marxist theory, critical
theory and educational theory associated with his
name, such as:

Cultural hegemony as a means of maintaining

the state in a capitalist society.
The need for popular workers' education to
encourage development of intellectuals from the
working class.
The distinction between political society (the
police, the army, legal system, etc.) which
dominates directly and coercively, and civil
society (the family, the education system, trade
unions, etc.) where leadership is constituted
through ideology or by means of consent.

'Absolute historicism'.
The critique of economic determinism.
The critique of philosophical materialism.

[edit] Herbert Marcuse

Herbert Marcuse (July 19, 1898 July 29, 1979)
was a prominent German-American philosopher and
sociologist of Jewish descent, and a member of the
Frankfurt School.
Marcuse's critiques of capitalist society (especially
his 1955 synthesis of Marx and Freud, Eros and
Civilization, and his 1964 book One-Dimensional
Man) resonated with the concerns of the leftist
student movement in the 1960s. Because of his
willingness to speak at student protests, Marcuse
soon became known as "the father of the New Left,"
a term he disliked and rejected.
[edit] Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre (June 21, 1905 April 15, 1980)
was already a key and influential philosopher and
playwright for his early writings on individualistic
existentialism. In his later career, he attempted to
reconcile the existential philosophy of Sren

Kierkegaard with Marxist philosophy and Hegelian

dialectics in his work Critique of Dialectical
Reason.[21]
Sartre was also involved in Marxist politics and was
impressed upon visiting Marxist revolutionary Che
Guevara, calling him "not only an intellectual but
also the most complete human being of our age".[22]
[edit] Louis Althusser
Louis Althusser (October 16, 1918 October 22,
1990) was a Marxist philosopher. He was a lifelong
member and sometimes strong critic of the French
Communist Party. His arguments and theses were
set against the threats that he saw attacking the
theoretical foundations of Marxism. These included
both the influence of empiricism on Marxist theory,
and humanist and reformist socialist orientations
which manifested as divisions in the European
Communist Parties, as well as the problem of the
'cult of personality' and of ideology itself. Althusser
is commonly referred to as a Structural Marxist,
although his relationship to other schools of French
structuralism is not a simple affiliation and he is
critical of many aspects of structuralism.

His essay Marxism and Humanism is a strong

statement of anti-humanism in Marxist theory,
condemning ideas like "human potential" and
"species-being", which are often put forth by
Marxists, as outgrowths of a bourgeois ideology of
"humanity". His essay Contradiction and
Overdetermination borrows the concept of
overdetermination from psychoanalysis, in order to
replace the idea of "contradiction" with a more
complex model of multiple causality in political
situations (an idea closely related to Antonio
Gramsci's concept of hegemony).
Althusser is also widely known as a theorist of
ideology, and his best-known essay is Ideology and
Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes Toward an
Investigation.[23] The essay establishes the concept
of ideology, also based on Gramsci's theory of
hegemony. Whereas hegemony is ultimately
determined entirely by political forces, ideology
draws on Freud's and Lacan's concepts of the
unconscious and mirror-phase respectively, and
describes the structures and systems that allow us to
meaningfully have a concept of the self.
[edit] Hill, Hobsbawm, and Thompson

British Marxism deviated sharply from French

(especially Althusserian) Marxism and, like the
Frankfurt School, developed an attention to cultural
experience and an emphasis on human agency while
growing increasingly distant from determinist views
of materialism. A circle of historians inside the
Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) formed
the Communist Party Historians Group in 1946.
They shared a common interest in 'history from
below' and class structure in early capitalist society.
Important members of the group included E.P.
Thompson, Eric Hobsbawm, Christopher Hill and
Raphael Samuel.
While some members of the group (most notably
E.P. Thompson) left the CPGB after the 1956
Hungarian Revolution, the common points of British
Marxist historiography continued in their works.
They placed a great emphasis on the subjective
determination of history. E. P. Thompson famously
engaged Althusser in The Poverty of Theory,[24]
arguing that Althusser's theory overdetermined
history, and left no space for historical revolt by the
oppressed.
[edit] Post Marxism

Main article: Post-Marxism

Post-Marxism represents the theoretical work of
philosophers and social theorists who have built
their theories upon those of Marx and Marxists but
exceeded the limits of those theories in ways that
puts them outside of Marxism. It begins with the
basic tenets of Marxism but moves away from the
Mode of Production as the starting point for
analysis and includes factors other than class, such
as gender, ethnicity etc, and a reflexive relationship
between the base and superstructure.
Marxism remains a powerful theory in some
unexpected and relatively obscure places, and is not
always properly labeled as "Marxism". For
example, many Mexican and some American
archaeologists still employ a Marxist model to
explain the Classic Maya Collapse[citation needed] (c.
900 A.D.) - without mentioning Marxism by name.
[edit] Marxist Feminism
Main article: Marxist feminism
Marxist feminism is a sub-type of feminist theory
which focuses on the dismantling of capitalism as a

way to liberate women. Marxist feminism states that

private property, which gives rise to economic
inequality, dependence, political confusion and
ultimately unhealthy social relations between men
and women, is the root of women's oppression.
According to Marxist theory, in capitalist societies
the individual is shaped by class relations; that is,
people's capacities, needs and interests are seen to
be determined by the mode of production that
characterises the society they inhabit. Marxist
feminists see gender inequality as determined
ultimately by the capitalist mode of production.
Gender oppression is class oppression and women's
subordination is seen as a form of class oppression
which is maintained (like racism) because it serves
the interests of capital and the ruling class. Marxist
feminists have extended traditional Marxist analysis
by looking at domestic labour as well as wage work
in order to support their position.
[edit] Marxism as a political practice
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vde
Since Marx's death in 1883, various groups around
the world have appealed to Marxism as the
theoretical basis for their politics and policies,
which have often proved to be dramatically different
and conflicting. One of the first major political splits
occurred between the advocates of 'reformism', who
argued that the transition to socialism could occur
within existing bourgeois parliamentarian
frameworks, and communists, who argued that the
transition to a socialist society required a revolution
and the dissolution of the capitalist state. The
'reformist' tendency, later known as social
democracy, came to be dominant in most of the
parties affiliated to the Second International and
these parties supported their own governments in the
First World War. This issue caused the communists
to break away, forming their own parties which
became members of the Third International.
The following countries had governments at some
point in the twentieth century who at least nominally
adhered to Marxism: Albania, Afghanistan, Angola,
Benin, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Republic of Congo,

Cuba, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Ethiopia,

Grenada, Hungary, Laos, Moldova, Mongolia,
Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, North Korea,
Poland, Romania, Russia, the USSR and its
republics, South Yemen, Yugoslavia, Venezuela,
Vietnam. In addition, the Indian states of Kerala and
West Bengal have had Marxist governments. Some
of these governments such as in Venezuela,
Nicaragua, Chile, Moldova and parts of India have
been democratic in nature and maintained regular
multiparty elections, while most governments
claiming to be Marxist in nature have established
authoritarian governments.
Marxist political parties and movements have
significantly declined since the fall of the Soviet
Union, with some exceptions, perhaps most notably
Nepal.
[edit] History
The 1917 October Revolution, led by Vladimir
Lenin, was the first large scale attempt to put
Marxist ideas about a workers' state into practice.
The new government faced counter-revolution, civil
war and foreign intervention. Many, both inside and

outside the revolution, worried that the revolution

came too early in Russia's economic development.
Consequently, the major Socialist Party in the UK
decried the revolution as anti-Marxist within twentyfour hours, according to Jonathan Wolff.[citation needed]
Lenin consistently explained "this elementary truth
of Marxism, that the victory of socialism requires the
joint efforts of workers in a number of advanced
countries" (Lenin, Sochineniya (Works), 5th ed Vol
XLIV p418.) It could not be developed in Russia in
isolation, he argued, but needed to be spread
internationally. The 1917 October Revolution did
help inspire a revolutionary wave over the years that
followed, with the development of Communist
Parties worldwide, but without success in the vital
advanced capitalist countries of Western Europe.
Socialist revolution in Germany and other western
countries failed, leaving the Soviet Union on its own.
An intense period of debate and stopgap solutions
ensued, war communism and the New Economic
Policy (NEP). Lenin died and Joseph Stalin
gradually assumed control, eliminating rivals and
consolidating power as the Soviet Union faced the
events of the 1930s and its global crisis-tendencies.
Amidst the geopolitical threats which defined the

period and included the probability of invasion, he

instituted a ruthless program of industrialization
which, while successful, was executed at great cost
in human suffering, including millions of deaths,
along with long-term environmental devastation.
Modern followers of Leon Trotsky maintain that as
predicted by Lenin, Trotsky, and others already in
the 1920s, Stalin's "socialism in one country" was
unable to maintain itself, and according to some
Marxist critics, the USSR ceased to show the
characteristics of a socialist state long before its
formal dissolution.
In the 1920s the economic calculation debate
between Austrian Economists and Marxist
economists took place. The Austrians claimed that
Marxism is flawed because prices could not be set to
recognize opportunity costs of factors of production,
and so socialism could not make rational decisions.
Following World War II, Marxist ideology, often
with Soviet military backing, spawned a rise in
revolutionary communist parties all over the world.
Some of these parties were eventually able to gain
power, and establish their own version of a Marxist

state. Such nations included the People's Republic of

China, Vietnam, Romania, East Germany, Albania,
Cambodia, Ethiopia, South Yemen, Yugoslavia,
Cuba, and others. In some cases, these nations did
not get along. The most notable examples were rifts
that occurred between the Soviet Union and China,
as well as Soviet Union and Yugoslavia (in 1948),
whose leaders disagreed on certain elements of
Marxism and how it should be implemented into
society.
Many of these self-proclaimed Marxist nations
(often styled People's Republics) eventually became
authoritarian states, with stagnating economies.
This caused some debate about whether Marxism
was doomed in practise or these nations were in fact
not led by "true Marxists". Critics of Marxism
speculated that perhaps Marxist ideology itself was
to blame for the nations' various problems.
Followers of the currents within Marxism which
opposed Stalin, principally cohered around Leon
Trotsky, tended to locate the failure at the level of
the failure of world revolution: for communism to
have succeeded, they argue, it needed to encompass
all the international trading relationships that
capitalism had previously developed.

The Chinese experience seems to be unique. Rather

than falling under a single family's self-serving and
dynastic interpretation of Marxism as happened in
North Korea and before 1989 in Eastern Europe, the
Chinese government - after the end of the struggles
over the Mao legacy in 1980 and the ascent of Deng
Xiaoping - seems to have solved the succession
crises that have plagued self-proclaimed Leninist
governments since the death of Lenin himself. Key to
this success is another Leninism which is a NEP
(New Economic Policy) writ very large; Lenin's own
NEP of the 1920s was the "permission" given to
markets including speculation to operate by the
Party which retained final control. The Russian
experience in Perestroika was that markets under
socialism were so opaque as to be both inefficient
and corrupt but especially after China's application
to join the WTO this does not seem to apply
universally.
The death of "Marxism" in China has been
prematurely announced but since the Hong Kong
handover in 1997, the Beijing leadership has clearly
retained final say over both commercial and
political affairs. Questions remain however as to
whether the Chinese Party has opened its markets to

such a degree as to be no longer classified as a true

Marxist party.[citation needed] A sort of tacit consent,
and a desire in China's case to escape the chaos of
pre-1949 memory, probably plays a role.
In 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed and the new
Russian state ceased to identify itself with Marxism.
Other nations around the world followed suit. Since
then, radical Marxism or Communism has generally
ceased to be a prominent political force in global
politics, and has largely been replaced by more
moderate versions of democratic socialismor,
more commonly, by neoliberal capitalism. Marxism
has also had to engage with the rise in the
Environmental movement. A merging of Marxism,
socialism, ecology and environmentalism has been
achieved[where?], and is often referred to as Ecosocialism.
[edit] Social Democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology that
emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Many parties in the second half of the 19th century
described themselves as social democratic, such as
the British Social Democratic Federation, and the

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In most

cases these were revolutionary socialist or Marxist
groups, who were not only seeking to introduce
socialism, but also democracy in un-democratic
countries.
The modern social democratic current came into
being through a break within the socialist movement
in the early 20th century, between two groups
holding different views on the ideas of Karl Marx.
Many related movements, including pacifism,
anarchism, and syndicalism, arose at the same time
(often by splitting from the main socialist movement,
but also by emerging of new theories.) and had
various quite different objections to Marxism. The
social democrats, who were the majority of
socialists at this time, did not reject Marxism (and in
fact claimed to uphold it), but wanted to reform it in
certain ways and tone down their criticism of
capitalism. They argued that socialism should be
achieved through evolution rather than revolution.
Such views were strongly opposed by the
revolutionary socialists, who argued that any
attempt to reform capitalism was doomed to fail,
because the reformists would be gradually corrupted
and eventually turn into capitalists themselves.

Despite their differences, the reformist and

revolutionary branches of socialism remained united
until the outbreak of World War I. The war proved
to be the final straw that pushed the tensions
between them to breaking point. The reformist
socialists supported their respective national
governments in the war, a fact that was seen by the
revolutionary socialists as outright treason against
the working class (Since it betrayed the principle
that the workers "have no nation", and the fact that
usually the lowest classes are the ones sent into the
war to fight, and die, putting the cause at the side).
Bitter arguments ensued within socialist parties, as
for example between Eduard Bernstein (reformist
socialist) and Rosa Luxemburg (revolutionary
socialist) within the Social Democratic Party of
Germany (SPD). Eventually, after the Russian
Revolution of 1917, most of the world's socialist
parties fractured. The reformist socialists kept the
name "Social democrats", while the revolutionary
socialists began calling themselves "Communists",
and soon formed the modern Communist movement.
(See also Comintern)
Since the 1920s, doctrinal differences have been
constantly growing between social democrats and

Communists (who themselves are not unified on the

way to achieve socialism), and Social Democracy is
mostly used as a specifically Central European label
for Labour Parties since then, especially in
Germany and the Netherlands and especially since
the 1959 Godesberg Program of the German SPD
that rejected the praxis of class struggle altogether.
[edit] Socialism
Main article: Socialism
The term socialism could be used to describe two
fundamentally different ideologies - democratic
socialism and Marxist-Leninist socialism. While
Marxist-Leninists (Trotskyists, Stalinists, and
Maoists) are often described as communists in the
contemporary media, they are not recognized as
such academically or by themselves. The MarxistLeninists sought to work towards the workers' utopia
in Marxist ideology by first creating a socialist state,
which historically had almost always been a singleparty dictatorship. On the other hand, democratic
socialists attempt to worked towards an ideal state
by social reform and are often little different from

social democrats, with the democratic socialists

having a more leftist stance.
The Marxist-Leninist form of government has been
in decline since the collapse of the Soviet Union and
its satellite states. Very few countries have
governments which describe themselves as socialist.
As of 2007, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, and the People's
Republic of China had governments in power which
describe themselves as socialist in the Marxist sense.
On the contrary, electoral parties which describe
themselves as socialist or democratic socialist are
on the rise, joined together by international
organizations such as the Socialist International and
the Fourth International. Parties described as
socialist are currently dominant in Third World
democracies and serve as the ruling party or the
main opposition party in all European democracies.
Eco-socialism, and Green politics with a strong
leftist tinge, are on the rise in European
democracies.
The characterization of a party or government often
has little to do with its actual economical and social
platform. The government of mainland China, which

describes itself as socialist, allows a large private

sector to flourish and is socially conservative
compared to most Western democracies. A more
specific example is universal health-care, which is a
trademark issue of many European socialist parties
but does not exist in mainland China. On the other
hand, the Democratic Party of the United States has
much in common with the European socialist
parties, but does not describe itself as socialist due
to the historical stigma associated with the term.
Therefore, the historical and cultural aspects of a
movement must be taken into context in order for
one to arrive at an accurate conclusion of its
political ideology from its nominal characterization.
[edit] Communism
Main article: Communist state
A number of states declared an allegiance to the
principles of Marxism and have been ruled by selfdescribed Communist Parties, either as a singleparty state or a single list, which includes formally
several parties, as was the case in the German
Democratic Republic. Due to the dominance of the
Communist Party in their governments, these states

are often called "communist states" by Western

political scientists. However, they have described
themselves as "socialist", reserving the term
"communism" for a future classless society, in which
the state would no longer be necessary (on this
understanding of communism, "communist state"
would be an oxymoron) for instance, the USSR
was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Marxists contend that, historically, there has never
been any communist country.
Communist governments have historically been
characterized by state ownership of productive
resources in a planned economy and sweeping
campaigns of economic restructuring such as
nationalization of industry and land reform (often
focusing on collective farming or state farms.) While
they promote collective ownership of the means of
production, Communist governments have been
characterized by a strong state apparatus in which
decisions are made by the ruling Communist Party.
Dissident 'authentic' communists have characterized
the Soviet model as state socialism or state
capitalism.
[edit] Marxism-Leninism

Main articles: Marxism-Leninism and Leninism

Marxism-Leninism, strictly speaking, refers to the
version of Marxism developed by Vladimir Lenin
known as Leninism[citation needed]. However, in various
contexts, different (and sometimes opposing)
political groups have used the term "MarxismLeninism" to describe the ideologies that they
claimed to be upholding. The core ideological
features of Marxism-Leninism are those of Marxism
and Leninism, that is to say, belief in the necessity of
a violent overthrow of capitalism through
communist revolution, to be followed by a
dictatorship of the proletariat as the first stage of
moving towards communism, and the need for a
vanguard party to lead the proletariat in this effort.
It involves subscribing to the teachings and legacy
of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (Marxism), and
that of Lenin, as carried forward by Joseph Stalin.
Those who view themselves as Marxist-Leninists,
however, vary with regards to the leaders and
thinkers that they choose to uphold as progressive
(and to what extent). Maoists tend to downplay the
importance of all other thinkers in favour of Mao
Zedong, whereas Hoxhaists repudiate Mao.

Leninism holds that capitalism can only be

overthrown by revolutionary means; that is, any
attempts to reform capitalism from within, such as
Fabianism and non-revolutionary forms of
democratic socialism, are doomed to fail. The first
goal of a Leninist party is to educate the proletariat,
so as to remove the various modes of false
consciousness the bourgeois have instilled in them,
instilled in order to make them more docile and
easier to exploit economically, such as religion and
nationalism. Once the proletariat has gained class
consciousness the party will coordinate the
proletariat's total might to overthrow the existing
government, thus the proletariat will seize all
political and economic power. Lastly the proletariat
(thanks to their education by the party) will
implement a dictatorship of the proletariat which
would bring upon them socialism, the lower phase of
communism. After this, the party would essentially
dissolve as the entire proletariat is elevated to the
level of revolutionaries.
The dictatorship of the proletariat refers to the
absolute power of the working class. It is governed
by a system of proletarian direct democracy, in

which workers hold political power through local

councils known as soviets.
[edit] Trotskyism
Main article: Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by
Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself a
Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of
a vanguard party. He considered himself an
advocate of orthodox Marxism. His politics differed
sharply from those of Stalin or Mao, most
importantly in declaring the need for an
international "permanent revolution". Numerous
groups around the world continue to describe
themselves as Trotskyist and see themselves as
standing in this tradition, although they have diverse
interpretations of the conclusions to be drawn from
this.
Trotsky advocated proletarian revolution as set out
in his theory of "permanent revolution", and he
argued that in countries where the bourgeoisdemocratic revolution had not triumphed already (in
other words, in places that had not yet implemented
a capitalist democracy, such as Russia before 1917),

it was necessary that the proletariat make it

permanent by carrying out the tasks of the social
revolution (the "socialist" or "communist"
revolution) at the same time, in an uninterrupted
process. Trotsky believed that a new socialist state
would not be able to hold out against the pressures
of a hostile capitalist world unless socialist
revolutions quickly took hold in other countries as
well, especially in the industrial powers with a
developed proletariat.
On the political spectrum of Marxism, Trotskyists
are considered to be on the left. They fervently
support democracy, oppose political deals with the
imperialist powers, and advocate a spreading of the
revolution until it becomes global.
Trotsky developed the theory that the Russian
workers' state had become a "bureaucratically
degenerated workers' state". Capitalist rule had not
been restored, and nationalized industry and
economic planning, instituted under Lenin, were still
in effect. However, the state was controlled by a
bureaucratic caste with interests hostile to those of
the working class. Trotsky defended the Soviet
Union against attack from imperialist powers and

against internal counter-revolution, but called for a

political revolution within the USSR to restore
socialist democracy. He argued that if the working
class did not take power away from the Stalinist
bureaucracy, the bureaucracy would restore
capitalism in order to enrich itself. In the view of
many Trotskyists, this is exactly what has happened
since the beginning of Glasnost and Perestroika in
the USSR. Some argue that the adoption of market
socialism by the People's Republic of China has also
led to capitalist counter-revolution.
[edit] Maoism
Maoism or Mao Zedong Thought
(simplified Chinese:
; traditional Chinese:
; pinyin: Mo Zdng Sxing), is a
variant of Marxism-Leninism derived from the
teachings of the Chinese communist leader Mao
Zedong (Wade-Giles transliteration: "Mao Tsetung").
The term "Mao Zedong Thought" has always been
the preferred term by the Communist Party of China,
and the word "Maoism" has never been used in its

English-language publications except pejoratively.

Likewise, Maoist groups outside China have usually
called themselves Marxist-Leninist rather than
Maoist, a reflection of Mao's view that he did not
change, but only developed, Marxism-Leninism.
However, some[who?] Maoist groups, believing Mao's
theories to have been sufficiently substantial
additions to the basics of the Marxist canon, call
themselves "Marxist-Leninist-Maoist" (MLM) or
simply "Maoist".
In the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong
Thought is part of the official doctrine of the
Communist Party of China, but since the 1978
beginning of Deng Xiaoping's market economyoriented reforms, the concept of "socialism with
Chinese characteristics" has come to the forefront of
Chinese politics, Chinese economic reform has taken
hold, and the official definition and role of Mao's
original ideology in the PRC has been radically
altered and reduced (see History of China).
Unlike the earlier forms of Marxism-Leninism in
which the urban proletariat was seen as the main
source of revolution, and the countryside was
largely ignored, Mao believed that peasantry could

be the main force behind a revolution, led by the

proletariat and a vanguard Communist party. The
model for this was of course the Chinese communist
rural Protracted People's War of the 1920s and
1930s, which eventually brought the Communist
Party of China to power. Furthermore, unlike other
forms of Marxism-Leninism in which large-scale
industrial development was seen as a positive force,
Maoism made all-round rural development the
priority. Mao felt that this strategy made sense
during the early stages of socialism in a country in
which most of the people were peasants. Unlike most
other political ideologies, including other socialist
and Marxist ones, Maoism contains an integral
military doctrine and explicitly connects its political
ideology with military strategy. In Maoist thought,
"political power grows from the barrel of the gun"
(a famous quote by Mao), and the peasantry can be
mobilized to undertake a "people's war" of armed
struggle involving guerrilla warfare in three stages.
[edit] Left communism
Main article: Left communism

Left communism is the range of communist

viewpoints held by the Communist Left, which
criticizes the political ideas of the Bolsheviks from a
position that is asserted to be more authentically
Marxist and proletarian than the views of Leninism
held by the Communist International after its first
two Congresses.
Although she lived before communist left became a
distinct tendency, Rosa Luxemburg has been heavily
influential for most left communists, both politically
and theoretically. Proponents of left communism
have included Herman Gorter, Anton Pannekoek,
Otto Rhle, Amadeo Bordiga, Paul Mattick, Onorato
Damen and Marc Laverne.
Two major traditions can be observed within Left
communism: the Dutch-German tradition; and the
Italian tradition. The political positions those
traditions have in common are a shared opposition
to what is termed frontism, nationalism, all kinds of
national liberation movements and
parliamentarianism and there is an underlying
commonality at a level of abstract theory. Crucially,

Left Communist groups from both traditions tend to

identify elements of commonality in each other.
The historical origins of Left Communism can be
traced to the period before the First World War, but
it only came into focus after 1918 . All Left
Communists were supportive of the October
Revolution in Russia, but retained a critical view of
its development. Some, however, would in later
years come to reject the idea that the revolution had
a proletarian or socialist nature, asserting that it
had simply carried out the tasks of the bourgeois
revolution by creating a state capitalist system.
Left Communism first came into being as a clear
movement in or around 1918. Its essential features
were: a stress on the need to build a Communist
Party entirely separate from the reformist and
centrist elements who were seen as having betrayed
socialism in 1914, opposition to all but the most
restricted participation in elections, and an
emphasis on the need for revolutionaries to move on
the offensive. Apart from that, there was little in
common between the various wings. Only the
Italians accepted the need for electoral work at all
for a very short period of time, and the German-

Dutch, Italian and Russian wings opposed the "right

of nations to self-determination", which they
denounced as a form of bourgeois nationalism.
Prominent left communist groups existing today
include the International Communist Current and
the International Bureau for the Revolutionary
Party. Also, different factions from the old Bordigist
International Communist Party are considered left
communist organizations.
[edit] Disputing these claims
Some academics[who?] dispute the claim that the
above political movements are Marxist. Communist
governments have historically been characterized by
state ownership of productive resources in a planned
economy and sweeping campaigns of economic
restructuring such as nationalization of industry and
land reform (often focusing on collective farming or
state farms.) While they promote collective
ownership of the means of production, Communist
governments have been characterized by a strong
state apparatus in which decisions are made by the
ruling Communist Party. Dissident communists have
characterized the Soviet model as state socialism or

state capitalism. Further, critics[who?] have often

claimed that a Stalinist or Maoist system of
government creates a new ruling class, usually
called the nomenklatura.
Marx defined "communism" as a classless,
egalitarian and stateless society. To Marx, the
notion of a communist state would have seemed an
oxymoron, as he defined communism as the phase
reached when class society and the state had
already been abolished. Once the lower stage
towards communism, commonly referred to as
socialism, had been established, society would
develop new social relations over the course of
several generations, reaching what Marx called the
higher phase of communism when not only
bourgeois relations but every class social relations
had been abandoned. Such a development has yet to
occur in any historical self-claimed socialist state.
Some[who?] argue that socialist states have contained
two new distinct classes: those who are in
government and therefore have power, and those
who are not in government and do not have power.
Sometimes, this is taken to be a different form of
capitalism, in which the government, as owner of the

means of production, takes on the role formerly

played by the bourgeois class; this arrangement is
referred to as "State capitalism". These statist
regimes have generally followed a command
economy model without making a transition to this
hypothetical final stage.
[edit] Criticisms
For more details on this topic, see Criticisms of
Marxism.
Criticisms of Marxism are many and varied. They
concern both the theory itself, and its later
interpretations and implementations.
[edit] Right
Marx and Engels never dedicated much work to
show how exactly a communist economy would
function, leaving Marxism, at least in its classical
form, a "negative ideology," concerned primarily
with criticism of the status quo. Later generations of
Marxists have attempted to fill in the gap, resulting
in several different and competing Marxist views of
the way a communist society should be organized.

Prominent economist Milton Friedman was of the

opinion that free markets are the best and most
efficient way of running the economy for the benefit
of all.[25] In the economic calculation debate
between Austrian Economists and Marxist
economists, the Austrians claimed that Marxism is
flawed because without a market for productive
factors, which Marxism would abolish, productive
factors could not be labeled with market prices and
therefore, so the Austrians say, Marxism makes
rational economic calculation impossible and would
lead to social collapse. This criticism could also be
seen as part of the Austrian School's general
criticism of command-control-type mathematical
modelling and Keynesian "fine-tuning" of the
economy generally, which Austrian economists
believe is not possible due to the inherent complexity
of market participants' ever-evolving subjective
choices.
Individualists disagree with the basic approach of
Marxism, that of viewing all people as acting under
the influence of socio-economic forces, and instead
focus on the differences and unpredictable actions of
individuals.

[edit] Left
Criticisms of Marxism have come from the political
left as well:
Democratic socialists and social democrats
reject the idea that socialism can be
accomplished only through class conflict, violent
revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat.
Anarchists reject the need for a transitory state
phase on the road to a classless society; they
believe that the state and capitalism should be
dismantled simultaneously and without
coercion.

[edit] Marxism in Soviet popular culture

All students in Soviet Universities were forced to
study Marxism, even if their future work had nothing
to do with social sciences. The amount of time spent
to study Marxism, History of the CPSU, Scientific
Communism and other similar subjects frequently
exceeded time spent to study some of their main
scientific disciplines. This gave rise to numerous
political jokes. A typical example[26]:

Two skeletons are laying on a desk during an

exam in Medical College. Teacher asks students:
"What can you tell about them?" - A silence... "Think about this! What did we teach you all
these five years?" - A student: "Are they ... Marx
and Engels?".