Date: Sun, 14 Aug 1994 10:01:59 -0400 (EDT) From: Philip Goldstein <pgold-AT-strauss.udel.edu> Subject: Re: trotsky's marxism I agree with Alex Trotter's position, "I would continue to say that the "mature" work can be rightly criticized for tendencies that were subsequently taken up by Marxists, with baleful effects (the exaltation of the dignity of labor chief among them)." We can and should reread Marx but, to cope with Stalinism, communism, etc., we can't simply say that the Stalinists got him wrong or that we have finally found the true Marx, the enlightened Marx. The reason is that our need to distinguish him from the Stalinists is our peculiar modern dilemma and not a necessary feature of a "true" Marx. What's more, there is something mistaken about the assumption that every reading besides ours has gotten Marx wrong. On the other hand, if we admit that some of the followers may have gotten Marx right, at least in part, then we have to face the consequences of their reading. This position, which I could attribute to Habermas, means that, in light of those consequences, we should critique Marx, separating the good and the bad, but this too is a modern reading, not the "true" Marx. If we admit that the followers had legitimate things to say, then, we have to construct a tradition which we call Marxism and which takes into account the various positions of the various followers. Here too we face the same dilemma: do we evaluate the tradition in light of what the real Marx says, or do we evaluate the tradition in terms of our present situation? I say the latter on the grounds that, as Foucault says, a scientific field does not define itself by the words of its founder, whereas a religion does. Marx is not the father; his followers, his errant sons. Marxism is a genuine tradition embedded in all sorts of institutions and growing in diverse ways. Philip Goldstein ------------------
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