File spoon-archives/marxism.archive/marxism_1994/marxism_19Jul.94, message 5


Date: Tue, 19 Jul 1994 18:24:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: James Patrick Herron <jherron-AT-umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Introduction




On Sat, 16 Jul 1994, Jonathan Beasley Murray wrote:

> Hey Jim:
> 
> Can you tell us (me, I guess) what is "analytical marxism" and who would 
> you describe as analytical marxist of note?
> 
> Jon
> 
> Jon Beasley-Murray
> Department of English and Comp. Lit.
> U. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
> jbmurray-AT-alpha1.csd.uwm.edu

Apologies for this belated response.  

'Analytical Marxism' may be characterized on several fronts.  It is of course
in the first place a loose group of scholars (and it's a purely academic
movement) who envision their work as in certain ways different from most
traditions strands of Marxist thought.  Some of the people 
associated with this group, in approximate order of grandness are:
Jon Elster (Making Sense of Marx and much more), G.A. Cohen (Karl Marx's
Theory of History:  A Defense), Erik Olin Wright (Classes), John Roemer 
(A General Theory of Exploitation and Class),  Andrew Levine (The End
of the State, Arguing for Socialism), and also Goran Therborn, Philip Van
Parijs, and Alan Carling, to name a few of the more prominent theorists.
Oh, and Adam Przeworksi, too

The theoretical distinction of this sort of work is the use of a wide
range of analytical tools borrowed from  'bourgeois' philosophy and
social science.  There tends to be a lot of borrowing from mainstream
economics--equilibrium theory, rational and social choice,--and
from Anglo-American analytic philosophy, as opposed to the continental
sources Marxists have typically drawn on for inspiration.  They
tend to see much of Marxism, especially Western Marxism (in Perry
Anderson's sense) as beset by a tendency for obscurantism and 
an unhealthy obsession with methodological issues.  They believe
that the vital core of Marxism is substantive, consists in real claims
about the word (like the theory of history) and is not merely
methodological.  Contrast this for instance with Lukacs, for whom the *only*
distincitive feature of Marxism was its method.

In short, the program of analytical Marxism is to bring Marxism
as an emancipatory science into the 20th century, to make it
rigorous and explanatorily powerful.  On this view, Marxism supports
a series of claims about historical change, the determination of
social relations, the nature of the state, politics, etc.  In defending
and improving these claims, Marxists ought to use the full repertoire
of analytical tools available in contemporary social theory.  They
ought not to mire themselves in the sort of theoretical provincialism
that comes from asking of every claim:  'is it dialectical?'  (whatever
that means and nobody seems to know)  'is it a properly Marxist notion?'

If I sound like an enthusiast of 'analytical Marxism', that's not quite
right.  I read this work because, in my view, it tends to be better and
more explanatorily powerful that most other Marxisms I can think of
(Laclau and Mouffe are a good example) while retaining a commitment
to the core of Marxist theory.  However, I dislike some trends in
this body of work:  I think methodological individualism is false (Elster
and Przeworksi advocate it), although I don't think this out of some
allegiance to 'holism' or 'totality' as many Marxists might.  And 
although I think that rational choice theories are powerful and
interesting, I think their utility is mainly heuristic, not explanatory,
and this is not widely recognized in AM.

RE Laclau and Mouffe: if my secondhand understanding is right, they
have presumably given up the claim for the centraly of class
and of class struggle in the determination of social relations.  I
suggest that you can't give THAT up and be a Marxist in any
recognizable way.  If you think class is important but is one
determination among many (ethnic relations, gender relations)
then you probably owe some debt to Marx, but you are not
a Marxist.  If you relax the requirement, then EVERYBODY
is a Marxist.  

If this is a Marxism list, then I think we should be minimally
orthodox in our reading selections.

Regards, Jim


   

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