Neo-Marxism is Main ideas, representatives, trends

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:41

Marxism and neo-Marxism are two related philosophical movements that are attracting public attention in different parts of the world. It so happened that the events of the last century, when the USSR collapsed, when capitalism began to be restored in many powers that had previously rejected it, were accompanied by the loss of authority and demand for Marxism. However, despite a slight decrease in status, to this day the ideology laid down by the works of Marx is still relevant and important for many people, communities, countries.

Relevance of the issue

Marxism and neo-Marxism are traditionally considered especially significant for people living in the post-socialist space. Due to the ups and downs in the history of such powers, people living here were forced to face exceptional difficulties. Many of those who were able to endure difficult trials did not abandon the teachings of Marx even in the darkest moments, and when life became easier, they found new sources in him.strength. And today, many consider the ideology laid down by Marx as a universal and the only true doctrine that will sooner or later solve the problems of society and improve the life of the main masses of the population.

People who support the ideas of Marx, as well as their key opponents - these are the people thanks to whom the ideology is alive and relevant to this day. Some are critical of the possibility of creating a socialist system, others are convinced that any new attempt will lead to Leninism. However, one can conclude, having assessed what is happening in society and describing it briefly: neo-Marxism is a direction formed from the original teachings of Marx, adjusted for the current realities of life. It is it that has recently become more and more in demand, popular, strong. The main idea of such a teaching is to proceed from the works of Marx, not paying attention to his followers, and only slightly reformulate them, starting from the requirements of our era.

Philosophy of technology

Today, neo-Marxism is largely a philosophy of technology. This term denotes a direction that has devoted itself to diverse complexities and problems. The direction deals with the relationship of representatives of society with the technical world, the interaction of nature with technology. The ideologists of this doctrine analyze what is the place of technology in everyday life, in the sociocultural sphere, in economics, psychology, and sociology. Their attention is drawn to the results of technological development, the impact of progress on the world. Other key areas of research include an attemptdefine what technology is. Nowadays, the term has many interpretations, and it is extremely difficult to form general definitions. According to many ideologists, there is no need to look for what technology is, but it is only important to determine what people who lived in different times and eras put into this word. That is, the periodization of technical development comes to the fore as one of the key tasks of the direction.

The modern version of neo-Marxism is the direction for which the works of Mumford are important. The American scientist was engaged in technical historiosophy, published several important, significant works on this topic. He studied the origin of the phenomenon, starting his research in sources reflecting the life of people at the beginning of the second millennium. He developed and formulated links between technical eras and energy sources. It was he who first divided all eras into eo-, paleo-, neotechnical.

Neo-, tapping

Some time ago, representatives of neo-Marxism were respected in society, and their ideas were of interest. After a while, the enthusiasm for this ideology subsided, but today it is again relevant, and some scholars believe that it is much more correct to call the current teaching post-Marxism. This is due to the peculiarities of the life of a modern person, surrounded by technical means. As experts say, our century is most correctly called man-made. Accordingly, the philosophy of technology is attracting an ever wider range of listeners. These ideological trends are well combined with neo-, post-Marxism. The main goal of people who adheresuch ideas - to find the optimal solution to the complexities that are relevant to everyday social life.

As one can conclude by analyzing specialized publications on politics and ideology, the theory of neo-Marxism is heterogeneous, and this line of thought itself contains more than enough contradictions. For the first time back in the thirties of the last century, activists called for abandoning the current teachings in order to return to the origins - the works of Marx. For the first time, activists from Frankfurt pointed out the inconsistency of the chosen direction of development. The contributions of Adarzho and Horkheimar are considered especially significant. In the next thirty years, the idea was actively promoted by Fromm, Marcuse.

Tradition and truth

The relevance of the ideas of neo-Marxism began to be discussed when they analyzed the works of the founder of Marxism - the very ideologist whose name gave the name to the doctrine. In his youth, Marx wrote very vivid works, and in his more mature age he reformulated some of the main postulates. If in his youth this outstanding figure was an anthropological philosopher, having matured, he created Capital, called an unromantic work oriented towards science. According to those who adhere to neo-Marxism, the dialectic of the author of the doctrine does not have an unlimited significance for everything in general. The works of this author should be applied only to society.

It is worth recognizing that neo-Marxism in philosophy acted as an important opponent of the Soviet version of the interpretation of Marx's teachings. The main accusations pointed to revisionism,due to the possibility of social cognition, not associated with class interest. Representatives of neo-flow consider such cognition unrealizable. They are convinced that it is necessary to focus on critical consciousness, which is inherent in universality. This is what late capitalism has. No less attention, according to the followers of the ideology under consideration, deserves state socialism. Critical consciousness, according to the followers of neo-currentism, opens the society's eyes to alienation, oppression of humanity. Consciousness is perverted, filled with lies, becomes illusory - this is what the attention of ideologues is focused on.

Right and Left

Modern neo-Marxism suggests seeing the key opportunity to move forward in social change, the struggle of politicians. At the same time, the main tasks are assigned to the critical intelligentsia. As such a social stratum, one should consider young people, students prone to rebellion. No less important is the social social movement characteristic of many third world countries. According to the followers of the ideology under consideration, such persons, who spend all their energy on ensuring freedom for society, are the key to changing the world.

Roughly in the middle of the last century, the described ideology attracted the attention of the "new left". It remained for them the basis of ideological views for about two decades. Speaking of such a group, they take into account that the "old left" meant political movements of a theoretical, practical orientation, striving for the formation of parties of workers, the communist system. The "New Left" opposed itself to such a trend, became a political movement that presented itself as a kind of social elite. The main idea of neo-Marxism in the interpretation of such a group of people was belonging to the social-critical intelligentsia, which would philosophize, create literary works, through which it would foreshadow the approaching end of the bourgeoisie. They also actively promoted the idea of the need to oppose capitalist civilization. At the same time, the ideologists of the "new left" had already become disillusioned with the desire of the working class for revolution, so they tried to find new resources.

Names and ideas

Based on the described public sentiment, the Frankfurt school of neo-Marxism was founded. The theory was largely created thanks to the efforts of Fromm. In addition to him and Marcuse, Habermas is considered significant, whose contribution cannot be underestimated. All these persons, as well as their associates, were closely connected with the local magazine published at that time.

The main ideas of neo-Marxism soon became popular in student circles. The demand for ideology in this environment has been observed since the early 60s. This is largely due to the fact that it was the student strata that turned out to be particularly massively attracted to the general democratic movement. Many opposed the Vietnamese hostilities, others protested in order to get the authorities to give blacks equal rights with other rights. No less attention of students was attracted by the infringement of the rights of minorities. In those days, there was a lot of talk about the need to reform the system of higher education. Thenrallies were held in the developed powers, directed at the peak of apartheid in South Africa. Initially it was a movement of intellectuals, but the expansion of the masses involved caused the transformation of ideology into a practical struggle designed to achieve certain innovations in the political sphere.

Revolution: Is Violence Necessary

The development of the philosophical, political, ideological direction of neo-Marxism brought both an abundance of followers and a reformulation of certain ideas. In particular, the new left identified the need for absolute violence and spoke out on the topic of terrorism as a means to achieve interests. Among the heroes of that time, Debre, who actively spoke about the burning hearth of the partisans, stands out. Equally important is the contribution of Fanon, who preached political violence. Finally, at the same time, Mao Zedong began to formulate his ideas, which attracted the attention of millions of people, who inspired his compatriots to the cultural revolution. Trotskyists, neo-anarchists fit into the same movements of the new left. Around the seventies, the prevailing confusion of morals and ideas caused a crisis in philosophy. It dragged on for a long time, affected both the organizational aspects and the ideology of the movements.

During this period socialism lived a deep crisis. Capitalism was at the peak of attention, the restoration of this ideology began in countries that had previously devoted themselves to socialism. Both those who criticize Marxism and those who adhere to this doctrine found themselves in a situation where the only option was to accept the recognition of the previous regime as a command-bureaucratic one. Started activelyto discuss whether this could be called an attempt to put into practice the teachings of Marx, or whether such words were nothing more than a beautiful screen that had nothing to do with the real aspirations of the leaders and the life of the public. The people who took up this issue identified themselves as adherents of post-Marxism.

Social Democrats and the teachings of Marx

The relevance of neo-Marxism in the theory of international relations became obvious already in the 30s of the last century. The movement that was relevant in those years was called early. At the beginning of the last century there were two directions of understanding of Marxism: social democrats, communists. The Social Democrats rejected communist dialectics. In order to understand the essence of Marxism, at that moment they talked about a universal way to improve thought processes, nature, and society. To delve into this, the ideologists of the movement thought like positivists, supported the ideas of neo-Kantianism.

As the Social Democrats gained public attention, the development of such an ideology became the basis for the emergence of a new movement - those Social Democrats who are known to the modern world. There are no longer links with the proletarian dictatorship or the revolution of the proletariat. Although the social-democratic direction is based on Marxism, program documents do not contain any mention of Marx as the primary source of ideas.

Countries and theories

Since Marxism, neo-Marxism are directions of ideology that developed in different countries, we can talk about various options for progress, due to the peculiaritiesspecific social situation and national expectations, requirements, conditions. In Russia, the original teaching was transformed into Leninism, at the same time changing the concept quite a lot. The promotion of the idea in the Chinese lands is associated with the emergence of Maoism. North Koreans began to subordinate their lives to the Juche ideology.

About subtleties

Early neo-Marxism is a direction, largely due to the works of Bernstein. This ideologue belonged to the class of social democrats, devoted himself to identifying the vulnerable aspects of Marxism. It is he who belongs to those who in their writings focus on the difference between neo-Marxism of the social democratic persuasion and the one that was relevant to the communists. It can be seen from the works of Marx that the capitalist powers will gradually live worse, but practice has shown the insignificance of these calculations, which was noted by a German scientist who analyzed the works of Marx. Another deviation of his assumptions from reality was the lack of proletarianization of the middle class. There were also no frequent economic crises predicted by Marx.

Bernstein concluded: dialectics is the most aggressive Marxist element, associated with a maximum of dangers. According to the scientist, the supporters of Marxism carried out such work, because of which morality, society and the economy were mixed, and this caused a misunderstanding of the essence of the state. For Marx, it is an organ of repression in which the owner is responsible for real actions, and a kind of miracle source because of the proletariat. Bernstein believed that a revision of this theory was needed in order to bring it into line with real history. It is necessary to fight for the reforms of the countries, which would allow changing the existing society.

Relations between countries

Neo-Marxism has also played its role in international relations. This is especially noticeable in the study of critical theory. This is the name of the research method, which is aimed at the features of the formation and development of relations at the international level. This appeared around the 70s of the last century, soon became extremely influential. The most famous ideologists of this movement are Linklater, Cox. In addition to neo-Marxism, this theory is based on the calculations of basic Marxism. However, neo-Marxism in international relations has become especially important thanks to the ideas formulated and proved by the already mentioned Marcuse and Horkheimer. On the whole, as can be seen from the program documents, the work of the Frankfurt thinkers was exceptionally important for critical theory. The works of Habermas were taken into account, in many respects the authors of the new theory proceeded from the ideas of Adorno and Benjamin. However, along with the Germans, an important contribution was made by the works of Italians, mainly Gramsci, who devoted himself to hegemony as a social problem.

Critical theory turned out to be a scientific direction, whose representatives revised the methodology of neo-Marxism, expanded the possibilities for applying the pathos of ideology, while taking into account the peculiarities of the economic life of society and the nuances of the social situation, the political situation. Whereas previously the emphasis was onthe study of a particular society or power, the new theory proposed to analyze the processes of an international scale, global events.