Marxism and neo-Marxism are two interconnected philosophical movements that attract 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 their authority and relevance by Marxism. However, despite a certain 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, the people living here were forced to face exceptional difficulties. Many of those who were able to withstand difficult trials did not refuse the teachings of Marx even in the darkest moments, and when life became easier, they found new sources of strength in it. And today, many consider the ideology laid down by Marx as the universal and only true doctrine that will sooner or later solve the problems of society and establish the life of the bulk of the population.
Persons supporting the ideas of Marx, as well as their key opponents - these are the people thanks to whom the ideology is still alive and relevant. Some critically assess the possibility of creating a socialist system, others are convinced that any new attempt will lead to Leninism. However, we can conclude by evaluating 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 has recently become more and more popular, popular, and strong. The main idea of such a teaching is to proceed from the works of Marx, not paying attention to his followers, and only reformulate them a few, starting from the requirements of our era.
Philosophy of technology
Today, neo-Marxism is largely a philosophy of technology. This term designates a direction that has devoted itself to heterogeneous difficulties 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 technical development, the impact of progress on the world. Among other key volumes of research is an attempt to formulate what such a technique is. Nowadays, the term has many interpretations, and it is extremely difficult to formulate general definitions. According to many ideologists, it is not necessary 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 a direction for which the works of Mumford are important. The American scientist was engaged in technical historiosophy, published several important, significant works on this subject. He studied the origin of the phenomenon, starting his research in sources reflecting the lives of people at the beginning of the second millennium. He developed and formulated the relationship between the technical eras and energy sources. It was he who first divided all eras into eo-, paleo-, non-technical.
Neo, knocking
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 features of life of a modern person, surrounded by technical means. According to experts, our century is most correctly called technogenic. Accordingly, the philosophy of technology attracts an ever wider circle of listeners. These ideological directions are well combined with neo-, post-Marxism. The main goal of people who adhere to such ideas is to find the optimal solution to the difficulties relevant to everyday public life.
As you can conclude, by analyzing specialized publications devoted to politics and ideology, the theory of neo-Marxism is heterogeneous, and this very line of thought contains more than enough contradictions. For the first time 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 bankruptcy of the chosen direction of development. Especially significant are the contributions of Adarjo, Horkheimar. In the next thirty years, the idea was actively promoted by Fromm, Marcuse.
Traditions and Truth
They started talking about the relevance of the ideas of neo-Marxism 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 at a more mature age he reformulated some basic postulates. If in his youth this outstanding figure was an anthropological philosopher, having matured, he created “Capital”, called a non-romantic work oriented to science. According to neo-Marxist individuals, the dialectic of the author of the doctrine is not of unlimited importance for everything in general. The works of this author must 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 the teachings of Marx. The main accusations pointed to revisionism, due to the possibility of public cognition unrelated to class interest. Representatives of non-flowing consider such knowledge unrealizable. They are convinced that it is necessary to focus on critical consciousness, which is characterized by universality. This is what late capitalism has. State socialism deserves no less attention, according to the followers of the ideology under consideration. Critical consciousness, according to the followers of non-flowing, opens the eyes of society to alienation, the oppression of humanity. Consciousness is perverted, filled with lies, becomes illusory - this is where ideologists are focused.
Right and left
Modern neo-Marxism offers to see a key opportunity to move forward in social change, the struggle of politicians. In this case, the main tasks are assigned to critical intelligentsia. As such a social layer, young people and students inclined to rebel should be considered. No less important is the social social movement characteristic of many countries of the Third World. According to the followers of the ideology under consideration, such persons, who spend all their forces on ensuring freedom for society, are the key to changing the world.
Around 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” denoted political movements of a theoretical, practical orientation, striving for the formation of workers' parties, the communist system. The “new left” opposed themselves to such a trend, became a political movement that presented itself as a sort of social elite. The main idea of neo-Marxism in the interpretation of such a group of people was to belong to the social-critical intelligentsia, which would philosophize, create literary works through which would herald the approach of the end of the bourgeoisie. They actively promoted the idea of the need to oppose capitalist civilization. At the same time, the ideologists of the “new left” have already become disillusioned with the striving of the working class for revolution, therefore 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 Fromm's efforts. Besides him and Marcuse, Habermas is considered significant, whose contribution cannot be underestimated. All these individuals, as well as their associates, were closely linked by the local magazine published in those days.
The main ideas of neo-Marxism soon became popular among student circles. The demand for ideology in this environment has been observed since the beginning of the 60s. This is largely due to the fact that it was the student strata that were especially massively involved in the general democratic movement. Many opposed the Vietnamese fighting, others protested in order to get the authorities to endow blacks with equal rights. No less attention of students was attracted by the violation of minority rights. In those days, much was said about the need to reform the system of higher education. At the same time, rallies were held in developed powers aimed at apartheid in South Africa. This was originally a movement of intellectuals, but the expansion of the masses involved led to the transformation of ideology into a practical struggle designed to achieve certain innovations in the political sphere.
Revolution: Does Violence Need
The development of a philosophical, political, and ideological direction to 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 of pursuing interests. Among the heroes of that time, Debre stands out especially, actively talking about the burning hotbed of partisans. Equally important is the contribution of Fanon, who preached political violence. Finally, at the same time he began to formulate his ideas, which attracted the attention of millions of people, Mao Zedong, who inspired compatriots to the cultural revolution. The Trotskyists, neoanarchists, entered the same movements of the new left. Around the seventies, the prevailing disorder of morals and ideas became the cause of the crisis of philosophy. He dragged on for a long time, and touched on the organizational side, and the ideology of movements.
During this period, socialism experienced 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 the critics of Marxism and those who adhere to this doctrine found themselves in a situation where the only option was to put up with the recognition of the previous regime as command-bureaucratic. They began to actively discuss how much this could be called an attempt to translate the teachings of Marx into practice, or 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. Persons who have taken up this issue have 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 apparent already in the 30s of the last century. The movement, which was relevant in those years, was called early. At the beginning of the last century, there were two areas of understanding of Marxism: social democrats, communists. The Social Democrats denied communist dialectics. To understand the essence of Marxism, at that moment they talked about a universal way of improving thought processes, nature, society. To understand this, the ideologists of the movement thought as positivists, supported the ideas of neo-Kantianism.
Since the Social Democrats attracted public attention, the development of such an ideology became the foundation for the emergence of a new movement - those Social Democrats who are known to the modern world. There is no longer any connection with the proletarian dictatorship or the revolution of the proletariat. Although the Social Democratic movement is based on Marxism, the program documents do not contain any mention of Marx as the primary source of ideas.
Countries and Theories
Since Marxism, neo-Marxism are ideological trends that have developed in different countries, we can talk about a variety of options for progress, due to the characteristics of a particular social situation and national expectations, requirements, conditions. In Russia, the original teaching was transformed into Leninism, while at the same time quite a lot changing the concept. The promotion of ideas in Chinese lands is associated with the advent of Maoism. North Koreans began to subjugate their lives to the Juche ideology.
About the subtleties
Early neo-Marxism is a direction largely determined by the work of Bernstein. This ideologist belonged to the class of social democrats and devoted himself to identifying the vulnerable aspects of Marxism. It is he who is among those who, in their writings, focuses on the difference between neo-Marxism of the social democratic nature and that which was relevant for the Communists. From the works of Marx it can be seen that the capitalist powers will gradually live worse and worse, but practice has shown the insignificance of these calculations, which was drawn to the attention of a German scientist who analyzed the works of Marx. Another deviation of his assumptions from reality was the lack of proletarization of the middle class. Not observed and frequent economic crises predicted by Marx.
Bernstein concluded: dialectics - the most aggressive Marxist element, coupled with a maximum of dangers. According to the scientist, the supporters of Marxism conducted such work, because of which morality, society and the economy were mixed, and this led to a misunderstanding of the essence of the state. At Marx, it is the organ of repression, in which the owner is responsible for real actions, and a kind of source of a miracle because of the proletariat. Bernstein believed that a revision of this theory was necessary in order to bring it into line with real history. It is necessary to fight for the reforms of countries that would allow changing the existing society.
