What I found most useful in this piece is the insistence that Marxism should be approached as a living method rather than a closed doctrine. The emphasis on historical context, synthesis, and intellectual development is much stronger than the caricature of Marxism as simply economic reductionism or rigid ideology.
The sections on Marx’s early political urgency versus his later historical and economic research were especially interesting because they place his writing back into the conditions it emerged from rather than treating every text as interchangeable. I also think the advice on reading comparatively, taking notes, and allowing concepts time to develop is not only great advice (I wish I'd had this when reading the Communist Manifesto for the first time) but also genuinely valuable well beyond Marxism itself. This is thoughtful, accessible, and was a great read.
The thing about Marxism that has always stood out to me most is how so much of what he did—world historical analysis, taking from multiple different disciplines to develop new ideas, subjecting his own work to the most critical critique, etc.—are things that have since been widely adopted by many academic fields (and many people!).
I wanted to really highlight the importance of contextualization because, as it turns out, treating literature as independent creation and ignoring the reality from which it was born, or intentionally misconstruing it, is a very weak way to approach concepts. Here’s a link with a short read through that properly introduces what I’m getting at in this reply: https://whc.yale.edu/programs/working-groups/dialectical-hermeneutic
This is a relatively fresh development in Marxism having received some early attention from Ernst Bloch and Walter Benjamin, but being advanced most through Frederic Jameson. It’s an incredibly interesting branch(?) of Marxism.
Thank you so much for reading, sharing, and taking the time to leave your thoughtful comment!
If you don't learn history, you can't learn Marxism or dialectical materialism. That analysis goes back to the very beginning of humanity, and it's no coincidence that history led me to Marx, not the other way around.
Have you read Engels' book The Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State? That fellow made some very astute historical guesses that have since been supported by archeology.
I have read it. Engels pieced together Marx’s notes from his “Ethnological Notebooks” and added some of his own insights and interpretations resulting in, as you said, a very—for the time—advanced and forward thinking book. Definitely one of my favorites!
"Economics is at the heart of all social processes."
"The Mode of Production of Material life conditions the Social, Political and Intellectual life process in general. It is NOT consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on contrary their social being that determines their consciousness"
Interesting post! You might enjoy this article by me about the great evolutionary biologist and Marxist Richard Lewontin that I published a few years ago:
A lovely read, thank you for sharing! Marxism and natural science are partners not competitors. I appreciate how you explained how many biologists have already adopted a dialectical view in their work—even if they don’t know it yet—because, in my eyes, that seems to be the case for many people in general, at least regarding certain things.
Of course understanding Marx and Engel's literary and political legacies remain INDISPENSABLE to global revolutionary theory and practice. That's irrefutable, imo. However, in order to really understand the past & present histories of patriarchy, setttler colonialism and white supremacy - and many social phenomena which have emerged in the 20th and early 21st century - we must seriously examine the literary and political legacies of people like: Lucy Parsons, W.E.B. Du Bois, Rosa Luxembourg, Kwame Nkrumah, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Huey P. Newton, bell hooks & others. Also, works like, The Creation of Patriarchy, by Gerda Lerner, The Dialectics of Sex, by Shulamith Firestone, How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America and indigenous American writers, are vitally important to grasping the burning social contradictions of today.
Oh, I agree 100%. It would be antithetical to Marxism if we were to ignore the differences between the world we live in and the one Marx and Engels did. We also have much more scientific work disputing concepts like race and other social constructs that, I wish, we’d see used more widely for intersectional critiques. I’m hopeful that the next generation will revive the method with its vigor and vitality to challenge pseudoscientific ideas.
What I found most useful in this piece is the insistence that Marxism should be approached as a living method rather than a closed doctrine. The emphasis on historical context, synthesis, and intellectual development is much stronger than the caricature of Marxism as simply economic reductionism or rigid ideology.
The sections on Marx’s early political urgency versus his later historical and economic research were especially interesting because they place his writing back into the conditions it emerged from rather than treating every text as interchangeable. I also think the advice on reading comparatively, taking notes, and allowing concepts time to develop is not only great advice (I wish I'd had this when reading the Communist Manifesto for the first time) but also genuinely valuable well beyond Marxism itself. This is thoughtful, accessible, and was a great read.
The thing about Marxism that has always stood out to me most is how so much of what he did—world historical analysis, taking from multiple different disciplines to develop new ideas, subjecting his own work to the most critical critique, etc.—are things that have since been widely adopted by many academic fields (and many people!).
I wanted to really highlight the importance of contextualization because, as it turns out, treating literature as independent creation and ignoring the reality from which it was born, or intentionally misconstruing it, is a very weak way to approach concepts. Here’s a link with a short read through that properly introduces what I’m getting at in this reply: https://whc.yale.edu/programs/working-groups/dialectical-hermeneutic
This is a relatively fresh development in Marxism having received some early attention from Ernst Bloch and Walter Benjamin, but being advanced most through Frederic Jameson. It’s an incredibly interesting branch(?) of Marxism.
Thank you so much for reading, sharing, and taking the time to leave your thoughtful comment!
No worries - I appreciate your work - keep it up!
If you don't learn history, you can't learn Marxism or dialectical materialism. That analysis goes back to the very beginning of humanity, and it's no coincidence that history led me to Marx, not the other way around.
Have you read Engels' book The Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State? That fellow made some very astute historical guesses that have since been supported by archeology.
I have read it. Engels pieced together Marx’s notes from his “Ethnological Notebooks” and added some of his own insights and interpretations resulting in, as you said, a very—for the time—advanced and forward thinking book. Definitely one of my favorites!
"Economics is at the heart of all social processes."
"The Mode of Production of Material life conditions the Social, Political and Intellectual life process in general. It is NOT consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on contrary their social being that determines their consciousness"
-Karl Marx
Interesting post! You might enjoy this article by me about the great evolutionary biologist and Marxist Richard Lewontin that I published a few years ago:
https://mronline.org/2021/11/04/richard-lewontin-dialectical-materialism-the-relationship-between-evolutionary-biology-and-marxism/
A lovely read, thank you for sharing! Marxism and natural science are partners not competitors. I appreciate how you explained how many biologists have already adopted a dialectical view in their work—even if they don’t know it yet—because, in my eyes, that seems to be the case for many people in general, at least regarding certain things.
I'll take a look, for sure. I recently published a short article about the relationship between Marx and Darwin and the emergence of history as a science. It might be of interest: https://carlhermit.substack.com/p/1859-as-the-year-of-history
Of course understanding Marx and Engel's literary and political legacies remain INDISPENSABLE to global revolutionary theory and practice. That's irrefutable, imo. However, in order to really understand the past & present histories of patriarchy, setttler colonialism and white supremacy - and many social phenomena which have emerged in the 20th and early 21st century - we must seriously examine the literary and political legacies of people like: Lucy Parsons, W.E.B. Du Bois, Rosa Luxembourg, Kwame Nkrumah, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Huey P. Newton, bell hooks & others. Also, works like, The Creation of Patriarchy, by Gerda Lerner, The Dialectics of Sex, by Shulamith Firestone, How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America and indigenous American writers, are vitally important to grasping the burning social contradictions of today.
Oh, I agree 100%. It would be antithetical to Marxism if we were to ignore the differences between the world we live in and the one Marx and Engels did. We also have much more scientific work disputing concepts like race and other social constructs that, I wish, we’d see used more widely for intersectional critiques. I’m hopeful that the next generation will revive the method with its vigor and vitality to challenge pseudoscientific ideas.
Great introduction!