Open Marxism is a collection of critical and heterodox

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

schools of thought which critique state socialism and party politics, stressing the need for openness to praxis and history through an anti-positivist method grounded in the "practical reflexivity" of

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

's own concepts. The "openness" in open Marxism also refers to a non- deterministic view of history in which the unpredictability of class struggle is foregrounded. It is very strongly anti- structuralist in both its Marxism–Leninist and Althusserian forms, while sharing some features with

post-Marxist Post-Marxism is a perspective in Critical theory, critical social theory which radically reinterprets Marxism, countering its association with economism, historical determinism, Antihumanism, anti-humanism, and class reductionism, whilst remai ...

thought. It often (though not always) aligns itself with humanist Marxism, and libertarian, anarchist or

left communism Left communism, or the communist left, is a position held by the left wing of communism, which criticises the political ideas and practices held by Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninists and social democrats. Left communists assert positions ...

. It draws strongly from value-form criticism.

Overview

Originating from a term used by Johannes Agnoli in a debate with Ernest Mandel, open Marxism began in the 1980s as an effort to unite heterodox Marxist tendencies (against the dogmatism of Marxism-Leninism) and mainstream sociological structuralist versions of

Western Marxism Western Marxism is a current of Marxist theory that arose from Western and Central Europe in the aftermath of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the ascent of Leninism. The term denotes a loose collection of theorists who advanced an i ...

, such as Althusserian Marxism and Gramscian hegemony theory. The term is featured in a book Agnoli co-authored with Mandel in 1980, titled ''Offener Marxismus. Ein Gespräch über Dogmen, Orthodoxie und die Häresie der Realität'' (''Open Marxism: A Discussion about Doctrines, Orthodoxy and the Heresy of Reality''). Open Marxists returned to basic Marxist concepts such as value, labour and the state-form, and argued against social-democratic state-led and Marxist-Leninist party-led utilisations of Marxism. Derrida described an 'open' Marxist tradition in an interview from 1980. Alvin Gouldner also described 'two Marxisms' in the 1980s; one

scientific Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

, and one critical. The sources of critical, open Marxism (sometimes called the 'warm stream of Marxism') are many, from

György Lukács György Lukács (born Bernát György Löwinger; ; ; 13 April 1885 – 4 June 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, literary historian, literary critic, and Aesthetics, aesthetician. He was one of the founders of Western Marxism, an inter ...

' return to the philosophical roots of Marx's thinking, to

council communism Council communism or councilism is a current of communism, communist thought that emerged in the 1920s. Inspired by the German Revolution of 1918–1919, November Revolution, council communism was opposed to state socialism and advocated wor ...

, the

New Left The New Left was a broad political movement that emerged from the counterculture of the 1960s and continued through the 1970s. It consisted of activists in the Western world who, in reaction to the era's liberal establishment, campaigned for freer ...

, elements of

Autonomism Autonomism or ''autonomismo'', also known as autonomist Marxism or autonomous Marxism, is an anti-capitalist social movement and Marxist-based theoretical current that first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerism (). Later, post-Marxist ...

and situationism and also the

Neue Marx-Lektüre (German for "New Reading of Marx") or NML is a revival and interpretation of Karl Marx's critique of political economy, which originated during the mid-1960s in both Western Bloc, Western and Eastern Bloc, Eastern Europe and opposed both Mar ...

of 1970s Germany.

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealism, German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political phi ...

is often the common thread within these tendencies. Intellectual affinities with autonomist Marxism were especially strong and led to the creation of the journal ''The Commoner'' (2001–2012) following in the wake of previous open Marxist journals ''Arguments'' (1958–1962) and ''Common Sense'' (1987–1999). In the 1970s and 1980s, state- derivationist debates around the separation of the economic and the political under capitalism unfolded in the working group ''Kapitalistate'' and the Conference of Socialist Economists journal '' Capital & Class,'' involving many of the theorists of open Marxism and significantly influencing its theoretical development. ''Endnotes'' journal refers to itself as influenced by OM.

Theorists

Theodor Adorno Theodor is a masculine given name. It is a German form of Theodore. It is also a variant of Teodor. List of people with the given name Theodor * Theodor Adorno, (1903–1969), German philosopher * Theodor Aman, Romanian painter * Theodor Blue ...

* Johannes Agnoli * Kostas Axelos * Hans-Georg Backhaus *

Zygmunt Bauman Zygmunt Bauman (; ; 19 November 1925 – 9 January 2017) was a Polish–British sociologist and philosopher. He was driven out of the Polish People's Republic during the 1968 Polish political crisis and forced to give up his Polish citizenship. ...

* Ernst Bloch * Werner Bonefeld * Peter Burnham * Simon Clarke * Harry Cleaver * Ana C Dinerstein * Alfonso Garcia Vela * Edith Gonzalez * Richard Gunn * John Holloway * Karl Korsch * Henri Lefebvre * Michael Löwy *

Rosa Luxemburg Rosa Luxemburg ( ; ; ; born Rozalia Luksenburg; 5 March 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a Polish and naturalised-German revolutionary and Marxist theorist. She was a key figure of the socialist movements in Poland and Germany in the early 20t ...

* José Carlos Mariátegui * Ernest Mandel * Mike Neary *

Antonio Negri Antonio Negri (; ; 1 August 1933 – 16 December 2023) was an Italian political philosopher known as one of the most prominent theorists of autonomism, as well as for his co-authorship of ''Empire (Hardt and Negri book), Empire'' with Michae ...

* Evgeny Pashukanis * Frederick Harry Pitts * Moishe Postone * Kosmas Psychopedis * Helmut Reichelt * David Roediger * Mike Rooke *

Isaak Illich Rubin Isaak Illich Rubin (Russian language, Russian: Исаак Ильич Рубин; 12 June 1886 – 27 November 1937) was a Soviet Union, Soviet lawyer, Marxian economics , economist and scholar of Marx's work. His most important published work ...

* Victor Serge * Gáspár Miklós Tamás * Sergio Tischler * Adrian Wilding

Publications

Three volumes entitled ''Open Marxism'' were published by Pluto Press in the 1990s. A fourth volume, again published by Pluto, appeared in 2020. The authorship of the latest volume showed how far the influence of Open Marxism has spread from Europe to Latin America.

Open Leninism

Some scholars discuss the existence of an open Leninism, or a neo-Leninism, that is, a critical or post-structural Leninism that is critical of Marxism-Leninism as it existed in the 20th century. The work of Lars T. Lih, Kevin B. Anderson, Kai Heron, Jodi Dean, Andreas Malm,

, Alberto Toscano and

Slavoj Žižek Slavoj Žižek ( ; ; born 21 March 1949) is a Slovenian Marxist philosopher, cultural theorist and public intellectual. He is the international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, Global Distin ...

have been representative of this trend.

Criticism

Some critics have alleged that open Marxism is too open- a charge of 'subjectivism' and 'voluntarism' is sometimes levelled, though its authors, particularly John Holloway have responded to this. Others claim that open Marxist accounts tend to treat the national capitalist state abstractly, without reference to

uneven and combined development Uneven and combined development, unequal and combined development, or uneven development is a concept in Marxian political economy intended to describe the dynamics of human history involving the interaction of capitalist laws of motion and star ...

and international forms of class struggle in the capitalist "world-system". Like other forms of Marxism, it has been criticised for being totalising, universalising and Eurocentric.

References

External links

Common Sense journal
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161230180751/http://commonsensejournal.org.uk/ , date=2016-12-30 Autonomism Eponymous political ideologies Marxist theory Neo-Marxism