Open Marxism is a school of thought which draws on

libertarian socialist Libertarian socialism, also known by various other names, is a left-wing,Diemer, Ulli (1997)"What Is Libertarian Socialism?" The Anarchist Library. Retrieved 4 August 2019. anti-authoritarian, anti-statist and libertarianLong, Roderick T. (20 ...

critiques of party communism and stresses the need for openness to

praxis Praxis may refer to: Philosophy and religion * Praxis (process), the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, practised, embodied, or realised * Praxis model, a way of doing theology * Praxis (Byzantine Rite), the practice of fai ...

and history through an anti-positivist (

dialectical Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing ...

) method grounded in the "practical reflexivity" of

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

'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.

Overview

The sources of open Marxism are many, from

György Lukács György Lukács (born György Bernát Löwinger; hu, szegedi Lukács György Bernát; german: Georg Bernard Baron Lukács von Szegedin; 13 April 1885 – 4 June 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, literary historian, critic, and aesth ...

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

council communism Council communism is a current of communist thought that emerged in the 1920s. Inspired by the November Revolution, council communism was opposed to state socialism and advocated workers' councils and council democracy. Strong in Germany ...

and from anarchism to elements of

Autonomism Autonomism, also known as autonomist Marxism is an anti-capitalist left-wing political and social movement and theory. As a theoretical system, it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerism (). Later, post-Marxist and anarchist tende ...

and

situationism The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution ...

. 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 San Francisco-based working group ''Kapitalistate'' and the Conference of Socialist Economists journal ''

Capital & Class ''Capital & Class'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering the fields of politics and economics, especially concerning Marxism and critical theories like feminism, environmentalism, poststructuralism, along with other radical an ...

,'' involving many of the theorists of Open Marxism and significantly influencing its theoretical development. 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. There, new open Marxist works are frequently published on the websit
''Comunizar''
Recent work by open Marxists has included a revaluation of

Theodor W. Adorno Theodor W. Adorno ( , ; born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund; 11 September 1903 – 6 August 1969) was a German philosopher, sociologist, psychologist, musicologist, and composer. He was a leading member of the Frankfurt School of criti ...

. Those commonly associated with open Marxism include John Holloway, Simon Clarke, Werner Bonefeld, Ana C Dinerstein, Richard Gunn, Kosmas Psychopedis, Alfonso Garcia Vela, Sergio Tischler,

Peter Burnham Peter Burnham is a Professor of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham. He was previously based at the University of Warwick, where he was Head of Department in the Department of Politics and International Stud ...

, Mike Rooke, Hans-Georg Backhaus,

Helmut Reichelt __NOTOC__ Helmut Reichelt (born 1939, in Borås) is a German Marxian critic of political economy, sociologist and philosopher. Reichelt is one of the main authors of the “Neue Marx-Lektüre” (new Marx reading) and considered to be one of the ...

Harry Cleaver Harry Cleaver Jr. (born 21 January 1944) is an American scholar, Marxist theoretician, and professor emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin. He is best known as the author of ''Reading Capital Politically'', an autonomist reading of Karl ...

, Johannes Agnoli, Mike Neary, Adrian Wilding, Edith Gonzalez, Frederick Harry Pitts and

Kostas Axelos Kostas Axelos (also spelled ''Costas Axelos''; el, Κώστας Αξελός; 26 June 1924 – 4 February 2010) was a Greek-French philosopher. Biography Axelos was born in Athens in 1924 to a doctor and a woman from an old Athenian bourgeo ...

Criticism

Some critics have alleged that open Marxism is too open and only loosely Marxist. A charge of 'subjectivism' and 'voluntarism' is sometimes levelled at open Marxism, 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 (or unequal and combined development or uneven development) is a concept in Marxian political economy intended to describe dynamics of human history involving the interaction of capitalist laws of motion and starti ...

and international forms of class struggle in the capitalist "world-system".Bieler, A., Bruff, I., and Morton, A.D., 2010, pg. 28.

References

External links

Common Sense journal
Eponymous political ideologies Marxist theory Neo-Marxism

Overview

Criticism

See also

References

Further reading

External links