Marx After Marxism: The Philosophy of Karl Marx

Even if you consider Marxism some phantom of evil it would be appropriate to get to the bottom of the theoretical problem case of its history and endgame. The reason is that the bits and pieces run through the blood stream of progressive groups attempting change as a series of half-understood fallacies which hamper correct thinking. Rockmore's treatment of Marx here is therefore an interesting effort to return to the source and differentiate that from what came later. That is useful up to a point, and it is true that Engels seems to be the source of a series of misunderstandings culminating in the doctrines of the Second Internationale. But it is not so easy to get Marx off the hook with Engels as the fall guy. The inuendo of smart Marx and dumb Engels gets a bit tiresome. All the problems with Marxism spring from errors in Marx's reasoning and the incoherent bits of Hegel. Figures of the Second Internationale have been dealt a bum rap in one way, since they were buried by Leninism. Who remembers that Plekhanov and Kautsky were appalled by Bolshevism or the several books of Kausky trying to expose Lenin. So, despite their confusions of theory, some figures in the Second Internationale were on the ball to some degree. We have been brainwashed to think Marxists were unable to critique their own ideology. But the main focus of Rockmore's interesting text is on the complexities of Marx's development, seen as a philsopher in the vein of Hegel as much as an economist and historical materialist. The relationship to Hegel is a very elusive subject and it is here that the whole screwup begins. It never happens that anyone gets the 'dialectic' straight in its relationship to ideas of historical law or freedom and necessity. The whole mix is probably the number one best way to completely confuse disciples. Is it possible to ever get it straight, or at least free the left from the constant repetition of errors? A very interesting study.

Rockmore's first move is to seperate Marx from Engels. He follows the somewhat standard argument that Engels is a philosophical weakling while Marx is a giant. Historically Engels has been considered the philosopher of the two. He does admit that Marx and Engels were in agreement about politics. Whether or not you agree with his assessment of Engels his study of Marx as a philosopher is very illuminating. Rockmore argues against one-sided materialism and argues that Marx's dialectic like Hegel's include materialism and idealism. Rockmore pays special attention to the Grundrisse to establish continuity between the 1844 Manuscripts and Capital that is between the "old" and "young" Marx.He locates Marx as the inheritor of the German idealist tradition. Rockmore is an erudite philosopher and I have gotten much from everything that I read by him. He is concerned exclusively with philosophy he doesn't really consider Marx as an active revolutionary and if you are inclined taht way you will have to think about the implications of Marx's philosophy for practice without the help of Rockmore. Occassionally Rockmore reminds us that he leans to teh left and throws in a couple of sentences denouncing extreme poverty but for the most part he remains a left liberal.Finally, Rockmore doesn't seem to find it necessary to prove his inteligence by being incomprehensible like Jameson, Zizek,and other postmodern Marxists.

The emphasis in MARX AFTER MARXISM is on Karl Marx as a philosopher, rather than as an author with a profane point of view, attempting to describe reality with due attention to political and economic aspects of life. Hegel is recognized as a philosophical giant who set the context in which thinking was being evaluated in Marx's lifetime. Tom Rockmore, with the views of a conventional philosophy professor who is an expert in this field, thinks "Marx's critical effort to deal with Hegel, in itself a wonderful example of the conceptual clash of two of the most powerful minds of the nineteenth century, commenced as soon as he began to write." (p. xv). Almost as much attention in the early part of the book is given to Engels, who collaborated with Marx on THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO and other works, who claimed the ability to distinguish "between philosophy and the science of social reality." (p. 8). Marx lived a life that was close to poverty in London, and some consideration of the poor is still part of the picture in this book. "By poverty I have in mind the fact that a country like India is still unable to assure a reliable source of clean water, that in a distressing number of countries the life expectancy is still less than 60, that famine continues to occur although in fact there is enough food to prevent starvation, and so on." (p. 204). I have corrected a typographical error, "although in in fact," though someone speaking might actually utter an extra word occasionally. My favorite correction is in the last sentence of Chapter 6, "Marx the Hegelian," in which I use the word "continue" twice, and I defy anyone to guess what word appeared in place of `continue' early in this sentence: "After Hegel and certainly after Marxism, Marx's theories remain and will continue to remain relevant for as long as money is in short supply, and as long as problems intrinsic to the modern industrial world, such as poverty, differences in real opportunity between the rich and poor, and similar economic difficulties, continue to endure." (p. 205).Nietzsche shows up late in this book, right after "Kierkegaard, who criticizes Hegel, is a right-wing Hegelian, more interested in God than man, more concerned with returning to God than with understanding man other than through God. Very much like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche is interested in surpassing such ordinary boundaries as ethical rules. Unlike his Danish contemporary, Nietzsche is not concerned with people in general, but rather with exceptional human beings, those who are beyond any rules other than those of their own devising." (p. 198). This makes being a philosopher sound pretty simple, like the mindless fans who are spending the sums of money which make people successful in a thoroughly comic society, where value typically means entertainment value, as in the commercials which are constantly being run by the networks. People with jobs are increasingly irrelevant to economic concerns, as Nietzsche th