Analytical and Essential Marxism
| Author | Alan Carling |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9248.00111 |
| Date | 01 September 1997 |
| Published date | 01 September 1997 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Analytical and Essential Marxism
ALAN CARLING
University of Bradford
Analytical Marxism involves the attempt to reconstruct Marxist theory and to
refocus Marxist politics in the light of contemporary intellectual developments ±
especially in analytical philosophy and economic theory ± and historical events ±
above all, the failures of Communist regimes. In order to assess this reconstruction it
is necessary to bear in mind a conception of the overall Marxist project. By this
standard of comparison it remains to be seen whether Analytical Marxism can eect
the required kind of connection between its theory and its practice.
Essential Marxism
Classical Marxism combines a theory of society with a politics of emancipation.
Without a theory of society, the politics of emancipation has no guide; without
a politics of emancipation, the theory of society has no point.1 The theory of
society probably contains a methodology and certainly contains a theory of
history. The methodology is tendentially Hegelian, and the theory of history
centres on the relationships among markets, property systems and levels of
technology. The labour theory of value is central to the analysis of markets. The
politics of emancipation includes adherence to a set of values, the identi®cation
of a social vehicle and the description of a political process by means of which
the social vehicle will realize the values in the light of the social theory. The
values include equality, self-realization and community; the social vehicle is the
proletariat and the political process is class struggle.
The previous paragraph is written to exhibit the branching structure of the
Classical Marxist project portrayed also in Figure 1, with its two main branches
extending down from `theory of society' and `politics of emancipation'
respectively. In terms of levels of description, the highest level consists in `theory
of society' and `politics of emancipation'. Level 2 contains `methodology' and
`theory of history' on the theory side, and `values', `vehicle' and `process' on the
politics side. And so on down the hierarchy.2 To assess the credentials of any
1 `The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.'
K. Marx, `Theses on Feuerbach', in J. Elster (ed.), Karl Marx: a Reader (Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 1986), p. 23. I am grateful to Christopher Bertram and an unknown reviewer for
their help in pruning an overgrown early draft of this paper, and to G. A. Cohen for subsequent
critical commentary.
2 Although I share Eric Wright's views about the high level content of the Marxian programme,
I am less happy about his way of construing the lower level project. In particular, I do not ®nd very
helpful his tripartite division of Marxism between Class Analysis (`independent variable Marxism');
the Theory of History (`dependent variable Marxism') and Class Emancipation. `Marxism after
Communism', in Interrogating Inequality (London, Verso, 1994), pp. 234±55. It seems to me that the
analyses of class and history must converge in their application to a politics of emancipation, whatever
the range of other social phenomenawhich can be subsumed undera more generalized `Marxian' label.
# Political Studies Association 1997. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main
Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
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769
Figure 1. The Branching Structure of Classical Marxism
candidate Marxism, we compare it to this classical tree. In fact, we no longer ask
the question `what characterizes a Marxist account?', but transform it into the
question `how Marxist is the account?' by determining the extent and the shape
of the coincidence between the candidate account and the Classical tree acting as
the standard of comparison.
I wish to add one caveat to the previous statement. I think that any account
which is to count plausibly as Marxist must contain both a theory of society and
a politics of emancipation in an intrinsic relationship with each other: the ®rst
two sentences in this article are essential. This stipulation is already sucient to
distinguish Marxism from most liberal and many radical theories (and from
political philosophy simpliciter), for which a theory of society may have
independent interest, but no intrinsic political role. By the same token, there is a
highest-level distinction to be drawn between Marxist and Weberian approaches
on the theory side, even if their lower level theories are sometimes dicult to
distinguish from one another, and even if the Weberian theorists are independ-
ently interested in political questions. As long as the Weberians resist making
intrinsic the connection between theory and politics, the projects dier
fundamentally.3 Marxists will also be distinguished on similar grounds from
those who have either given up on the theory of society or given up on the
politics of emancipation, or both (possibly for related reasons) ± postmodern-
ists, bemused spectators of the Soviet experience, and so on. But the way in
which these highest level propositions are protected from falsi®cation is evident
from the fact that to dispute them one would have to argue (perhaps from the
disappointment at the failure of one particular social theory) that no social
3 The drift of the argument will I hope be clear: Weberians dier from Marxists at the high level,
even if not at the low. This is almost the opposite of the relationship between dierent kinds of
Marxist, whose dierences tend to be at the lower levels, but not at the highest: or so I contend.
Even though I take level 1 to be necessary to Marxism, I am not arguing that it is sucient.
Feminism for example (or some of it at least) has a similar level 1 conception of its emancipatory
project, spelled out at level 2 by a theory of patriarchy on the theory side and a feminist practice on
the politics side. But it would be obtuse to regard feminism as thereby a Marxism. When ®rst
confronted with this scheme, Sarah Perrigo remarked that level 1 de®nes a critical theory in her eyes,
of which Marxism and (some types of pre-postmodern) feminism are prominent cases. I am very
happy with that stipulation.
# Political Studies Association, 1997
770
Review Section
theory was possible; or from the collapse of the dreams invested in one
particular movement that no politics of emancipation was possible.4 Thus, the
core of the Marxist project can survive repeated setbacks not because its
adherents are peculiarly immune to evidence, but because of the way that its
highest-level propositions are framed.5
We might then say of Analytical Marxism in this perspective that on the
theory side its premise is the rejection of both the Hegelian methodology in
Marx and his labour theory of value. But this attitude is not merely destructive,
since the attempt is made to preserve the classical research programme by (a)
reconstructing the theory of history along non-Hegelian lines and (b) replacing
the classical labour theory of value with contemporary general equilibrium
theory.6
The Problem of History
According to Cohen's exegesis, Marx's theory of history is an attempt to explain
the long-run development of human productive power (aka the increase in the
level of the forces of production). Marx's general view of people (his `philo-
sophical anthropology') is that they are inherently creative beings held back by
material circumstances. So the development of productive power is a history of
humans overcoming the barriers to self-expression ± and therefore to a fully-
human life. Up to press the development of the general powers of man has been
at the expense of individual men (not to speak of women, which Marx usually
does not). The relations of production have been unequal ones, casting most
humans in a subordinate, demeaning role. This has created a series of forms of
class society, riven by internal tensions. These tensions have helped to drive
history forward, via the mechanism of class struggle ± but the outcomes of class
struggle nevertheless conform to the historical trend of productive development.
Not only is each successor form of society more productive than its predecessor,
but the productivity dierential explains the succession. This is why, in Cohen's
view, historical materialism involves a form of technological determination
wedded to functional explanation: without some thesis attributing primacy to
the forces over the relations of production, there is no historical materialism.7
4 Cf. `The Soviet experiment was only one of various conceivable experiments, and its failure
does not impeach the possibility of more successful attempts'. J. Roemer, A Future for Socialism
(London, Verso, 1994), p. 125.
5 Cf. `[the] hard core [of a research programme] is tenaciously protected from refutation by a vast
``protective belt'' of auxiliary hypotheses'. I. Lakatos in J. Worrall and G Currie (eds), The Philo-
sophical Papers of Imre Lakatos. Vol I: The Methodology of Scienti®c Research Programmes
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1978), p. 4; A. Callinicos, Is there a Future for Marxism?
(London, Macmillan, 1982), pp. 179±85 and Introduction to Marxist Theory, pp. 15±6. See also M.
Burawoy, `Mythological Individualism ± the Metaphysical Foundation of Analytical Marxism', in
T. Carver and P. Thomas (eds), Rational Choice Marxism (London, Macmillan, 1995), pp. 194±6.
6 One way of...
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