Talk:Marxist humanism

tendentious

I am not sure which part is considered "tendentious" in this article? It seems that insofar as Marx himself did really believe there to be something very wrong with the entire system of capitalism--something very inhuman, or alienating, about the system altogether--this is only an exposition of what his texts reveal. It is not supposed to be linked to, or a showcase for, any personal opinion. Yet editing is most welcome.

i think this page would benifit with letting Marx talk for himself a bit more and demonstrating The continuity between young Marx and his latter works. we should Add criticism of Marxist humanism such as from Paul Mattick and the French structuralist Marxists. --Monty Cantsin 12:15, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

What's wrong with this article? I'll tell you!

For one thing it completely misunderstands the implications of Marx's conception of alienated labor in the manuscripts. Was this article written by someone using only secondary sources or what?.

The first, and simplest to understand, use of alienation in the 1844 Manuscripts is that in capitalism, the worker produces but the product of his production doesn't belong to him. It belongs to someone else (the capitalist). This includes capital itself, as it is labor that creates the means of production yet those means of production created by labor are the property of another (the capitalist). Thus Marx argues that the alienation of labor creates private property (i.e. private means of production) rather than being a consequence of it, as had been argued by the classical political economists (i.e. Smith, Riccardo, Say, etc).

The second sense of alienation depends on understanding that Marx saw production as an essential feature and power of society, that humans in common can and do and must appropriate nature to their own needs (subsistence and social reproduction). Yet in capitalism, this essential power of society becomes an alien power (the market) that in turn rules over society, imposing its own logic back on society. Thus an essential power of man become the power of an alien entity than in turn exerts that power back onto man.

The third sense is that in capitalism, this essential end of society is turned into a means for the individual to realize his individual subsistence and reproduction.

Thus, for Marx it is the very necessity imposed on human beings of doing the specific kind of labor that exists in capitalism (wage-labor) that is the problem.

His problem is not that an elite is created, its that based on his understanding of human nature and alienation, capitalism is inherently dehumanizing. -- Radically Bitter

ok, i agree this article needs a major re-write. i'll try and get to it soon though i'd like it if other people jumped in and made some changes. --Monty Cantsin 14:31, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Can we add examples?

e.g. cf. #: Person finds clay. Person digs out clay and transforms it into bricks to build a house for their family; family now owns bricks and house. Problem is when the king has been given the power and ownership to own and exercise divine power over all the land and all that lives on it, that God has bestowed upon him and all the worries it brings with it. In that reasoning, the clay belonged to the King and the bricks and house as well because the King gave some money in exchange for your labor and protection that nobody from the evil outside world would invade your house and destroy it. The King has private ownership of a house, though he never worked for it. And since the King is the only one who can coin mints and create money = is a capitalist, and it is this alienation of labor that creates him private property, i.e. the house and the bricks and the people that did the labor can't do anything about it - they are trapped. SvenAERTS (talk) 01:59, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Restructuring

One thing only hinted at by the article is that 'marxist humanism' as a movement belonged to a very definite time: the combination of the publication of the 1844 manuscripts by Erich Fromm with the relaxation of control under Krushchev and the search for alternatives to Stalinism within the USSR and satellites. As it is, the article refers to Althusser and others polemicizing against a mysterious 'movement' which has never been described (apart from a brief reference to the Praxis group and the inclusion of Fromm and Dunayevskaya in the external links).Adding yet more references to the criticism as Monty suggests above is going to unbalance the article even more, unless this is done first. Marinheiro 17:09, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that much needs to be done with this article. Hopefully one of these days I can make some substantive contributions.Allan.lummus (talk) 19:31, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Marxist Humaninists

I think Henri Lefebvre should be included in this list. --Donym Sue (talk) 10:51, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Harry McShane

He should be in this list. I propose to add the following.

• Harry McShane (1891 - 1988). Scottish socialist. Collaborated with Dunayevskaya and published the Scottish Marxist-Humanist 1967-88.

I need to check those dates, hoping to see the H McS collection in Manchester soon. There should be more on this in McShane's page as well.

I think Cyril Smith should be in here too Notplayboy (talk) 13:05, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Article doesn't define Marxist Humanism

I reread the thing twice, just to make sure I wasn't being dense. But as it stands, the article contains no definition for the term Marxist Humanism. I came to this page to learn something about the philosophy, but was disappointed -- it discusses what MH concerns itself with, criticisms of it, some notable Marxist Humanists... but no actual definition of what it is. --JasonAdama (talk) 08:52, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree, this article is missing the most important part- define and describe Marxist Humanism please! Kat.thulhu (talk) 13:00, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

update urgently needed

While reading this article, one gets the impression that the Althusserian notion of a 'epistemological break' is still regarded as a dominant interpretation of Marx. This controversial topic was a thing of the past and the article isn't clear about this. Sure Althusser popularized reading Capital when no one before him really did but this was several decades ago and since then his interpretation has been called into question, criticized and discredited by the majority of Marxist thinkers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.84.68.252 (talk) 07:09, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

"largely outshined by the anti-humanist Marxism of Louis Althusser"

Is this true? To me it seems that it's Althusser's work that has fallen out of favour, while the idea of continuity between the early Marx and the Marx of Capital remains respected. -- Hanshans23 (talk) 15:20, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

As a reading of Marx's corpus, I believe the consensus is that there exists general continuity. The Marxology of the matter is basically settled. However, I do believe that Althusser's Marxism is still quite influential in its own right, even if its practitioners now recognize it to not be fully representative of Marx's own Marxism. By the end of his life, even Althusser had given up trying to defend his claims about Capital, suggesting that Marx only made a complete transition to "proper" structuralist Marxism with the writing of the Critique of the Gotha Programme. Also worth bringing up that Althussesr also admitted to having not read many of Marx's works in his autobiography, I don't think Marxology was ever his primary concern anyway. --David00131 (talk) 08:37, 2 May 2020 (UTC)