POLITICAL IDEAOLOGIES

NEO - MARXISM

Sharath.R.Kanzal
BA. LLB 'A'
Alliance University
 TABLE OF CONTENT

1. INTRODUCTION

2. HISTORY

3. COMPONENTS

4. NEO MARXISM IN INDIA

5. THEORIES

6. APPROACHES

7. CRITISM
 1. INTRODUCTION

Neo-Marxism theory is an economic theory

that the current world economic structure has
been systematically implemented by use of a
global class division with developing countries
being exploited by industrialized nations. Neo-
Marxism is often used to describe opposition
to inequalities experienced by under developed
countries in the global world.

Some of the main arguments for Neo- Marxism

include
1. They agree that the economy is the most
important part of society, and it is from this
that crime is born.
2. They believe that the capitalism is to blame
for crime as it causes an inequality which is the
root of crime.
3. They agree that if we are to eradicate crime
we must first see a transformation of society
away from capitalism.

The Frankfurt School has become one of the

mostly widely adopted forms of neo-Marxism.
It grew out of the Institute of Social Research
at the University of Frankfurt, Germany. It is
sometimes referred to as critical theory,
meaning a special kind of social philosophy.

It gathered together people who were severe

critics of capitalism but believed that Marxism
had become too close to communism. They
believed Karl Marx's followers were supporting
only a narrow selection of his ideas. Neo-
Marxists view class divisions under capitalism
as more important than gender/sex divisions or
issues of race and ethnicity. Neo-Marxism
encompasses a group of beliefs that have in
common rejection of economic or class
 determinism and a belief in at least the semi
autonomy of the social sphere.

They also claim that most social science,

history, and literary analysis works from within
capitalist categories and say neo-Marxism is
based on the total political-economic-cultural
system. During the Nazi regime, the members
of the school fled first to Geneva, Switzerland,
then to the United States.
 2. HISTORY

The neo-Marxists, after seeing the failure of

working-class revolutions in Western Europe
after World War I, chose the parts of Marx's
thought that might clarify social conditions
that were not present when Marx was alive.
They filled in what they perceived to be
omissions in Marxism with ideas from other
schools of thought. There have been numerous
"offshoot" Neo-Marxist schools which have
taken on many of the themes and conclusions of
the Marxian school, although they should not
be considered rigorous applications of classical
Marxian theory.

The idea has revolved round the academic

world that sociology is functionalism and
functionalism is sociology. Functionalists,
wherever they have their locale, are every inch
conservative and status quoits. They support
social change but at the same time argue that
it should be within the defined social system.
By 1980, functionalism was shown the door.

During 1980s, when postmodern social theory

emerged, it launched a fatal blow to classical
theory. The metanarratives got debunked and
demystified.

Neo-Marxist concepts can also follow an

economic theory that attempts to move away
from the traditional accusations of class
warfare and create new economic theory
models, such as Hans-Jürgen Krahl did.
Several important advances to Neo-Marxism
came after World War I from Georg Lukács,
Karl Korsch and Antonio Gramsci.

From the Institute for Social Research

founded in 1923 at the University of Frankfurt
am Main grew one of the most important
schools of neo-Marxist interdisciplinary social
 theory, The Frankfurt School. Its founders
were Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno
whose critical theories had great influence on
Marxist theory especially after their exile to
New York (Columbia University) after the rise
of fascism in Germany in 1933.

Perhaps, a final blow was given to conflict

theory when in August 1990; the former Soviet
Russia got disintegrated. It left no scope for
the development of Marxism and the Marxian
interpretation of capitalism. As Fukuyama
would say it was the end of history. The only
alternative left with the world was capitalism
and liberal democracy. It paved the way for
the emergence and development of neo-
functionalism.

By the late 1970s, several Marxist scholars had

reached the conclusion that classical Marxism
was in a process of crisis, and they found it
hard to use it as a tool with which to analyze
modern society. This led to the development of
two new approaches within Marxist tradition:

(1) Neo-Gramscian theory or discursive

analysis Marxism

Gramsci’s theory of hegemony:

Hegemony is leadership or authority. Marx
established that all through human history
hegemony has been determined by control of the
means of production and exploitation of the wage
labourers. Gramsci contested Marxian theory of
hegemony or domination.

He argued that hegemony was not just structural

domination through economics or politics.
According to him, it was a combination of
political, intellectual and moral leaderships,
meaning that it involved superstructure or
ideology and private institutions as well as
politics.
 (2) Analytical Marxism.
Analytical Marxism emerged around 1980. Its
central founding figures were the Norwegian Jon
Elster, the Canadian-British philosopher, Gerald
A. Cohen, and the American Adam Przeworski,
John E. Roemer and Erik Olin Wright. Analytical
Marxism is also called rational choice Marxism or
neo-classical Marxism.

Analytical Marxism is defined neither by a

certain theory nor by any mutual set of key
assumptions. Rather, it is centers around certain
themes and guiding principles concerning
approaches and methodological ideals.
 3. COMPONENTS

One way in which Neo Marxism differs from

Marxism is that it believes the labeling theory
proposed by integrationists has some truth in
it. Neo-Marxists say that the ruling class
labels certain members of the working class in
order to gain benefits themselves, this is
called a “fully social theory of deviance”. The
work of neo-Marxists in the area of labeling
was epitomized by Stuart Hall's ‘‘Policing the
crisis’’

Neo-Marxists say that this is just one of many

examples of how social background (in this
instance you’re ethnicity and class) can result
in you being deviant, but it is only because of
the libeling from the ruling class that you
become a deviant.
 So neo-Marxists say the ruling-class used
labeling of certain people to sustain their
control over the working class; in this case it
was used to solve a “crisis of capitalism”.

The philosophy of Marxism is materialism.

Throughout the modern history of Europe, and
especially at the end of the eighteenth century in
France, where a resolute struggle was conducted
against every kind of medieval rubbish, against
serfdom in institutions and ideas, materialism has
proved to be the only philosophy that is consistent,
true to all the teachings of natural science and
hostile to superstition, cant and so forth.

The enemies of democracy have, therefore, always

exerted all their efforts to “refute”, under mine
and defame materialism, and have advocated
various forms of philosophical idealism, which
always, in one way or another, amounts to the
defense or support of religion.
 Marx and Engels defended philosophical
materialism in the most determined manner and
repeatedly explained how profoundly erroneous is
every deviation from this basis. Their views are
most clearly and fully expounded in the works of
Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and Anti-Düühring,
which, like the Communist Manifesto, are
Handbooks for every class-conscious worker.

People always have been the foolish victims of

deception and self-deception in politics, and
they always will be until they have learnt to
seek out the interests of some class or other
behind all moral, religious, political and social
phrases, declarations and promises.

Champions of reforms and improvements will

always be fooled by the defenders of the old
order until they realize that every old
institution, however barbarous and rotten it may
appear to be, is kept going by the forces of
certain ruling classes. And there is only one way
of smashing the resistance of those classes, and
that is to find, in the very society which
surrounds us, the forces which can and, owing
to their social position, must constitute the
power capable of sweeping away the old and
creating the new, and to enlighten and organize
those forces for the struggle.

Marx’s philosophical materialism alone has shown

the proletariat the way out of the spiritual slavery
in which all oppressed classes have hitherto
languished. Marx’s economic theory alone has
explained the true position of the proletariat in
the general system of capitalism.
Independent organizations of the proletariat are
multi plying all over the world, from America to
Japan and from Sweden to South Africa. The
proletariat is becoming enlightened and educated
by waging its class struggle; it is ridding itself
of the prejudices of bourgeois society; it is
rallying its ranks ever more closely and is
learning to gauge the measure of its successes;
it is steeling its forces and is growing
irresistibly.
 4. NEO- MARXISM IN INDIA

In India, the situation is still worse. Here, in a

broader way, every sociologist is a
functionalist. And, the irony is that no
sociologist would accept his functional status.
It is because in India functionalism has also
become a dirty word.

The Indian society is a capitalist society and

in this society, there is a greater need to
improve upon functionalism. India has also
passed through state capitalism to corporate
capitalism in 1991 when privatization and
liberalization became the official policy of
the nation-state.

We have moved from command economy to

federal economy. This has added to the
redundancy of Marxism. Who will bring about
change in Marxian theory in India? Surely,
 the Indian sociologists. But what Romans
commented about American sociological
theory some three decades back that the
U.S. sociology has no theory worth the
name, applies to Indian sociological theory
today. India has no sociological theories.

Whatever it has is adaptive theory or merely a

pack of little concepts, which hardly transcend
the state borders. We are, in fact, getting
impatient to receive ‘imported’ neo-
functionalism to apply to our modern and
corporate capitalist society.

5. THEORIES
One of the ideas that many "branches" of Neo-
Marxism share is the desire to move away from
the idea of open, bloody revolution to one of a
more peaceful nature. Moving away from the
violence of the Red revolutions of the past
while keeping the revolutionary message. Some
of the adjoing theories to Neo Marxism include

1. Marxist and Neo-Marxist international

relations theories

Paradigms which reject the realist/liberal view

of state conflict or cooperation, instead
focusing on the economic and material aspects.
It purports to reveal how the economy
trumps other concerns, which allows for the
elevation of class as the focus of the study.

2. Neo Marxian Economics

 The terms Neo-Marxian, Post-Marxian, and
Radical Political Economics were first used to
refer to a distinct tradition of economic
thought in the 1970s and 1980s. Many of the
leading figures were associated with the
Monthly Review School.

In industrial economics, the Neo-Marxian

approach stresses the monopolistic rather than
the competitive nature of capitalism. This
approach is associated with Kalecki, and Baran
and Sweezy. The techniques of neoclassical
economics, including game theory and
mathematical modeling, to demonstrate
Marxian concepts such as exploitation and class
conflict.

The Neo-Marxian approach integrated non-

Marxist or "bourgeois" economics, particularly
in developing theories of under consumption.
While most official Communist Parties
denounced Neo-Marxian theories as "bourgeois
economics", some Neo-Marxian’s served as
advisers to socialist or Third World developing
governments.

3. Neo-Marxist Feminist Therapy

Neo-Marxist Feminist Therapy is a school of
thought that believes that the means of
knowledge, culture, and pedagogy are part of a
privileged epistemology. In this school,
privilege is meant to mean the absence of
injustice and the resultant undue enrichment in
terms of production of knowledge.

Neo-Marxist feminism relies heavily on critical

theory, intersectional feminism and
postmodern thought, and seeks to apply those
theories in psychotherapy as the means of
political and cultural change. Theresa McDonald
and Rhea Alameda use these theories in a
therapy method called "liberation based
healing", which like many forms of Marxism
uses sample bias in the many interrelated
liberties, in order to magnify the "critical
consciousness" of the participants towards
unrest of the status quo.

4. Libertarian Marxism

It refers to a broad scope of economic and

political philosophies that emphasize the "anti-
authoritarian" aspects of Marxism. Early
currents of libertarian Marxism, known as left
communism, emerged in opposition to Marxism–
Leninism and its derivatives, such as Stalinism,
Ceaușism and Maoism.

Libertarian Marxism is also often critical of

reformist positions, such as those held by
social democrats. Libertarian Marxist currents
often draw from Marx and Engels' later works,
specifically the Grundrisse and The Civil War in
France, emphasizing the Marxist belief in the
 ability of the working class to forge its own
destiny without the need for a revolutionary
party or state to mediate or aid its liberation.
Along with anarchism, libertarian Marxism is
one of the main currents of libertarian
socialism.

6. APPROACHS
Marx was a dominant conflict theorist in sociology
and social sciences. A variety of sociological
theories bear the reflections of Marx’s ideas.
And, interestingly enough, Marx’s influence has
been far from uniform. Because Marx’s theory is
encyclopedic, a variety of different theorists can
claim to work within the guidelines set down in his
original work. In fact, although each of these
theorists claims to be the true inheritor of
Marx’s theory, there are many irreconcilable
differences among them.

Neo-conflict theory has not established itself as

a distinct sociological theory. It is loosely applied
to any social theory or sociological analysis which
draws on the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich
Engels, but amends or extends these usually by
incorporating elements from other intellectual
traditions such as, for example, psychoanalysis
(as in the case of critical theory), Weberian
sociology or anarchism (for instance, critical
criminology).
 Some of the key ideas associated with the neo-
conflict theories are:

(1) Marxism is amended or extended in the light

of contemporary capitalism. The neo-conflict
theories have provided new insights from various
intellectual sources.

(2) For neo-conflict theories Marxism includes

both Marx and Engle’s. They constitute the major
sources of neo-conflict theories. For these
theorists, the central perspective is of Marxism.

(3) Any theme or element of intellectual tradition

can be analyzed from Marxian point of view. And,
such an analysis gets the status of a neo-conflict
theory.

In fact, the neo-conflict theories are loose

clusters of theories. The scope of such theories
becomes unmanageable and anything which
employs Marxian perspective becomes a neo-
conflict theory.

7. CRITISM
 1. Marx’s concept of labor and production is
Unable to understand cultural and political
life.

Some of the dogmatic theories of Marxism,

explained capitalism through production
relations earlier, state and economics were
independent of each other.

The state followed the policy of laissez-faire. But

now, in the modern society, there has emerged
state capitalism. State is an active partner and,
therefore, it has a greater role in deciding the
future of society. In such a situation, it is not the
economic structure only which is determinant of
social structure. Political factors also play a
decisive role.

2. In advanced societies the ways of

oppression have changed
 One very striking feature of capitalism is the
alienation, oppression and exploitation of labour.
This was true when there was monopoly
capitalism. The proletariat does not have
consciousness for mobilization. They are
satisfactorily remunerated. Why should
proletariat commit a revolution? The problem
with them is that they feel that they are a
deprived lot of people. Their poverty is now not
absolute; it is relative. Thus, exploitation and
oppression have been replaced by psychological
and ethnic deprivation. It is convinced that the
labour of modern capitalist society is now not in
need to go for a revolution.

3. Marxism has failed in Soviet Russia

The downfall of Soviet Russia has proved to

some extent the theoretical weakness of
Marxism. Marx misconceived the problems
of the proletariat. He thought that the
Russian society was essentially an
 agricultural society. And here was the rub.
There was industrialization.

Quite like Western Europe, Eastern Europe

also took giant step towards
industrialization. Then there came Fordism
and post- Fordism. In such a situation, the
notion of Marx that the extension of
capitalism would end up with revolution was
wrong. The reality today is that with the
increase in capitalism, the labour has also
become prosperous. Now, the state, instead
of becoming coercive, has become welfare.

4. Neo Marxism has totally neglected

superstructure

Marx has discussed the evolution of production

relations, but what about the evolution of
religion, ideology, culture and values?

In fact, evolution is a comprehensive process,

which also includes superstructure, besides
 economic structure. Communication plays an
important role in the development of
infrastructure and superstructure. Symbols,
interaction, ethnicity and language are the
mediums of interaction. These cannot be ruled
out.

5. Marx’s class struggle and ideology have

become irrelevant

Capitalism has changed so drastically that

the two key categories of Marxian theory,
namely, class struggle and ideology, can no
longer be employed as they stand.
Advanced, state regulated capitalism
suspends class conflict by buying off the
workers with improved access to goods and
services.

The probability that the stark differences

between the owners of capital and the non-
owners will become more obvious, promoting a
revolutionary consciousness among the
dispossessed, is circumvented by the glitter of
consumer society.