why neo-marxism is inherently flawed

my previous entry attempted to debunk "conventional marxism", meaning the beliefs marx espoused in his writings. little did i know that apparently many of his ideas had been misconstrued, misused, or ignored by "orthodox marxists", meaning marxist-leninist and social-democratic thinkers. so given that the existence of the frankfurt school was based on the perceived failures of "marxism" as it was being used by communist regimes in the 1920's and 1930's, i think *that*, in-and-of-itself, refutes orthodox marxism as a viable form of marxism. as it turns out, the "conventional marxism" i criticized closely resembled the frankfurt school's views of marxism in both a revivalist and a revised form. so, i essentially attacked neo-marxism by attacking marx's epistemology and such. but let's examine the frankfurt school via quotes from its wikipedia page and address any differences between it and marx's original writings:


"The problem, Horkheimer argued, is epistemological: we should not merely reconsider the scientist but the knowing individual in general.[17] Unlike orthodox Marxism, which merely applies a ready-made "template" to both critique and action, critical theory seeks to be self-critical and rejects any pretensions to absolute truth."

relativism of this kind is easily refutable. just look at the searle's article titled "refutation of relativism" at the following site: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~jsearle/articles.html


"While critical theory must at all times be self-critical, Horkheimer insisted that a theory is only critical if it is explanatory. Critical theory must therefore combine practical and normative thinking in order to "explain what is wrong with current social reality, identify actors to change it, and provide clear norms for criticism and practical goals for the future."[18] Whereas traditional theory can only mirror and explain reality as it presently is, critical theory's purpose is to change it; in Horkheimer's words the goal of critical theory is "the emancipation of human beings from the circumstances that enslave them".[19]"

ok, this seems to follow exactly what marx had said.


"Whereas both Marxist-Leninist and Social-Democratic orthodox thinkers viewed Marxism as a new kind of positive science, Frankfurt School theorists, such as Horkheimer, rather based their work on the epistemological base of Karl Marx's work, which presented itself as critique, as in Marx's Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. They thus emphasized that Marx was attempting to create a new kind of critical analysis oriented toward the unity of theory and revolutionary practice rather than a new kind of positive science.

i attacked marx's epistemology first and foremost, even over his fundamental economic, political, and historical principles.


"For their part, Frankfurt School theorists quickly came to realize that a dialectical method could only be adopted if it could be applied to itself—that is to say, if they adopted a self-correcting method—a dialectical method that would enable them to correct previous false dialectical interpretations. Accordingly, critical theory rejected the dogmatic historicism and materialism of orthodox Marxism.[28] Indeed, the material tensions and class struggles of which Marx spoke were no longer seen by Frankfurt School theorists as having the same revolutionary potential within contemporary Western societies—an observation which indicated that Marx's dialectical interpretations and predictions were either incomplete or incorrect."

ok, so the most glaring flaw in conventional marxism -- that the downfall of capitalism was imminent, yet did not occur -- is addressed as being either incomplete or incorrect. let's see where that leads...


Contrary to orthodox Marxist praxis, which solely seeks to implement an unchangeable and narrow idea of "communism" into practice, critical theorists held that praxis and theory, following the dialectical method, should be interdependent and should mutually influence each other. When Marx famously stated in his Theses on Feuerbach that "philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it", his real idea was that philosophy's only validity was in how it informed action. Frankfurt School theorists would correct this by claiming that when action fails, then the theory guiding it must be reviewed. In short, socialist philosophical thought must be given the ability to criticize itself and "overcome" its own errors. While theory must inform praxis, praxis must also have a chance to inform theory."

ok, so two things here, both related to each other. first, marx apparently does not have a very deep or insightful explanation of his "philosophy of action". just so you know, philosophy of action is now its own distinct field in metaphysics and is defined by wikipedia as the following:

"Action theory is an area in philosophy concerned with theories about the processes causing intentional (willful) human bodily movements of more or less complex kind. This area of thought has attracted the strong interest of philosophers ever since Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Third Book). With the advent of psychology and later neuroscience, many theories of action are now subject to empirical testing.
Philosophical action theory, or the 'philosophy of action', should not be confused with sociological theories of social action, such as the action theory established by Talcott Parsons."

so marx doesn't address the topic of free will (as i pointed out in an earlier post, except it was aimed at marxists instead of marx himself), he just says we should change the world. ok, while his sentiment was certainly a departure from all philosophy up to that point in time, using the level of sophistication (or lack thereof) in that kind of justification, marx couldn't even pass a college class on philosophy of action. so, marx has done little to persuade me that his philosophy of action justifies the feasibility of his revolutionary goals. if his philosophy of action fails (which in my estimation it certainly has), then the frankfurt school says that we should examine why it failed by examining praxis, and then upon comparing it with theory, realizing what went wrong and learn about how to go about correcting it. i agree with this idea in general. the problem i have is what sort of praxis can be considered legitimate? certainly, since there is no real empirical evidence (praxis) regarding free will (although some neuroscience and psych studies may hint at it one way or another), and we can't go back to finding the "error" in free will (theory), then we cannot modify the theory. as such we are stuck with marx's axiom of "change the world", which is incredibly rudimentary. even contemporary marxists do not have a sufficient answer to the problem of agency in philosophy of action. structuralist marxist david harvey admitted in an interview:

"This flags up the question of agency. In the contemporary world, does it remain the working class? After all, you talk of ‘social movements’ in the 1930s US, but at the core of that was the Communist Party, which stressed the unique role of that class.

This question of agency has to be rethought. I have never been happy with the general depiction in a lot of Marxist thinking of the working class as the agent - particularly when the working class is limited to the factory worker. For me, you would have to incorporate all the people who make the railroads, the cities, etc. It is not simply about the production of things: it is also about the production of spaces.

I have always thought that the general aura surrounding the proletariat in Marxist thinking is too narrow. I wanted it to be much broader, to be much more inclusive of all the people who are working on everything, everywhere - some of whom are easier to organise than others. To me this is very important as a first step, but the second thing is that it is not simply about being exploited in the workplace...

...I ask how we can construct an alliance which is really going to go for the jugular. For me agency right now is a question mark - I do not have a clear theory of it. I know it has to be broader and bigger than the traditional notion of the proletarian revolution. That is one of the things we have to really think about and work on.

There are things happening. In the final calculus, if you had a vast survey and asked everybody in the world, ‘Are you happy with the way capitalism is working?’ I think you would find the overwhelming majority would say ‘no’. Then you would say, ‘Let’s do something about it’. It is my fantasy that you could do that. Everyone would say, ‘Yes, what do we do about it?’ Then the question of agency will resolve itself through social movement."

so harvey admits marx has failings in his original writings, and also admits that at present, he (and likely all other marxists in the world) do not have a clear theory of agency. without a proper theory of agency, marxism remains an incomplete system, and even if everything else in the system were to function perfectly (and even most of marx's most educated and ardent supporters admit that his economic system had some flaws), then when marxism does not go according to plan, the problem of agency always remains as one of the possible culprits as to why marxism has failed up to this point. of course, nobody has a real understanding of agency (philosophers of action certainly do not, let alone economists of all types), so one could attack capitalism as an economic theory based on that. however, the difference is that capitalism is succeeding in the real world and seems poised to do so for quite some time, so ultimately it resolves the problem of agency because the proof is in the pudding -- it has been and is continuing to be actualized. true marxism, otoh, still remains entirely theoretical.


now, here are some tidbits from wikipedia's political philosophy page:

"After World War II political philosophy moved into a temporary eclipse in the Anglo-American academic world, as analytic philosophers expressed skepticism about the possibility that normative judgments had cognitive content, and political science turned toward statistical methods and behavioralism. The 1950s saw pronouncements of the 'death' of the discipline, followed by debates about that thesis.

"Contemporaneously with the rise of analytic ethics in Anglo-American thought, in Europe several new lines of philosophy directed at critique of existing societies arose between the 1950s and 1980s. Many of these took elements of Marxist economic analysis, but combined them with a more cultural or ideological emphasis. Out of the Frankfurt School, thinkers like Herbert Marcuse, Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Jürgen Habermas combined Marxian and Freudian perspectives. Along somewhat different lines, a number of other continental thinkers—still largely influenced by Marxism—put new emphases on structuralism and on a "return to Hegel". Within the (post-) structuralist line (though mostly not taking that label) are thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Claude Lefort, and Jean Baudrillard. The Situationists were more influenced by Hegel; Guy Debord, in particular, moved a Marxist analysis of commodity fetishism to the realm of consumption, and looked at the relation between consumerism and dominant ideology formation."

back to the frankfurt school wikipedia page, here are some of the influences of the frankfurt school:

"Freudian theory -- Critique of the repressive structure of the "reality principle" of advanced civilization and of the normal neurosis of everyday life; discovery of the unconscious, primary-process thinking, and the impact of the Oedipus complex and of anxiety on psychic life; analysis of the psychic bases of authoritarianism and irrational social behavior.

Critique of Positivism -- Critique of positivism as a philosophy, as a scientific methodology, as a political ideology and as everyday conformity; rehabilitation of – negative – dialectic, return to Hegel; appropriation of critical elements in phenomenology, historicism, existentialism, critique of their ahistorical, idealist tendencies; critique of logical positivism and pragmatism.

Culture theory -- Critique of mass culture as suppression and absorption of negation, as integration into status quo; critique of Western culture as a culture of domination, both of an external and internal nature; dialectic differentiation of emancipatory and repressive dimensions of elite culture; Nietzsche's transvaluation and Schiller's aesthetic education."

i previously stated that my issue with the frankfurt school's method of relating theory and praxis was that for philosophy of action no identifiable evidence for praxis could be found, thus causing the theory to be stuck as marx's "change the world". so, it would seem that for philosophy of action, which is now involved in a complementary relationship with aspects of psychology and neuroscience, that one would need *cognitive evidence* in order to change the underlying theory. as the political philosophy page stated, analytic philosophers realized that an absence of cognitive content presented a major obstacle, forcing them to rely on behavior and statistics. on the other hand, the frankfurt school simply adopted the continental intellectual trends of its day, substituting freud, phenomenology, existentialism, and nietzsche for cognitive content. now, i am no expert on any of the aforementioned things, but i know most of freud has been formally disproven, phenomenology and existentialism do not constitute scientific evidence and their philosophical content has been widely condemned by english-speaking philosophy departments (i don't think that's completely fair, as i think students should be aware of the complete history of philosophy, but i also think it shows that most american/british philosophers don't consider those philosophical movements to be worthwhile or relevant, and psychology departments haven't embraced them either, so obviously they don't consider them to be worthwhile or relevant as well), and nietzsche is known for making a lot of claims but not justifying them satisfactorily (i basically proved some of his ideas to be false in a previous blog entry). so to think that you could use these people and movements to replace cognitive content, and thus create evidence in praxis that could be compared back to theory is just absurd. it would also seem to me that because marx's philosophy of action simply amounts to "change the world", that rather modifying this approach when action does not work, that you would simply replace it with whatever theories the aforementioned people and movements have and then work from there. also, you have to remember that philosophy of action and "cognitive content" are being used very broadly here by the frankfurt school, for they aren't doing neuroscience by measuring neurons firing in your brain when you lift a finger after being presented with a certain stimulus; they are talking about a subject's notion of himself and how he interacts with the world around him. so in essence, they are doing a modified, broader, more informal form of behaviorism integrated with cultural studies (in a general sense, not to be confused with "cultural studies" that is now a formal discipline). anyway, i still don't understand how one could integrate freud and nietzsche with marx to explain things, as it would seem to degenerate into an intellectual puzzle instead of providing any real insight as to what was really going on. which leads us to...


"The second phase of Frankfurt School critical theory centres principally on two works: Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944) and Adorno's Minima Moralia (1951). The authors wrote both works during the Institute's exile in America. While retaining much of a Marxian analysis, in these works critical theory shifted its emphasis. The critique of capitalism turned into a critique of Western civilization as a whole. Indeed, the Dialectic of Enlightenment uses the Odyssey as a paradigm for the analysis of bourgeois consciousness. Horkheimer and Adorno already present in these works many themes that have come to dominate the social thought of recent years; indeed, their exposition of the domination of nature as a central characteristic of instrumental rationality in Western civilization was made long before ecology and environmentalism had become popular concerns.
The analysis of reason now goes one stage further. The rationality of Western civilization appears as a fusion of domination and of technological rationality, bringing all of external and internal nature under the power of the human subject. In the process, however, the subject itself gets swallowed up, and no social force analogous to the proletariat can be identified that will enable the subject to emancipate itself.
Hence the subtitle of Minima Moralia: "Reflections from Damaged Life". In Adorno's words,
“ For since the overwhelming objectivity of historical movement in its present phase consists so far only in the dissolution of the subject, without yet giving rise to a new one, individual experience necessarily bases itself on the old subject, now historically condemned, which is still for-itself, but no longer in-itself. The subject still feels sure of its autonomy, but the nullity demonstrated to subjects by the concentration camp is already overtaking the form of subjectivity itself.[29]

Of this second "phase" of the Frankfurt School, philosopher and critical theorist Nikolas Kompridis writes that:
“ According to the now canonical view of its history, Frankfurt School critical theory began in the 1930s as a fairly confident interdisciplinary and materialist research program, the general aim of which was to connect normative social criticism to the emancipatory potential latent in concrete historical processes. Only a decade or so later, however, having revisited the premises of their philosophy of history, Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment steered the whole enterprise, provocatively and self-consciously, into a skeptical cul-de-sac. As a result they got stuck in the irresolvable dilemmas of the "philosophy of the subject," and the original program was shrunk to a negativistic practice of critique that eschewed the very normative ideals on which it implicitly depended.[34]

Horkheimer's and Adorno's pessimism
An early criticism, originating from the Left, argues that Frankfurt School critical theory is nothing more than a form of "bourgeois idealism" devoid of any actual relation to political practice, and is hence totally isolated from the reality of any ongoing revolutionary movement. This criticism was captured in Georg Lukács's phrase "Grand Hotel Abyss" as a syndrome he imputed to the members of the Frankfurt School:
“ A considerable part of the leading German intelligentsia, including Adorno, have taken up residence in the Grand Hotel Abyss which I described in connection with my critique of Schopenhauer as "a beautiful hotel, equipped with every confort, on the edge of an abyss, of nothingness, of absurdity. And the daily contemplation of the abyss between excellent meals or artistic entertainments, can only heighten the enjoyment of the subtel conforts offered."[37] ”
Philosopher Karl Popper equally believed that the school did not live up to Marx's promise of a better future:
“ Marx's own condemnation of our society makes sense. For Marx's theory contains the promise of a better future. But the theory becomes vacuous and irresponsible if this promise is withdrawn, as it is by Adorno and Horkheimer.[38]"

so, in the frankfurt school's second phase, a few things happened. they attacked the enlightenment, they obsessed over the idea of the human subject, and they degenerated into an unproductive, self-infatuated pessimism -- all three of these seem to have done little to advance marxism.


following that came the negative dialectic stage, structural marxism, analytical marxism, post-marxism, and of course, habermas. perhaps one day i will care enough to spend some time analyzing the above in a blog entry instead of just glancing at their wikipedia pages. however, the fundamental problem remains: with the exception of habermas, none of the above actually attempt to adequately gauge cognitive content, let alone successfully test for it. as such, they have created their own metaphysics (usually influenced by nietzschian metaphysics so as to ignore the traditional issues of mind/body and free will), which is guided by their own interpretations and preferences (which are usually not rooted in anything considered "factual"), and as a result, you'll get a philosophy that is idealistic, or if not that, then at least an opinion that is highly biased by a personal agenda, and none of that meets the criteria initially established by the frankfurt school to, "combine practical and normative thinking in order to 'explain what is wrong with current social reality, identify actors to change it, and provide clear norms for criticism and practical goals for the future.'" instead, it seems like there is one trend after another, with the end result being some highly intelligent intellectuals going off on a tangent without any accountability for the theories that they espouse. i think i tend to side with richard rorty when it comes to these people:

"In Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America (1998), Rorty differentiates between what he sees as the two sides of the Left, a cultural Left and a progressive Left. He criticizes the cultural Left, which is exemplified by post-structuralists such as Michel Foucault and postmodernists such as Jean-François Lyotard, for offering critiques of society, but no alternatives (or alternatives that are so vague and general as to be abdications). Although these intellectuals make insightful claims about the ills of society, Rorty suggests that they provide no alternatives and even occasionally deny the possibility of progress. On the other hand, the progressive Left, exemplified for Rorty by the pragmatist John Dewey, Whitman and James Baldwin, makes hope for a better future its priority. Without hope, Rorty argues, change is spiritually inconceivable and the cultural Left has begun to breed cynicism. Rorty sees the progressive Left as acting in the philosophical spirit of pragmatism."

now, i'm not sure how much i agree with the philosophies of the pragmatists per se, but i do agree with his criticism of the cultural left and his advocation for some sort of progressive left (to him being the pragmatists philosophers mentioned, to me, i'm not sure who exactly, but obama is a start). i think one of the reasons rorty resorts to pragmatism is simply "common sense". on the continental side, you have these theories spouting off all these radical ideas that are unimplementable, and on the analytic side, the refusal to embrace much political philosophy due to a lack of cognitive content (behaviorism and statistics in the 50s and 60s wasn't very fruitful, and there have only been two noteworthy analytic political philosophy contributions in the past 40 years -- rawls and nozick) has resulted in american and british philosophy being rather isolated and disconnected from political happenings going on in the world outside academia. so seeing as how we are not going to be able to establish meaningful cognitive content for our end purposes (if we could, cognitive science would've already overthrown all the other social sciences), it's only natural to try to be reasonable, pragmatic, and progressive. as for marxism, i still don't see how it can be rectified even with dozens of facelifts -- it simply operates on fundamentally flawed premises about human behavior as far as i'm concerned. if you're looking for some kind of loose, stable socialist state as an end goal for society without using marxism as leading the path to getting there, then i can agree with that, but i also think that it will take a lot longer than we want before things align properly in order for that to occur.