Read this: I don’t want this to turn into a struggle session so please do not engage in such a way.
Does Marxism being “scientific” matter? Or does this need to want to cling to science to prove its legitimacy actually hinder its effect? I’ve been wrestling with this question for the past day and I still don’t have a concrete opinion.
It being “scientific” is less about matching the scientific method as we were taught in school. It’s meant to differentiate it from utopian socialism (e.g. everyone will be equal with infinite food and resources) and idealism (e.g. great men changed history because he was a very good speaker). Scientific socialism, or Marxism, is supposed to be grounded in reality, e.g. the world is influenced by many things, but primarily what people need and how those needs are produced and met. That being said, we still observe Marxist critiques, observations, and methods being “replicable” throughout history.
In addition, Sociologists still use Marxist theories and methods in everything but name because they’re simply the best, and even the smarter capitalists use Marxist analysis to help generate profit because Marx’s work was largely about explaining how capitalism works and fails.
And yes, it does matter. We have instances of people who claim to be Marxists and yet fall to unscientific, utopian visions and committed atrocities because of it. For example, Shining Path, Pol Pot, PatSocs/MAGA communism, and various Maoist cults. Some of these were indeed western intelligence plots such as Pol Pot and the GLADIO fascist maoism movement, but the point is that without adhering to the scientific foundations, you are left with gibberish recitations of writers with little substance in practice. Not to mention, you will fall to the liberal recuperation of history and figures.
Another more light hearted example would be The Boondocks. Great show, but even though the main character is a communist and portrayed as the smartest one, the show still paints ‘bad culture’ as the driving force of society.
I appreciate the thoughtful reply
I think its worth pointing out that, as far as I understand it, the “scientific” part of Marx/Engel’s project does refer directly to the scientific method. Their goal was to establish certain universal, empirically-derived (in other words, scientific) laws of historical development which could then be applied to understand the rise and eventual fall of capitalism. In fact, in one of his intros to socialism: utopian and scientific Engels actually mentions Darwin, as well as LaPlace, as precursors to their project. Which gets to the real differentiation they attempted to make between themselves and the “utopians”: Its not that these socialists believed in some magical society where everyone always gets along, its essentially that they attempted to resist the development of capitalism, to slow it down and essentially “opt out” of it by establishing non-capitalism communes and projects within a broader capitalist economy. Marx and Engels attempted to surpass these socialists by demonstrating that human civilization followed certain laws of development (increasing productive abilities and organization, intensifying class struggle / simplifying class structures, etc.) which meant capitalism could not be “opted out” of or resisted, only eclipsed by a new mode of production. Which is all well and good, but leads to some difficult problems when you really start looking at the necessary conclusions. There are of course other aspects of Marx’s work that are really admirable and useful, but their whole project of making a science of history or revolution seems like a false start