A New Look at the Left Wing — Hi Andrew. Thank you for keeping this tumblr firstly, you make me want to get one too. But of course, laziness dictates otherwise. :) I consider myself leaning towards the left too, but as I read more into Marxism, I find it increasingly a theory that appeals to the underclass as an overly-simplistic explanation of their disposition, not a rigorous and systematic way of analysis. It comes across as a slightly deductive explanation to the state of society today. Especially when it comes to international relations, I find that Marxism seems to be unpopular with academics. What do you think, and are there anyone that I should read with regards to this? Thank you!

Answer

Hi Andrew. Thank you for keeping this tumblr firstly, you make me want to get one too. But of course, laziness dictates otherwise. :) I consider myself leaning towards the left too, but as I read more into Marxism, I find it increasingly a theory that appeals to the underclass as an overly-simplistic explanation of their disposition, not a rigorous and systematic way of analysis. It comes across as a slightly deductive explanation to the state of society today. Especially when it comes to international relations, I find that Marxism seems to be unpopular with academics. What do you think, and are there anyone that I should read with regards to this? Thank you! - Nich

Anonymous asked

Hi, Nich. Thanks for your compliments, and sorry about the extreme delay in response.

I share a great deal of Marxist intuitions, but I, like you, sometimes have considerable doubt about the conclusions that many Marxist writers reach with them. I think the lack of rigor you point to in analysis refers to the tendency towards sloppy functional explanation, a point that John Roemer quite accurately describes. Though I’m not familiar with the field of international relations, I can imagine the critiques made of Marxist variants of it: that state actions are too readily described in terms of actions that benefit capitalists without making anything more than a cursory attempt to understand the reasons given by people in charge of the state. I think this is a good point, and I think many Marxists make the mistake of reading a functional/economic explanation into a given situation without adequately researching the causal factors that led to it. Perhaps there have been Marxist replies to these critiques- I cannot do much more than speculate about them, given my unfamiliarity with international relations.

As far as recommended writers, I would say probably pretty much any of the Marxist geographers: David Harvey, Neil Smith, Doreen Massey, and J.K. Gibson-Graham are all very good at what they do. Harvey’s The Limits to Capital in particular is a very important work, and I think you’ll find that it certainly doesn’t lack for rigor. You might also want to look at the work of the analytical Marxists: G.A. Cohen, John Roemer, and Robert Brenner are all good examples. Though watch out for any of the game-theoretic analyses that came out of that tradition- they rely on rational choice theory, which I find highly suspect. In particular, you might want to look at Cohen’s Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defense, which is a robust reconstruction of Marx’s analysis of productive forces and economic development. I hope this helps.