Western Marxisim

Western Marxism
* Karl Marx & Engels: developed new materialist theory--- The economic base of society for Marx and Engels consisted of the forces and relations of production in which culture and ideology are constructed to help secure the dominance of ruling social groups. This influential
* "base/superstructure" model considers the economy the base, or foundation, of society,
*and cultural, legal, political, and additional forms of life are conceived as
* “superstructures" which grow out of and serve to reproduce the economic base
* Communist Manifesto: 1848- Marxist vision of society –the rise of capitalism and bourgeois society and its revolutionary overthrow by the industrial proletariat.---critical theory of capitalism and a model of socialism.
* Moderncapitalist societies: generated change, innovation and development as their very mode of social reproduction.
* Classical Marxism: once the energies of modern industrial capitalism were unleashed, vigorous development of the means of productions the destruction of the old and the creation of the new all update and transform bourgeois society.
* 1st generation of Marxist theorists: focuson economy and politics
* Western Marxists: appeared in Europe after the Russian Revolution: focus more culture, state, social institutions, psychology-1st used by Soviet Communists ---soon adopted by Lukacs & Korsch to describe a more independent Marxism
* 20th century Marxian theorists: (Lukacs, Marcuse, Gramsci, Bloch, Sartre, Marcuse) use Marxist theory to analyze past-presentcultural,political, economic and social forms in relation to their production, economy and history and their impact and functions within social life.
* Perry Anderson: interprets the turn from economic and political analysis as a symptom of the defeat of Wester Marx after the crushing of European revolutionary movements of the 20´s and the rise of fascism.
* The Marxist Theory of Ideology:the cultural ideas of an epoch serve the interests of the ruling class, providing ideologies that legitimate class domination. “Ideology” is a critical term for Marxian analysis that describes how dominant ideas of a ruling class promote the interests of that class and help mask oppression, injustices, and negative aspects of a given society.( feudal period: piety, honor, value (ruling ideas ofaristocratic classes) capitalist era: individualism, profit market (bourgeois ideas for consolidating their power)
* 2nd generation of classical Marxists: ranging from German Social Democrats and radicals to Russian Marxists focused even more narrowly on economics and politics.
* The ultra-Marxist Lukacs: of the early 1920s focused intently on developing philosophical, sociological, andpolitical dimensions of Marxism before returning to cultural analysis later in the 1920s. (no era marxista hasta los años 20´s donde lo utilizó para explicar su análisis socio-cultural)---decía que la sociedad capitalista (“reification”) veía a los humanos como cosas---también que la sociedad, la cultura estaban sujetas a las leyes de la economía. El proletariado era el más propenso a verse comoobjeto. Adopting an orthodox communist position, Lukacs alleged that working class revolution and socialism were the solutions to the problems of bourgeois society and became a life-long adherent to the communist movement.
* Karl Korsch: Marxism was a critical and dialectical theory, providing tools to criticize bourgeois theory and society and the forces to transform it, also that it is arevolutionary theory of the working class movement and developed a concept of “practical socialism.”
* Ernst Bloch's Concept of Ideology Critique: ideology is "Janus-faced," two-sided: it contains errors, mystifications, and techniques of manipulation and domination, but it also contains a utopian residue or surplus that can be used for social critique and to advance progressive politics. For...