How relevant is the Marxist theory in the twenty first century?

The first step would be to define 'Marxist'.It must be obvious, given our exchanges over the last few years, that there has been an ongoing debate since the late 19th century about whether 'Marxism' is anything to do with Marx's views about democratic socialism, or has been simply a re-run of elitist politics and philosophy (ruling class ideas about nature and humanity), which has its orgins in Engels' misunderstanding of Marx's views.That is, what most thinkers since the late 19th century have called 'Marxism' is actually 'Engelsism'. Any reading of Kautsky, Plekhanov or Lenin, shows that their views were elitist, and anti-proletarian power.As I've also pointed out, this problem predates the Leninist view of 'Marxism' and the Bolshevik Revolution, so predates the foundation of the SPGB. Thus, the SPGB itself is contaminated by this 'Engelsism' (which is synomymous with 'Materialism' or 'Physicalism').That's one user's considered political opinion, Brian.

But that's the point being argued, YMS.Is Marx just 'philosophy and sociology' (ie. the humanities, 'soft science'), or is Marx relevant to 'physics, maths, logic, philosophy, sociology, etc.', (ie. all science, whether defined as 'hard' or 'soft')?If 'Marxism' is Engels' 'Materialism', then Marx is indeed 'rendered redundant' for the 21st century.But if 'Marxism' is concerned with all social production (ie. also including so-called 'academic knowledge'), then Marx is still relevant.As a Marxist and a Democratic Communist, I'd argue that the class conscious proletariat has to democratise academia – that is, all education classes become democratically controlled, all positions of power (professors, etc.) are elected, and even 'truth' is regarded as a social product, which is produced for socio-historical purposes for specific groups in society.All this 'democracy' is, of course, anathaema to the ideology which Engels unwittingly espoused, which is suited to an elite group. 'Materialism' is a ruling class, bourgeois ideology.The only 'physical' that we can have is the 'physical-for-us'. We must have the power to determine our theories and practices, and our interests and purposes, which inform our social production.Only a society can determine 'physical' – it is not in the power of isolated biological individuals to determine whether something is 'physical' or not, by their 'biological senses'. That view is simply 'the free market' installed into physics.Power is social, not individual.

Depends upon which ideology, those doing the 'voting', were employing, Bob.If it's a Fascist plebiscite, and you already personally have the social power to determine 'truth', then perhaps you would be.

If El Presidente, the most glorious Robert Andrews, says so… Welcome to the thread, Professor Andrews!

Well, Marx warned where 'materialism' would lead to, politically. Professors, just like you, who really believe that they know better than any 'society' of seven billion others.Apparently, according to a professor, 'everyone has to put up with it'. The bourgeois elite "I/Me/Myself" principle, as advocated by the 'Free Market', which doesn't recognise 'social power'.And to think that Brian and YMS were wondering whether Marx was still relevant in the 21st century.

[my bold]Thanks for the clarification, YMS, because I was a little unsure if I had got the correct gist of what you were saying.To further clarify, I've bolded what I think is the heart of your post:1. Marx is largely derivative (except for economic 'exploitation');2. Outside of 'exploitation', his views on 'science' are 'not essential'.This is an opinion that I do not share.I regard Marx's views on 'exploitation' to be fundamentally related to his views about social production, and its socio-historical nature. By 'social production', I think Marx included all 'science', and the social production of 'nature-for-us'. I think that his ideas were revolutionary (ie., not simply derivative of earlier ones, but fundamentally new).It seems that, from your perspective, that if 'exploitation' (as you'd define it) were removed, then Marx's views would be superfluous to society. To put it in context of this thread, if 'exploitation' were removed during the 21st century, then Marx would become an irrelevance.From my perspective, 'social production' will carry on forever (it being a 'natural' condition of humanity, according to Marx), and so Marx's views, which are much wider than 'exploitation', would continue to be relevant, to physics, maths, logic, etc., because these are all social products, and change (as can the concept of 'matter': we don't have to employ it, there are alternatives).Again, to clarify, I think Marx is concerned with the power of social production (politics in all modes of production), whereas you seem to restrict Marx to 'exploitation' (economics in class-based modes of production).If asked to label our conflicting views of Marx, I'd call yours 'materialist' (in the 18th century, pre-Marx sense), and label mine 'social productionist' (Marx's 'new materialism', or, better as an explanation, 'idealism-materialism').

Reminder: 1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.

If you can't answer 'what' it is that you're trying to discuss, Brian, you're going to have great difficulty getting anyone to answer the 'how'.