Western Marxism’s Misreading of Marx’s Critique of Capitalism

The publication in 1923 of Georg Lukács’s foundational History and Class Consciousness is approaching its centenary. Arising from high revolutionary passion, this book faces bleak prospects a hundred years on. After much influence and attention, western Marxism-and broadly speaking, the western Left-likewise has declined since at least 1968. Perry Anderson, the leading philosophical exponent of western Marxism, is in fact criticized as “strangely conservative” [1]. Facing rising global inequality, Noam Chomsky seems confused about how to turn socialist ideals into reality [2]. The financial crisis of 2008 offered a rare opportunity to do just this, but despite the furious critique of neoliberalism it provoked, no constructive outlet has taken shape. A question thus arises about the cause of this apparent lack of initiative. David Laibman has proposed that in criticizing Soviet socialism, western Marxists unwittingly joined forces with the foremost neoliberal figure, Nobel laureate Milton Friedman [3]. Alan Freeman has argued that Marx’s systematic critique of capitalism, founded on his profound economic analysis, was weakened by being detached from that foundation during and since the 1930s; thus, western Marxism lacked focus at the moment of financial crisis [4]. Increasingly, scholars have realized the negative effects of overlooking Marx’s economic dimension and concentrating on his cultural critique. The present article builds on these findings to offer for consideration two distinct yet related solutions to this loss of focus. One involves a re-emphasis on the re-orienting potential of Marx’s economic critique [5]. The other involves an analysis of western Marxists’ cultural critique as it converges with neoliberalism. Through a consideration of the decline and possible future of western Marxism, this article has as its aim a reassertion of the importance of the duality of Marx’s critique of capitalism.