tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post315804734939633589..comments2024-03-17T00:23:24.896-07:00Comments on Social Democracy for the 21st Century: A Realist Alternative to the Modern Left: Engels’ Later Works OnlineLord Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-22535357465159233812015-05-15T00:17:58.439-07:002015-05-15T00:17:58.439-07:00Engels’ vision of the transitional socialist/commu...Engels’ vision of the transitional socialist/communist state is one that any reasonable person -- including Engels -- can foresee will be a nightmare:<br /><br /><i>“A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?</i><br /> Friedrich Engels, “On Authority,” 1874<br /> https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htmLord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-18216887612170806462015-05-14T21:46:59.571-07:002015-05-14T21:46:59.571-07:00Let's see if I understand.
(A)
"Engels’ ...Let's see if I understand.<br /><br />(A)<br />"Engels’ presentation of Marxism in Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science (1878) and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1880) was profoundly influential in shaping the myth of Marx and a version of his economics to later communists".<br /><br />Okay. That's easy.<br /><br />(B)<br />"Now some scholars have argued that Engels reworked Marx’s thought, and even that there were actually significant differences between Engels’ version of communism and that of Marx, such as in Norman Levine’s The Tragic Deception: Marx contra Engels (1975) (Hunt 2009: 301). To some extent some of these arguments are made by Marxists who want to whitewash Marx and exonerate him from the horrors of communism"<br /><br />Well, this is still consistent with (A). Just one question: how did Engels know, in advance, about the "horrors of communism"? <br /><br />Wikipedia says Engels died in 1895. That was 22 years before there was any "communism", let alone the "horrors of communism". Was he a clairvoyant, do you think?<br /><br />"Yet, at the same time, Marx seems to have fully endorsed the Anti-Dühring (1878) so that it accurately represented his mature thought (Hunt 2009: 301–302)."<br /><br />Now, this is weird. B says that Engels "reworked Marx's thought". Now Marx seems to have "fully endorsed the Anti-Dühring (1878". So, what was the "reworking" Engels did? <br /><br /><br />--------<br /><br />Just out of curiosity: is English your mother tongue?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-22518460799856897612015-05-13T23:02:49.942-07:002015-05-13T23:02:49.942-07:00What is "the myth of Marx"?What is "the myth of Marx"?Hedlundnoreply@blogger.com