What Makes Somebody a Marxist?
Marxism is a social theory about how the world works, and how to change it. Anyone committed to understanding and changing the world should be a Marxist.
Marxism isn’t a doctrine — even Karl Marx said “I’m not a Marxist.” Instead, it’s a series of propositions and hypotheses about how the world really works that anyone who wants to change it should embrace. (Manfred Brückels / CC BY-SA 3.0)
Karl Marx famously declared that he was not a Marxist. But his theoretical work spawned many branches of research, political movements, and heated debate. Can we identify a set of unifying ideas that make up Marxism?
On this latest episode of the Jacobin Radio podcast Confronting Capitalism, Vivek Chibber and Melissa Naschek look at the foundations of Marx’s writing and explain how Marxism has both developed and degenerated over the past century.
Confronting Capitalism with Vivek Chibber is produced by Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy and published by Jacobin. You can listen to the full episode here.
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