Submitted by darkecology in Philosophy (edited )
I'm hoping to get some reading suggestions here.
For many years now I've been a Marxist. In some senses, I still consider myself one, though I should add I've always had sympathy for anarchism and my position therefore holds closest to the autonomist, left communist and insurrectionary traditions. I broadly agree that the state needs to be abolished as part of the process of revolutionary transformation, and I agree with the Anarchist and left-communists who argue that the changes has to start here, now, and that it can't simply be achieved overnight.
One problem I've had is that, as an academic attempting to understand the world, Marxism provides me with a hugely sophisticated and supple way of doing that. I have access to over a century of incredibly powerful analyses, frameworks, etc. from the Frankfurt School to Open Marxism etc. I can draw on concepts of alienation, reification, overdetermination, ideological state apparatuses, abstract and real subsumption, etc. in order to try and understand how really important political forces operate today.
I've been profoundly affected by reading work by Tiqqun, The Invisible Committee, and a few others in tandem with work by the rather unorthdox Marxists over at Endnotes. And as someone who's fascinated by Deleuze and Guattari and Foucault, the work of Saul Newman and Todd May on a post-structuralist influenced approach to Anarchism is also fascinating. And I agree with much of what they say - and I love the way they use Deleuze and Guattari and Foucault to bolster a contemporary understanding of capitalism, the state, and power.
Are there any serious academic anarchist (I know that sounds a little oxymoronic!) critiques of Marxism? Frankly I've never been convinced by the basic ones we hear all the time, and I always find it a shame when I come across one of those in Tiqqun's works (at one point they criticise Marxists for failing to appreciate how far capital's effects would reach which is... funny), so I'm really looking for the absolute best there is to offer. Kropotkin etc. is pretty unconvincing and quite basic. Any suggestions?
Ennui wrote
Hello. You don’t seem to be the typical Dragunov waving Leninist and so it’s kind of hard to pin down your beliefs. It might help if you specify aspects of Marxism that you believe in and want critiqued, since it’s not impossible to be both a Marxist and an anarchist. You might already understand the role of the state and even be opposed to it, for all I know. If you wanted a critique of history according to Marxists I could help you out. Same with if you wanted a critique of Marxists’ conception of the role of force.
To be honest, I haven’t read a significant amount of critical theory, so do you want critiques of that huge body of critical theorists who are also Marxists, or do you want to focus on Marx and Engels?